Kathleen Flinn's Blog, page 30

September 11th: The View from London

I'm one of the few people I know that wasn't in the country on September 11th. 

I had been living and working in London for a couple years as the senior editor for MSN.co.uk., the largest portal site in the United Kingdom at the time. Of 70-plus employees, I was the only American. I have no idea what the content staff looks like now, but in 2001, we had a core team of about a dozen people working out of an office on Great Pulteney Street in Soho. My boss, Andrew, had come from the BBC and set up our suite of cubicles with TV screens so that we could monitor the news, generally with the sound turned off. For reasons too complicated to go explain, we had to manually update the news back then. We rotated the responsibility so that one person would watch news sites, select stories and write headlines all day. Once a month, it was someone's job to do this all weekend.

Andrew was out that day, taking off on a planned flight to Redmond to visit the mother ship. In addition to overseeing the content teams, my job included visiting major corporate clients with guys from advertising to discuss developing customized editorial packages, essentially pages my team put together for temporary campaigns that ran on our site, or sometimes across all the MSN sites outside the U.S.

Right after lunch, I was due to leave for a meeting with Disney. Rushing, I ran back to my desk to grab notes when suddenly I noticed the TV monitors. After a screen announced "BREAKING NEWS," live video footage showed the north tower burning. With no sound, at first the image made no sense. We had clocks on the wall with different time zones; the one for New York showed it was around 9 a.m. I watched as the other plane hit the second tower. Someone on the content team said, "Did that plane just hit that building?"

"Yes," I answered flatly. I don't remember breathing. Without taking my eyes from the screen, I reached down to my phone, dialed an extension and said, "I'm going to have to miss that meeting with Disney."

We turned up the sound. BBC and SkyNews announcers talked over the live video feeds. I don't know what American TV announcers did that morning, but I know that in the UK, they immediately brought on a structural engineer familiar with the World Trade Center who discussed the very strong possibility they could collapse. By the time the South Tower fell, seemingly everyone huddled around our desks to watch the monitors as we worked feverishly to keep up with the breaking news. It was mayhem. At one point, SkyNews reported there could be dozens of planes hijacked in American airspace. Then, the second tower fell, and so did seemingly every single news server in the United Kingdom – except ours.

Earlier, Microsoft had installed a new data center with vast server capacity near Greenwich. We found we couldn't update MSN from news sites anymore; none of them were functioning. Even the BBC site kept returning errors. U.S. news sites went down under the crush of the traffic. It felt to us that the entire internet slowed down that day, the underlying architecture stretched to capacity.

We monitored the TV screens, but so much of the information was speculation that we decided not to publish anything until it was confirmed. So, we did it the old-fashioned way. We got on the phone with journalists from MSNBC in Redmond and news outlets in London. Some of the London reporters were on the phone with other journalists back in the states in different cities. On the fly, we built a special editorial devoted to the breaking 9/11 news. Around 10 p.m. our editorial wearily made their way home or to a pub. I stayed in the office, alone, updating the news until well past 3 a.m. when I suddenly broke down crying.

I felt so alone. I was in another country when mine had been attacked and there was nothing I could do. I knew people who worked in the WTC buildings. I had no idea what happened to them. One thing about London, I told my mother, I could always fly home with 24-hours' notice. Well, I couldn't. I was on an island with a bunch of people who at least understood terrorism since they'd lived through it themselves.  I left my office and walked through the unusually quiet streets of Soho and Covent Garden to Trafalgar Square down to the Thames and over to Parliament and Big Ben. Near a newsstand, a truck stopped to deliver a bundle of newspapers. "TERROR IN AMERICA" read the headline above the now familiar image of the both towers smoking.

A Black Cab driver stopped to ask if I needed a ride. When I tried to answer, I started to cry. Hearing my accent, he said, "Oh, you're American. C'mon, love, let me give you a lift." He took me home and wouldn't take any money for the fare.

