Hamersley's Bistro: Blue Green Colors Flashin'

*There aren't a lot of songs out there with vegetables in the lyrics, so instead I've used a lyric from the song that I was craving today, "Silver Springs" by Fleetwood Mac. The Mac is back.

As part of the Boston Homegrown book, I got to meet and photograph chefs all over the greater Boston area. Some of them were flying under the radar to the uninitiated, but there were a fair amount who were "famous" - well-established chefs whose names I had heard of before my foodie transformation. Gordon Hamersley is one of those chefs. He's been running Hamersley's Bistro in Boston's South End for over twenty years! That's extraordinary! Despite being a big deal, he was so generous with his time and his knowledge. I can not emphasize enough how much it meant to me when these super-busy chefs were enthusiastic about our book and willing to spend time and enthusiasm teaching me the ways of the food/restaurant world. Honestly. I was looking through these photos today and thought they deserved to be blogged! So, here are some photos of the food at Hamersley's Bistro!







A couple of photos of Chef Hamersley.





This is a really cool video by Robin Berghaus for Bostonia, Boston University's alumni magazine. The reason I'm posting it is because the video also features Ellery of Blue Heron Farm. Blue Heron Farm, in Lincoln, MA, is the profiled supplier that is partnered with Hamersley's Bistro in the book!

Happy spring, everyone! I hope everyone is out there getting their all-natural sunshiny vitamin D these days1

Verrill Farm: Carry Moonbeams Home in a Jar

For some reason, maybe it was the recent arrival of winter around here, I was thinking about my Verrill Farm photos last night. One of my favorite photos is of Steve Verrill eating the corn - that's apparently how to tell if it's ripe or not. I always approve of the taste testing method! Over the course of this project, I took so many photos at each of the places I visited and so few of them actually ended up in the book. I decided I was going to post the photo with the corn this morning, but then when I went to pull it from my files, I saw all these other photos that I loved that weren't included in Boston Homegrown. For instance, I love the photos of Steve and his wife Joan. Steve always wears a hat while working on the farm, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into some of their portraits. Verrill Farm also has an amazing farm stand and I highly recommend taking a trip out for some food! You can obviously buy local produce and even beef, but they also offer prepared foods, sandwiches, and baked goods. Yum! I've definitely been there just for lunch on more than one occasion!













*The song I used for this post doesn't actually have anything to do with the post - it's just a pretty lyric that popped into my head. Although I guess it does reference two farm animals, so it sort of fits!

Boston Homegrown 2011: Have Some More Chicken

Now for some food photography! For most of 2010 and 2011 I worked on a book titled "Boston Homegrown." I traveled around Massachusetts photographing farmers, fishermen, cheesemakers, and chefs. I got to meet wonderful people who were beyond generous with their time and knowledge. I've blogged about a bunch of my adventures, but still have so much more to go! In the spirit of the Year In Review, I thought I would post some Boston Homegrown photos from last winter...

First up is Coppa in the South End. Jamie Bissonnette is the chef and he is all over the place. I've even seen him cook in a skeleton ski mask. In the book, he's paired with Round the Bend Farm. You can see the photos I took there in this post.







Next up is T.W. Food in Cambridge. Yum! I highly recommend their Sunday brunches! The chef is Tim Wiechmann. Since I also photographed the restaurants' food suppliers, I got to take photos of Tim's own personal root cellar.









T.W. Food was paired with Drumlin Farm, which is not just a place for field trips! It is a real working farm that offers a winter CSA and they have a pretty big root cellar!







606 Congress still stands out as one of my most adventurous sessions for this project. The chef, Rich Garcia, prepared two dishes for me to photograph - one was lobster deviled eggs topped with caviar and the other was beef heart. Yikes! And I devoured both of them. Go figure! I blogged about it here.







