Jerusalem’s Shuk Mahane Yehuda

Perhaps one of the best places I’ve been on assignment is Jerusalem. The history alone is enough to fill you with awe; so many religious historical moments and markers lie within the walls of the Old City.  It’s a place of deep-rooted conflicts and culture clashes. A true mixing of ethnicities. And amidst all of this history, religion and politics springs an amazing culture of food.

There is no better example of this than Mehane Yehuda market, in West Jerusalem. It’s Israel’s largest market – and, according to locals, it’s also the most frequently suicide-bombed market in the world. The market, called the “shuk” , is a place where Jews, Muslims and Christians stand elbow-to-elbow as they maul over produce, shop for freshly-baked marizipan rugalach, buy crispy, golden fried falafel or nosh on the creamiest hummus you’ll ever eat.  Leave it to the geography of food to forget our differences, throw out  the past, diffuse heated issues and bring us together. It’s an incredible experience, one that leaves an impression for a long time.

Below is my visual story on the market that I photographed for Saveur Magazine, published in the November 2009 issue.

Design Sponge Debut

Earlier this month I worked on a feature for a site called Design Sponge, (if you’re not familiar with the site, it’s a wonderful resource for people who love design, art, cooking and anything creative). The feature was for their section called “In the Kitchen With”. I photographed a radish salad developed by my talented friend Rachel Lomas. This dish is more like a cheese course and is complete heaven. I promise it will make you think of radishes in a new and completely different way. For the recipe and directions as well as a few more images check out the link, In The Kitchen With Penny De Los Santos.

Home on the Free Range: Sheep Ranching in Idaho

This week, I wanted to share some images from an assignment I did for Saveur Magazine. It’s a story I did on sheep ranching in Idaho for their October issue on lamb. Many of the sheep ranchers in that state are of Basque origin and their families have been ranching in the area for 100 years. What’s unique about these ranchers is that they are 100% dedicated to naturally raised sheep, allowing the animal to range freely on the land during the summer months. I spent three days running around the eastern part of the state near a town called Lava Hot Springs close to the border of Wyoming. This location and its crisp, intense quality of light made the wheat fields glisten and had me mesmerized at every turn. The results are what follows. This was one of those assignments I would love to go back to and continue shooting. Maybe someday, I will…

Web feature of my documentary photography

A quick post to share a little news with all of you. Verve Photo: A New Breed of Documentary Photographers did a feature on me this week, you can check it out here Verve Photo. It’s a great site that celebrates working documentary photographers around the world.

Also next week September 27-Oct 2 I’ll be in Missouri’s “Twin Cities” of Festus and Crystal City. I’ve been asked to be on the faculty of the prestigious Missouri Photo Workshop. It’s their 61st year in doing this workshop. I’m looking forward to getting to know the students and working with them.

I’ll be posting images from my most recent assignment in Saveur Magazine’s October 2009 issue next. It’s a story I photographed on lamb ranching in the Idaho mountains. Until then…

Food Moment: Nationally-Acclaimed Houston Chef Monica Pope

Monica Pope’s Houston restaurant, T’Afia, has garnered her much attention, from James Beard to Food and Wine Magazine; the list is far too long to mention. Critics around the country have called her food “brilliant”. She bases her entire philosophy of cooking on “two fundamental truths,” as she calls them —  first, “what grows together goes together; and second, “food tastes better when you eat where your food lives” (she acquires all of her ingredients within 200-300 miles of the restaurant). I think that’s pretty inspiring considering she’s in the concrete jungle of Houston, a/k/a the “chemical coast.”

Pope also helped found the Houston Mid-Town Farmer’s Market, which happens every Saturday morning in the parking lot of T’Afia. At every market, Pope offers a free cooking class in her restaurant, inspired by what is available at the market that day. Her love for what she does and where she lives is infectious; an average of 300-400 supporters and lovers of her food crusade pack the market weekly to take part in this “eat where your food lives” movement.

But for Pope, a single mom, her biggest job and greatest responsibility is her 6-year-old daughter Lili. I was lucky enough to catch up with them on a Tuesday night, which was pizza night. The two split a cheese pizza from Romano’s in the living room of their mid-town home. No local ingredients here, nothing organic, but it sure was sweet and real and right up there with everything that makes life delicious.