The next day, I learned my boss's flight had been caught in the maelstrom; shortly after takeoff, his British Airways flight turned around as the captain informed the passengers that all of U.S. airspace had been closed. He'd been diverted to Belfast, not exactly the most welcoming place for a bunch of wayward Brits. As a newsman, I think it still pains him that he wasn't in our office that day. I don't remember the final traffic figures, except they were vast, millions and millions of page views.

As I sat down to pick up the coverage on Wednesday, an older, much more senior woman I admired stopped by my desk to check on me. "Such a tragedy," she said. "But I hope you Americans don't go on and do something foolish such as bomb someone to get back at them. Here in England, we'd stay calm and carry on." The irony, of course, is that we dragged them into two wars.

I moved back to the United States permanently in 2005. In Seattle, I befriended a woman named Abigail, who lost her husband in the Sept. 11th tragedy. I wrote a book about going to cooking school in Paris; she wrote one about grief. But it's interesting. I don't know if I would have gone to Le Cordon Bleu if Sept. 11th had not happened. Like a lot of people, it made me rethink my mortality and debate what the hell I was doing with my life.  

Although at the time, I felt achingly alone, I'm now grateful that I viewed arguably the defining American tragedy of my generation from afar. It forever offers me such a different perspective on the world in general. When I hear about terrible things happening somewhere else, those places don't feel so distant anymore.

A Few Good Food Links: A Fund for Jennie

I don't know what I would do if my husband Mike died suddenly. It's not an understatement that we do everything together. He's my editor, my tech guru, my inspiration, my best friend. He even shoots and edits all my video. He's the most kind-hearted, generous person I've ever met and every day, he gently pushes me to be a better person, too.

So, when I read that food writer Jennie Perillo's husband died suddenly, it hit a nerve. Like Jennie, my father died too young, at age 50. To think of losing my husband so young, too, just would be so horrifically unfair. Often, when something like this happens, people say earnestly, "If there's anything I can do…" but it's hard to know what to ask for, and it's even more difficult to know where to begin to help. First, Jennie simply asked for pie. Peanut butter, to be specific.

But what's curious is that thousands of people made peanut butter pie.  Todd and Diane, the founders of the WhiteOnRiceCouple, made a touching video. It was covered all over the media, including CNN. Then, on Monday,  my friend Shauna James Ahearn sent a call to blogging community to start a campaign to raise money for Jennie and her two young daughters. She wrote:

As you can imagine, Jennie is overwhelmed not only by her grief, and the sudden responsibility of raising two children by herself, but she is also struggling with this financially. She just learned that she cannot collect widow's benefits from Social Security because she earns too much money each year. The health insurance for her and her kids runs out in December and she just learned that the total she will have to pay will be more than her mortgage. It's possible she'll have to pay off the entire mortgage in one lump sum because the apartment was in his name alone.

And more than anything, Mikey wanted Jennie to continue living her dream of being a food writer. And he wanted to make sure his kids were taken care of well. That's why he worked as hard as he did.

Which leads me to this week's most intriguing link: Bloggers without Borders. As they write: "Bloggers have long been using their platforms for good, raising money and awareness for causes close to their hearts. They have rallied behind people who have lost their homes or their loved ones, reached out to people who are struggling with illness or experiencing a personal tragedy. Help can be as simple as sending flowers or a check, but bloggers support people in the community and beyond when they need it the most."

When I read this, and then witnessed the unfolding support from the likes of my photography guru Penny de los Santos, I started to cry. I'd just spent an hour catching up the latest on the economy, the state of European Union, some dreadful crimes and what passes for politics these days. In a world where 90-year-old people get patted down as terrorist suspects in wheelchairs at airports, it thrills me to know there's still plenty of real humanity left out there.

Auction

I'm throwing my apron into the auction. Following my friend Pam Anderson's example, I'm offering a private cooking lesson to the highest bidder and up to five friends in the Seattle kitchen where I conducted the project for the new book. We'll spend an afternoon cooking and then sit down to dinner at a linen-draped table and toast to the generosity of everyone who is taking part in this effort. The winner will also get signed first edition copies of The Sharper the Knife, the Less You Cry and The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. My own Mike will help teach the class.

