I'm so excited to be published in the July issue of Food & Wine! I took this photo of chef Ming Tsai on the set of Simply Ming last year.

tags: published!

tags: on assignment

May 4 - 10 is the week for Boston Bakes for Breast Cancer. 100% of the proceeds from select desserts at various establishments benefit breast cancer research and care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Below, Sweet Fromage with Lemon-Mint-Shiso Sorbet, Sweet & Sour Rhubarb & a Black and White Sesame Tuile at Blue Ginger

Kabocha Squash Doughnuts with Maple Ice Cream at Blue Ginger

tags: culinary delights | blue ginger

tags: blue ginger | culinary delights

I always have food on my mind, but around the holidays everyone else seems to get hungrier too! A few of my photos are featured on Delish as part of their feature on Ming Tsai's holiday-appropriate recipes. I was the lucky photographer who got to shoot pictures of the food that Chef Ming cooked on the set of 'Simply Ming' - and I can tell you from much personal experience that his east-west flavor combinations are... well, delish!

from left: Kir Royal with Champagne-Honey Granita, Sweet Potato Ravioli with Basil-Brown Butter , Cranberry-Asian Pear Star Anise Cake

tags: culinary delights | published!

I had the honor of being part of an amazing event the other night - an evening of delicious food and fundraising to support research for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The mood was light but no one took the cause lightly - the Zach Heger Foundation raised over $15,000, thanks to generous donations and a rousing live auction led by Channel 5's Susan Wornick and Bianca de la Garza. Chiara Bistro in Westwood provided a fantastic meal and a beautiful room for the event. To see more photos from the evening, click here.

tags: good causes

It was a star-studded eaters paradise last night at Blue Ginger's 10th Anniversary Party! BG family mingled amongst guests in a giant cocktail party and as is the case with all good parties- everyone ended up hanging out in the kitchen!

How could anyone not with this kind of spread.

tags: foodies

* (front of house / back of house)

tags: on assignment | blue ginger

Some of the wonderful dishes I shot on the set of Simply Ming:

tags: simply ming | on assignment

... being a working photographer for nine full days (almost) in a row!!!

tags: on assignment | education | simply ming

n.

1 : a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life

2 : a power or process of transforming something common into something special

3 : an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting

tags: creativity

Here's to another great trip to Jazz Fest! Soft-shell crab po' boy, cochon de lait po' boy, and the spirit of food at the fest...
Thanks to A and T for sharing your home and family with me again this year... Next year's challenge- photo pit!! : D

tags: travel

tags: education | single guy cookbook

OK , here's a new angle I guess I had just never considered: gender specific photography.


After casually mentioning that this slice of pizza is not exactly the most photogenic and that the paper towel looks like a piece of cardboard (or worse) and that the beer doesn't really look like a real beer, THEN my critique group brings out the big guns, that this picture, meant as a test for a guy-oriented cookbook, is totally and unmistakably made by a girl. While I don't think they meant it as an criticism of technique (as in 'you throw like a girl'), they were pretty clear that this feminine- Martha Stewart-y - no meat on my pizza- style just won't resonate with its target audience. OK, I get it.


Next (huge) challenge: learn how to think like a man. Ew...

tags: education

oven crespella with Nutella sauce from Gourmet magazine (recipe)

I had the greatest time this past week learning more about lighting food from my photo-guru Joe Mikos. I hope that my efforts in the future will reflect all the good stuff I am soaking up from him.

tags: education

...in a previous life, because sometimes I get a really strong craving for the simple flavors of Italian cuisine. Last night I was on my way home from work around 10:30 at night. I had been thinking about garlic and tomatoes ever since my mom told me about The Minimalist (Mark Bittman for the NYT) and I watched a video about making tomato soup from oven-roasted canned tomatoes. I detoured to the open-til-midnite supermarket to get some garlic (a staple I had somehow run out of). The sauce I made was ready by the time the pasta was done boiling, and was just what my inner italian needed. Note to self: always keep garlic and canned tomatoes on hand. Cultivate fresh basil on windowsill.

tags: ingredients | ideas

For anyone (like me) who is interested in how food and eating figure into our greater experience of life (and/or our politics), Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a really important (and fascinating) book. Recently he gave a talk and answered a few questions about the book at Williams College. Here's the video of the talk, which is great but is mainly highlights of the book. If you have read the book and don't want to listen to the whole thing, skip to around the 51 minute mark to only hear the Q & A portion- there are some really great ideas in there, like how our spending on food relates to our spending on health care, for example.

tags: ideas

For those born in the Year of the Rat, this is your year! Celebrating J's birthday with a fabulous brunch was a great kickoff to this year of lucky birthdays.

tags: on assignment

... and Prosit neujahr to the Austrians I met on my recent holiday trip to Vienna with M. If you know my password, you can visit my photos of the trip here.

My favorite part of Vienna, which was (characteristically) foggy and very cold, were the coffeehouses. Practically a national pasttime, these caffeinated sanctuaries offer so much more than a half-caf-non-fat-soy-latte (actually I think they might laugh at you if you ordered that). Warm, elegant, and full of quiet conversation, free newspapers (and cigarette smoke, alas), they offer the perfect retreat for escaping the cold for a while. And you can take as long a while as you want- the waiter won't bring your check over until you ask for it.


cafe sperl in Vienna

tags: resolutions | plans | ideas