Food Gathering at Wild Horse Desert Twin Oaks Ranch

Stephanie Scherzer of Rain Lily Farm and FarmHouse Delivery
Pickled veggies, homemade mustards and chutneys were a highlight at all the meals
Big commercial size kitchen allows for many cooks like Rachel Lomas and Kim Beal of Rain Lily Design
Hatch green chile pork stew by Rachel Lomas
Elizabeth Winslow of FarmHouse Delivery and Michael Brantley of Eastside Showroom
Red Peppers. 4 different farms were present at the gathering
Our weekend host Loncito Cartwright, owner of Loncito’s Lamb and Twin Oaks Ranch

Last weekend we trekked out to the Wild Horse Desert Twin Oaks Ranch in Dinero, Texas. The invitation, sent by owner Loncito Cartwright, invited several growers, cooks, bloggers and lovers of food out to his ranch to celebrate “all that is local.”

Cartwright, a sixth generation Texan, raises sheep on his family’s land in South Texas. Loncito offers his lamb for sale every Saturday morning at both the Sunset Valley and downtown farmer’s markets in Austin.

His ranch, which is in a beautiful part of South Texas and is filled with mesquite and weesatch trees, was a perfect setting for all of us to meet, become more acquainted, cook, drink and eat together.

It was a weekend full of comforts; the food was only half of it. A commercial size kitchen was perfect for all of us to cook and be creative in. The bunk bed wing of the ranch house, where we slept, was so comfortable, with Tempurpedic mattresses in every bunk.

But the real kicker for me was the safari we went on Saturday afternoon. Our safari vehicle was a big retro-fitted truck that had an open-air deck on top with enough room for 12 adults. The weather was amazing that day. We sipped on spicy bloody Mary’s and listened to satellite radio as we toured this beautiful ranch. I had a smile on my face the entire ride.

The lamb served all weekend was from Loncito and it was tender, juicy and full of flavor. Rebecca Rather of  Rather Sweet Bakery & Café in Fredericksburg, Texas brought amazing pastries for the weekend and the vegetables supplied by all the farms present were incredible. Boggy Creek Farm, Tecolote Farm, Rain Lily Farm and Utility Research Garden all showed big love.

We left there Sunday afternoon with such an incredible feeling of happiness. It was such a gift to spend a weekend with such talented, passionate, creative people who are so dedicated to their work. I’ll be re-living that weekend for a long time!

Late afternoon safari, touring the ranch and sipping bloody mary’s
Smoking lamb ribs and grilling vegetables for the Saturday evening dinner
Marshall Wright of EatThisLens Smoked lamb ribs
Saturday evening spread

Texas Burger Project

Texans take their burgers seriously. Everyone has an opinion and everyone’s favorite burger is the best.
A few months ago I set out to photograph some of the best burgers in Texas and the unique places that serve them.
Pat Sharpe, food writer for Texas Monthly, inspired the idea based on an upcoming article she was working on. We met at the Counter Café in Austin for a burger and talked about burger joints she had scouted throughout the state. I went on to meet Alison Cook, food writer for the Houston Chronicle, again for burgers this time at Lankford’s Grocery in Houston. She shared her knowledge of Texas burgers and places she liked.
There were my starting points. I was not only looking for good burgers, but good atmosphere and lots of character. As I found them, each one led to another as locals recommended new places.

This photographic exploration into Texas burgers told me one thing; there is not just one great burger in Texas. There is an entire world of them and each offers something completely unique, whether it’s flame-broiled, hand packed, sauced to an extreme, on sweetened buns or topped with dozens of cheeses. There are some great one’s out there, grab your camera and go out and try them!

Places I visited:

KinKaid’s Grocery Market- Fort Worth

Diary-Ette- Dallas

Twisted Root- Dallas

Angry Dog- Dallas

Adairs Saloon- Dallas

Club Schmidt- Dallas

Jake’s Old Fashion Hamburgers- Dalles

Keller’s Drive-In- Dallas

Burger House- Dallas

Bellaire Broiler Burger-Bellaire

Lankford’s Grocery- Houston

Sparkle Burger-Houston

Lucky Burger- Houston

Counter Café-Austin

P.Terry’s- Austin

Top Notch- Austin

Food Moment: Homesick Texan at her Chelsea apartment in New York City

Lisa Fain, aka Homesick Texan started her blog in September of 2005. The title of her nationally-popular blog, which the London Times this year named one of the world’s best food blogs, says everything. She’s a seventh generation Texan who has been living in New York City for almost fifteen years. She cooks, photographs and blogs about her favorite Texas foods from her apartment, often writing tidbits of her cherished childhood memories that go along with dishes.