Bidding starts at $350.

Leave your bid in the comments section. If you'd like to remain anonymous, you don't have to enter your real name. Just make sure the email address is correct. (Mike and I are the only ones who will see your email address). That way, we can find you after the auction.

Auction will end on Monday, August 29, 2011 at exactly 11:59PM EST. I will contact you with details on how to complete your purchase.

[Or, if you'd like to make a donation to a #afundforjennie, you can do so directly through the Bloggers without Borders Paypal account.]

Book Trailer & Reviews for The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School officially goes on sale in about a month (Sept. 29th). As a preview, here's the official book trailer! I'm also pleased to announce the initial tour dates. We'll continue to add events but as you can see, the Mike and I will be everywhere. I'm psyched since the book is getting some great pre-publication reviews and designations. It's been selected as an Indie Next Pick for the month of October by the American Booksellers Association and earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. The Publishers Weekly review, just published this morning, even invoked the name of my hero, Julia Child (!)

Publisher's Weekly:

Seattle food writer Kathleen Flinn guides you patiently in the kitchen like the mom you always wish you'd had to learn how to cook from. Although a graduate of Paris's elite Cordon Bleu School, Flinn, like Julia Child before her, aims to demystify rarefied culinary know-how and bring basic cooking lessons to the simplest level.. Inspired by a cable TV show that walked guests through their own closets and tutored them on what to wear, Flinn chose nine eager-to-learn women of all backgrounds and ages for her experiment, examined their kitchen cabinets and refrigerators with them, and made each one prepare one of their typical dishes. The results were sadly predictable, as most relied on prepackaged ingredients. Moreover, the waste was staggering (many shop at warehouse stores and buy too much). Over the course of several weeks' worth of lessons, recorded in chapters, Flinn instructed the women in the rudiments of preparing food: from wielding knives, comparing tastes (i.e., salts, mustards), cooking vegetables four ways then "splashing" with flavors, mastering a vinaigrette and omelet, handling chicken, meat cuts, and fish, and even baking bread. In the end, the women gained confidence under Flinn's wonderfully encouraging tutelage, and fearlessly faced their kitchens and grocery stores with useful knowledge.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review):

A Seattle-based writer turned chef demonstrates how readers can transform their lives with the right recipe.

After a stint at Paris' Le Cordon Bleu, Flinn returned to the States to pen her 2008 debut, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. But after the critical acclaim and the endless book touring subsided, the author found herself at a loss for her next project until she stumbled across the TV program What Not to Wear. Envisioning a cooking class that would dig through pantries and cupboards in a manner befitting the show's hosts, Flinn took on a group of nine culinary novitiates and imparted technique and skill, giving them confidence in the kitchen. The author began by taking inventory of each participants' refrigerator, cabinets and eating habits. A friend's step-daughter, Sabra, was a disaster in the kitchen, so she usually relied on frozen dinners. One of her go-to concoctions, "White Trash Garlic Bread," is enough to give any reader, no matter how unseasoned a chef, pause: "She slathered one-half of a soft hamburger bun with Gold 'n Soft margarine, added a few hearty shakes of generic garlic salt, and topped it with dried Parmesan cheese from a can." Another woman admitted to buying in bulk, only to later feel awful about the amount of food she wasted. Flinn's chronicle of her culinary coaching discusses how her students fared, and acknowledges how the process led her to clean out her own cupboards: 'I am in a battle with myself. It seemed that I had as much to learn as the peopleI'd just visited.'  The author's humble approach is inviting and shows why her students were enthusiastic."

You can pre-order the book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or your local independent bookstore. If you'd like to pre-order a signed copy, drop us an email. We'll buy  it from my local bookstore, Elliott Bay Book Co., sign it and ship it the day it comes out (Sept. 29th). Plus, I'll slip in a special little gift…

What Do Food Writers Eat When They Write About Food?

