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.

2011 Wrap-up: I Traveled Each and Ev'ry Highway

Now that the presents are put away (almost) and 2011 has come to an end, it's time for a wrap-up blog post! I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I've ever done this, but I've been inspired by my photographer friends and by the wonderful year I had. Since 2011 was such a good year all around, I'm starting with some personal photos. I'm usually pretty lazy about posting my own photos, so this will be a giant post! Here goes nothing!

I did a ton of traveling in 2011, and most of it was for pleasure! In February, I crossed the pond and went to London for a long weekend! We saw all the sights!


And a trip to London wouldn't be complete without taking a trip to Abbey Road! Having your photo taken in the middle of the crosswalk is actually quite dangerous, so there was no posing! And while we were in London, we happened upon the BAFTAs, which is England's answer to the Oscars. You can imagine how exciting that was! We even got to see Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. Amazing. We traveled all the way to London to see a Red Carpet!




In March, Doug and I traveled to Disney World to see my sister play in her high school band at Downtown Disney!


When there are only two of you on a trip, you tend to take a lot of self-portraits!


Me! This balloon was part of an elaborate birthday surprise - I had to deflate it and bring it back to Boston where it would be re-inflated. That didn't stop me from posing with it!


In April, a few awesome photographer friends and I spent a few days in Loon Mt. talking about pretty much everything BUT work.


In May, my sister and I flew out to Portland, Oregon to visit a college. While there, I got to visit two of my best friends from college and my good friend Rachel and we got to eat grilled cheese in a school bus.



My biggest trip this year was to Iceland. Doug and I had been plotting this trip for years and we were finally able to make it happen! I would highly recommend it as a destination - it's good for all age groups and you don't have to travel too far (from Boston anyways). You spend four and a half hours in a plane and then you're here...


We stayed in Reykjavik, but we visited Skalholt, Gullfoss, Thingvellir, and Geysir.





Downtown Reykjavik has a lot of artistic graffiti. This was my favorite!


And the Blue Lagoon. The day we spend here was one of my favorites of the whole trip. It's an amazing geothermal spa. So relaxing and rejuvenating. I even got an in-water massage, which was so funny. It was such a weird sensation (some giant Icelandic guy was dragging me around the lagoon on a pool mat while massaging my feet) that I couldn't quite relax all the way, but it was still pretty awesome! Doug and I spent way too much time trying to master an "Apocalypse Now" shot in the water...

As much as I love our photos, none of them do it justice! You should go and see for yourselves!

My last "big" trip of the year was to Miami to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday! We didn't even scratch the surface of the city, but I did get to go to a backyard pig roast!


Since my sister graduated high school this past spring, we spent a lot of time celebrating her!
There was prom...


Graduation...




And a graduation party...


I experimented with a Diana camera at my bbq and even at a couple of weddings this summer!


A friend came to town and we went to the Red Sox (my first game in a couple of years!).


We'll end the post with Christmas and New Year's!
Napkin hats!


New Year's!

My brother got engaged this year, which is extremely exciting. That photo above is me and my future sister-in-law!





I am so grateful that my job allows me the time to have this much fun! Sure, sometimes I have to schedule things months in advance, but it's so worth it! I'm just glad my friends hang in there and wait for my free weekends! They are few and far between, but we make the most of them!

Next up... The Year In Review, the work edition.

Baby's First Christmas: Now We've Just Begun

Baby's first Christmas!













Imagine finding this much cuteness under the tree on Christmas morning! He is so kickin' cute! The family used the bottom photo as their holiday card - it looks awesome hanging on my wall! I could photograph those eyes and smile all day long!

Stay tuned as I attempt to blog some wrap-up posts over the next week or so! In all the years I've been blogging, I don't think I've ever done a year-end post. Looks like 2012 will be the year!

Hull Engagement Session: It All Comes Down to Me and You

I am trying to make a valiant effort to catch up with blogging! Jess and Barrett's engagement session took place way back in the fall. They're from the South Shore, so Jess suggested we check out Fort Revere in Hull for their session. Oh my goodness - it was engagement session heaven! It had ocean, graffiti, old decrepit buildings, grass, and even some colorful foliage. We could have played in the fort for hours and hours!



























I'm pretty sure that if Jess and Barrett were Carly Simon and James Taylor, these bottom photos would be their album cover. We had so much fun traipsing around Ft. Revere and finding nooks and crannies to photograph. Jess and Barrett are going to have a super-fun wedding this coming fall! They love the Muppets, so that's pretty much all I need to know!

In other news, I am going to attempt to put together a 2011 Retrospective blog post. We'll see how that goes! And, of course, those of you who have been following my blog for a couple of years know that we are currently in the middle of Awards Season! That means lots of movie-going for me in an attempt to see as many nominated movies as possible. I never see all of them, but I always get pretty close!

Happy New Year!