606 Congress is paired with Blackbird Farm in the book. My trip to Blackbird is the only farm trip that left me with a war wound. During this entire project, I thought for sure I was going to fall in the ocean or get electrocuted by an electric farm fence, but nope. I escaped mostly unscathed. What finally got me was the barb wire (and my clumsiness). I now have a gorgeous scar around my arm from where I scraped along the side of it! Lucky for me I think it adds character. Sure, I can't be a supermodel anymore, but that's okay. I blogged about Ann Marie Bouthillette and her farm here.

The following photos are from my day with Chef Nuno Alves who works at Tavolo. So many things about this day stand out, not the least of which is because I was at his house and not at his restaurant! Since his Portuguese background, and his parents, are such huge influences on his cooking style, he wanted both of them to play a part in what he prepared for me.







I blogged some other photos from the day here. Tavolo is paired with Seafood Specialties, which is run by Chris Edelman. Chris also runs Wulf's Fish Market in Brookline, which is where I met up with him for our session. Stepping into that store is like stepping into another era, which is entirely the point.







I first met Chef Jason Bond when he was at The Beacon Hill Bistro, but since then, he's opened his own restaurant in Cambridge. Bondir continues to receive rave reviews.







Bondir is paired with Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds. I've really enjoyed getting to know Pete and Jen and the work they do! I loved buying my chickens from them this year and can't wait until it's time to do it again!

Tastings might win for being the restaurant farthest away from Boston, but it's still worth the drive to Foxboro! When I photographed there, Matthew Maue was the chef, but since then, he has left and Chef Ben Lacy has taken over. The philosophy has remained the same, though, and the restaurant is still committed to working with Brambly Farms, who I profiled here.







The Gallows is one of the newer restaurants in Boston's South End. The chef there is Seth Morrison. He prepared some nice hearty winter food for me to photograph! I also loved the decor in there!







The Gallows is paired with Snappy Lobster in the book. They are the guys responsible for sending me home with live scallops and whelks, thus providing me with my #1 most adventurous day on this project. And that doesn't even count the fact that we were out on a boat in freezing weather!





All in all, every day I worked on this project was a new adventure. I loved photographing the amazing dishes that each chef prepared and I loved narrowly cheating death (or just minor electrocution or injury) every time I visited the farmers and fishermen! I'll try to continue to blog more from this project as we lead up to its publication, which will hopefully be this spring. The photos featured in the book are just a fraction of what I shot, so it's fun to complete the story here! If you consider yourself a foodie, or if you're just looking to check out some new (to you) restaurants, a lot of the places I photographed are featured in the Best of Boston lists!

Check out this one from Boston Magazine and this one from the website Eater.com.

Boston Farm Photography: All At Once

As part of the Boston Homegrown book project, I traveled around Massachusetts (and even Rhode Island) photographing farmers at work. I toured the farms, met the animals, and narrowly escaped death due to clumsiness every time (although I do have a nice scar from falling into barbed wire). You may remember me admitting my fears about photographing the animals back in this post. I worried that I would want to be a vegetarian, but quite the opposite happened. I am happy to report that the trend continued. Visiting each of these farms and learning about all the love and work and integrity that goes into the whole process was inspiring! I'm slowly joining the ranks of the locavore movement. Each of these farms are so fabulous. Many are affiliated with farmers' markets, some have their own stores on-site, and all of them are partnered with Boston-area restaurants. It doesn't take too much effort to enjoy the fruits of their labor!

Blackbird Farm, Smithfield, RI
Run by Ann Marie Bouthillette & her family
Ann Marie raises 100% Angus cattle on her farm and she is awesome! It was so fun mucking out to the cow pastures and getting to meet all the cows, calves, and even a bull. Fun cow fact: cows have the same gestational period as humans, 9 months.



I loved how close I was able to get to the animals. I was able to get right in there to photograph them. I'm pretty sure this one is smizing.


Blackbird Farm does have a farm stand you can visit. They also supplied 606 Congress with the beef heart I tried (and loved). Check out their site for other restaurants they're paired with!