The New York Times had a great visual piece in its Sunday Review of Books by illustrator Wendy MacNaughton that charted the favorite snacks of many authors. Best-selling writer Mark Kurlansky, author of two of my favorite books – Salt and Cod, likes to write under the influence of espresso, "as black as possible." Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma likes tea out of a glass with a side of roasted almonds.

It made me think. What do I eat while writing? Do I have such a habit? I looked around at the stacks of food piled in my writing office and realized that when on book deadline, this is what I eat and drink:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
ak-Mak sesame whole wheat crackers
Iced coffee with milk
Ramen in miso soup

It's a short list, but I mix it up. Sometimes, I put peanut butter and jelly directly on crackers. Sometimes I pair the ak-Mak crackers with cheese and white wine if I am writing in the afternoon. The appeal of PB&Js on deadline is two-fold. One, it's a comfort food that reminds me of my kid life. Second, it's easy to make and won't distract my train of thought to make one at noon or 3 a.m. When I get sick of PB&Js, I eat ramen noodles. But I throw out the flavor pack and settle the noodles into a bowl of steaming miso soup with tofu and seafood.

(At this point, Mike insists that I tell everyone rather than let me subsist on these items, he frequently cooks me dinner when I'm in serious crunch mode.)

I asked a few of my favorite food writers what they eat while writing:

Amanda Hesser , author of The Essential New York Times Cookbook, co-founder Food 52): "Depends on the time of day, but I'm generally more interested in drinking than eating. (I prefer to eat when I read and drink when I write.) At night I like to sip on something like Lillet on ice with a slice of citrus, or a bourbon. Sometimes with roasted, salted nuts, or good potato chips. Or I will have cookies and milk, like a five-year-old.
Kim O'Donnell ,  The Meat Lovers Meatless Cookbook, founder of Canning Across America: "Cereal, often without milk."
David Leite,  The New Portugese Table, founder of Leite's Culinaria: "My go-to is cheese. Stinky, stinky cheese."
Nicole Aloni ,  Secrets from a Caterer's Kitchen, founder A Conscious Feast: "Always something Mexican"
Cynthia Nims, Game Night Gourmet , blogs at Mon Appetit: "Coffee and a bowl of bing cherries … and PB&Js!"
Jaden Hair , founder SteamyKitchen: "I come up with the best ideas when my body is in motion, unfortunately, that sometimes means walking en route to kitchen. Crushed, plain potato chips eaten out of a bag with a massive Chinese soup spoon so that I can eat while walking and my hands stay clean. It's not pretty."
Joe Yonan , food editor at  The Washington Post , author of  Serve Yourself :  "I don't have one thing I turn to, but, and this might sound a little silly, but I always try to eat something related to what I'm writing about. You know, so i can be in the mood, use the tastes to inspire memory, etc. So I wrote a memory piece about learning to make chicken fried steak while eating… chicken fried steak. Helps make it feel immediate. "

Note how Joe sounds serious and all literate but then keeps it real with the chicken-fried steak reference, and Amanda kicks hers up with that admission to bourbon. What do you eat when you write about food?

Fish en papillote

Cooking en papillote (French for "parchment") is a wildly overlooked method of cooking in America. It's an easy method for a quick weeknight dinner that's also elegant enough for guests. The smell that escapes when the package is reason enough to try it. This works well for salmon and mild-flavored white fish such as snapper, cod and so on. The best part? No dishes. Just throw the paper away. To assure thorough cooking, fish fillets or chicken breast slices less than a half-inch thick. This works best in parchment paper, but you can also use aluminum foil. Choose ingredients to get a flavor you like. For instance, to get an Asian flavor, use sesame in place of olive oil, add lime, cilantro and ginger to the package, and possibly finely sliced water chestnuts. Serves two.