BEHIND THE PORTRAIT:

I’ve been thinking about shooting a series of portraits about the people behind food everyone from chefs and writers to producers and line cooks. I asked Lisa if she would be willing to sit for the first one. She cheerfully agreed. A week later, I found myself in Lisa’s New York apartment meeting Buster, her native Texas cat.  Buster demanded a role in our portrait session and rightly so; Lisa found the 20-year-old cat behind the legendary dance hall the Broken Spoke back when she lived in Austin, Texas.

Lisa was a little camera shy in the beginning, but like all good Texans, she had a nice bottle of tequila and loosened up after a round of shots. That was all it took. She had a perfect location in her beautifully-lit bedroom (which, coincidentally, is where she shoots the food featured in her blog) and an amazing collection of cowboy boots – I think I counted nine pairs.

I’m honored and proud to feature The Homesick Texan in this occasional photographic series called “Food Moment.”

1 plane, 3 trains and a taxi

My last assignment found me in Italy for Saveur Magazine.  After a trans-continental flight and three trains, I realized I still had another train and a bus ride ahead of me before I was to arrive at my final destination, the town of Gubbio in Umbria.  At that point, I had been up 38 hours straight.

Exhausted, I reluctantly ditched my attempt at being the savvy, thrifty traveler and grabbed a taxi…and I was thrilled to arrive in my hotel room an hour later. The concierge didn’t even take my credit card or passport he just handed me a room key and said we would settle everything after I slept. I must have looked pretty bad.

Image of light coming thought the window in my hotel room waking me up for my first day of shooting.

A foodies pilgrimage to “Mecca”

My love for Julia Child started long before I discovered food and long before I started photographing it. I remember watching the show with my mother while I was growing up. My brother was even into it, he’d walk in and, without a word sit down to watch with us. There we were the three of us mesmerized by Julia.

The funny thing is that I have no recollection of my mother ever attempting to cook any of her recipes. We never even talked about her food…we would just watch. It wasn’t about the technical details of her recipes for my family; it was completely 100% about Julia. Throughout my life, Julia’s show always had the ability to make me stop whatever I was doing and watch. It was as if I was back home again with my mother and brother, sharing those afternoons with Julia.

Fast forward to 2004. I was in D.C. editing a story at National Geographic. I was in a really bad place too. The assignment I was working on was getting the best of me and I felt like I didn’t have the pictures to show for it. I was feeling pretty insecure and kind of doubtful about my future. I woke up one morning in my hotel to headlines in the Washington Post about Julia Child’s death. I read her obituary that instant, then re-read it again and again. I was so taken by it that I even cut it out and saved it – I still have it to this day. I learned more about Julia’s life and her career in that obituary then I had gleaned from watching her all those years. She didn’t discover her passion for food until her late 30’s; the next ten years she would spend writing a book she lamented over and rewrote several times, testing the recipes endlessly. After several false starts, in 1961 Mastering the Art of French Cooking was finally published, and went on to earn national acclaim and become a best-seller. We all know the rest of the story, how Julia’s life and career developed and how she went on to become an icon in American cooking.

In 2001, Julia Child donated her kitchen in its entirety to the Smithsonian’s American History Museum in D.C. Her husband Paul had designed this kitchen just for her; it had special high counters to accommodate her height, and it was also the same kitchen where most of her show had been taped.

After learning of her death, I knew I needed to visit Julia’s kitchen at the Smithsonian. The moment I came upon it, I was moved. I studied every detail in the kitchen and read every word on display. Eventually, after an hour I found myself cross-legged on the floor of the museum, watching old Julia shows. That afternoon, her kitchen became a great source of inspiration to me. It somehow provided me with the encouragement I’d especially needed that week, a reminder to keep pushing through the struggles and setbacks in my own career the way Julia had. It also made me realize how important it is to just keep moving in the direction you want your life to be, no matter how many no’s or maybe’s you hear. Since then, I have read every book I could find on Julia and purchased the box set of her old shows, drawing as much encouragement and inspiration as I could from her life and her work. And when I go back to see the kitchen in D.C., I’m still moved just as much as I was the first time I visited. It’s like going home…one of the safest places on earth…and a reminder to keep pushing towards your dreams.