Brambly Farms, Norfolk, MA
Run by Ted & Sandra O'Harte and family
Oh my goodness! Piglets galore at Brambly Farms! The piglets have the run of the land up until they're about 3 weeks old so you just see them bounding all over the place. In my vision for the day, I was totally going to be able to hold and cuddle piglets. Alas, they were a bit too skittish and not at all interested in me. Here's a fact I did learn - pigs don't have sweat glands, which is why they roll around in mud; they need to keep cool. They also have a gestation period of 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. Easy to remember!



I love this guy's expression...


Another thing I learned about farm animals is that many of them are very similar to dogs. This boar loved being scratched between the ears!


Ted & Sandra & Erin & Tara were awesome tour guides! You can order their food straight through their farm, or find it at a restaurant like Tastings at Patriot Place in Foxboro!

Frizzell Hill Farm, Leyden, MA
Run by Lynette & Rob Snedeker
For a while, I had been hearing that I was gong to go photograph "the goat lady." Apparently, if you've been paying attention to the foodie news, goat meat is the new big thing. Lynette is way ahead of the game! By the time I left her farm, I was convinced I wanted a pet goat (of course, I also want a pet pig, too, but I can't get either until I have an actual yard). We had to keep rescheduling our session due to the bouts of rain we got throughout the spring/summer. She informed me that the goats don't like the rain and they won't be happy for photos. I chalked that up to some sort of farmer eccentricity. Until I saw a goat smile.

Yup. I'm pretty sure she's smiling. If I remember correctly, this is Teacup.


You can see the buck climbing up the hill.


A curious smiling goat.


Lynette has created a wonderful & peaceful environment for all these goats. She told me her motto is "Happy happy dead." It sounds silly when you say it, but it's pretty awesome. The goats live an anxiety-free lifestyle. They roam around, they're well taken care of, and Lynette loves every single one of them. The day I visited, there were two goats on the verge of giving birth. To be there would have been the coolest and oddest Boston Homegrown adventure, but, the stars weren't aligned. I can tell you the gestational period for a goat is 5 months (I learned all about farm animal gestational periods). If you're interested in tasting goat meat, Lynette works with Chef Michael Leviton of Lumiere in Newton.

Round the Bend Farm, Dartmouth, MA
Run by T & Elen Vieira
This was the only farm I visited that gave away 3 year olds with their meat! Ellis actually greeted me at the door and joined us on our tour of the farm. He had all sorts of things to tell me!


For instance, Ellis told me this guy is named Tom.

I think if all turkeys were as pretty as Tom, nobody would want to eat them! It would be like eating a rainbow! Apparently, T & Ellen feel the same way because Tom has become a mascot instead of a meal!

Piglets basking in the sun.

I thought the piglets I saw at Brambly Farms were itty bitty, but these were even younger. They even seemed ever-so-slightly unsteady on their feet still. Again, no cuddling (but jumping around with a 3 year old brought up the cute quotient).

When I walked over to one of the pig pens, the pigs rushed up to greet me. I'm pretty sure they were expecting food and not a camera.

I hate to disappoint such cute faces!

Round the Bend has a farm stand on site that you can visit. You can also taste some of their pork at Coppa in the South End!

Each of these farms participated in the Boston Homegrown project with the utmost enthusiasm, which isn't always easy in the busy season! All of the farmers were extremely helpful, friendly, and patient. Having the opportunity to meet all of these people is definitely one of the best things about this project!

I've been an adult for, oh, about a decade now, but I can still remember how adamant I was about some of my food opinions. I never thought my mind, or my tastes, would change. I never thought I'd like asparagus. I never thought I'd enjoy eating out. This project has truly opened my mind and every day I'm awakened to something new, something I never expected to like. It's been a wonderful gift, one I'm not sure I would have been ready for before this point. There are plenty of negative aspects to growing up, but finding some food flexibility definitely isn't one of them!