2 (10 x 12) inch pieces of parchment

2 (4 oz.) piece of fish or thinly sliced chicken breast

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil

Few sprigs of fresh herbs (dill, basil, thyme, rosemary) or a ½ teaspoon dried

Splash of white wine or water

Few thin lemon slices

Pinch of cayenne

Optional: About ½ cup of vegetable for flavor and garnish: shallots, onion, garlic, zucchini, carrot, broccoli, fennel, mushrooms, etc. each finely chopped or sliced

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 Celsius. Fold each sheet in half and cut out a large heart.On one half of each paper heart, drizzle half the olive oil and add generous pinches of of salt and pepper. Add the fish and turn over to coat. Place herbs, lemon, wine and vegetables on top of the fish. Crimp the edges of the parchment or foil and shut carefully to avoid allowing any liquid or steam to escape from the package during cooking. Place the packages on a baking sheet and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes. Allow to sit at least one minute, and then open carefully.

Other good papillote recipes:

-Food 52: Shrimp and roasted tomato fettucine

-French Cooking for Dummies: Whole trout in foil

-Sophistimom: Chicken in paper

A Few Good Food Links

The amazing Molly O'Neill always has something cool going on. Her latest offering: Food Writing 101, a five-week virtual seminar and lecture series. It's meant to be a virtual boot camp for both beginning food writers and established writers looking to polish their skills. 

It's described this way: "Traditionally, writers learned the basics of reporting, writing and pitching their stories in newsrooms, magazines or from book editors. But today, the editors in traditional publishing are often charged with more work than is humanly possible and do not have the time to educate and nurture their writers. This reality is further complicated for writers who are committed to creating their blogs, articles and books independently and from far-flung locales." There's a tiered cost structure, from $50 for a single lesson to $400 for the full-on boot camp.

The Dallas Observer reports Top Chef will cost Texas taxpayers $400,000, give or take the bacon budget. If you have any interest in all in this story, check out the snarky blog Amuse Biatch.  
Mike made a great homemade Puttanesca sauce from a recipe on NeverEnoughThyme. We're both big fans of Lana's great collection of Southern-leaning recipes, most featuring step-by-step instructions.

How to Pose for a Chef Photo

Admittedly, there's something odd about posing for a chef's photo. For the first book, the publicity department at Viking/Penguin felt that I needed photos of me wearing a Le Cordon Bleu jacket. If only I'd had some guidance from Eater NY which has been cataloging various looks. First, one must consider props, such as a comically large knives or even a baby pig, illustrated here by David Chang. (But not both at once, as that reminds people of the final destination for that sweet little bit of pork.) One might be tempted to just stand there and cross your arms to look like a culinary bad ass, but even a simple shift in stance can yield a major redirect in how one comes across.

Notes Eater: "Instead of sitting in a chair the correct way, consider flipping it around and leaning on the back. This shows that you're serious about your work, but you're not a jerk or anything, kind of like that that cool high school English teacher that told you, 'Shakespeare is like hip-hop, but without the beats.' " See how likeable John Delucie appears?

Holding a knife is an obvious choice, as I demonstrate in this 2007 shot for Sharper.  Sometimes this works, sometimes not, as Eater notes. "Are you a gentle soul? Posing with a scary kitchen knife will add some edge to your look. The bigger the better, just don't act like it's anything out-of-the-ordinary." See, I had the same idea as Eric Ripert, but he makes it work while I look, in the words of my husband, like a "homicidal romance novelist." Maybe I needed a bigger knife?

Or, you can do it the way they do it in Portlandia.

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Moules à la Mariniére

Something big happened in my life recently. Taylor Shellfish Farms opened a store in my neighborhood. I'm a huge fan of, well, any shellfish to be honest. But mussels – moules in French - make me weak at the knees. Combined with fries and a crisp glass of white wine, it's probably one of my favorite meals ever.

In France, mussels are often referred to as "moules de bouchot," which isn't a type but a reference to the way they're cultivated for harvest. Mussel growers install large posts along the coastline known as "bouchots" on which the mussels cluster. Legend has it that an Irishman Patrick Walton stumbled on this method after being shipwrecked off the coast of France in the 13th Century. In an attempt to catch birds for food, he strung nets from posts he set up in the water. Later, he noticed the posts were covered with mussels. Today, France has about 700 miles of bouchot posts along its coastline, mostly in the Brittany and Normandy regions. In the Pacific Northwest, the most common method for growing mussels is to suspend ropes from large rafts. The mussels attach to the rope, safely hanging above their common predators which tend to hang out on the bottom. That's how the Taylors do it.

Credit for the winning combination of mussels and fries generally goes to the Belgians, who enthusiastically claim to have invented fried potato sticks and must be constantly irked when the rest of the world – especially Americans – keep referring to them as French fries. (When I lived in London, I lived near a Belgian-themed restaurant named Belgo in which servers dressed as monks offered up pots of mussels accompanied by piles of fries.) But the combination is a ubiquitous menu staple in France.                                                                      

Mussels make for a quick meal. Conduct a wee bit of chopping, eight minutes cooking time and voila, dinner. I like to keep it simple: a little garlic, onion, leek or shallot, a bit of white wine, fresh herbs and a bit of tomato for color. For me, great bread is a key ingredient to assure the sauce doesn't go to waste. Mussels cook most beautifully when steamed, not boiled, so resist the urge to cook them in too much sauce.

Moules à la Mariniére

If you don't have shallots, feel free to substitute onion or leek. I sometimes toss in shredded carrots and finely chopped celery, too. For herbs, straight parsley works fine but I like to work in thyme, oregano and basil if they've available.

2 tablespoons olive oil or butter

2 to 3 shallots, finely chopped, about ¼ cup

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 bay leaf

½ cup chopped tomatoes

½ cup dry white wine

3 tablespoons chopped fresh herb

3 lbs. mussels

2 tablespoons cream (optional)

Salt, coarse pepper

Prepare the mussels by rinsing well, the trimming off the filaments known as "the beard" with a sharp knife or kitchen scissors. Discard any with damaged shells or do not closed when gently tapped.

Place a pot with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat and add the oil. Add the shallots and stir until softened, about two or three minutes. Add the garlic and bay leaf and stir for another minute, then add in the tomatoes and stir until softened. Add the wine, the herbs, a pinch of salt and crank of fresh black pepper and cook until it reduces slightly, about three minutes. Add the mussels, cover and steam for five to seven minutes, shaking the pan from time to time until all the mussels open. (If any don't open after cooking, discard.) If using cream, remove the mussels to a bowl, add it to the cooking liquid and let reduce briefly. Serve the sauce and mussels together while very hot.

Oven-fried Frites

My sister has been making this healthy, simple alternative to classic French fries for years. It's easy to shift the flavor on these. Want truffle fries? Sprinkle with a little truffle oil or salt after cooking. Want something with a kick? Shake on a spicy Cajun spice blend. Be sure to line the bottom of the baking sheet with foil or a silicone baking map to avoid sticking; you can also cook them on a cooling rack settled on a baking sheet, too. I prefer to use Yukon Gold, but your everyday russet works perfectly well in this recipe.

3 large potatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning or paprika

½ teaspoon garlic powder

Sea salt, ground coarse pepper as desired

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Peel the potatoes and cut into either wedges or sticks. Place in a bowl and coat with the oil and seasonings, then put in a single layer on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes, turn if needed and bake another 15 minutes to desired crispness.

French Tip: You can prep potatoes in advance and store in water, but be sure to drain thoroughly and even toss in a clean hand towel to extract excess moisture. Otherwise, the fries will steam from the inside and won't get crispy.

Find recipes for mussels…

- in a curry sauce at My Cooking Hut:

- fire-roasted, over at David Leibovitz:

- in a saffron tomato sauce at HealthyDelicious

A Few Good Links: Supermarket tricks, healthy eats, novice bartending

Forget buy-one-get-one-free, the big news in supermarkets are major "stock up" promotions, such as 5-for-$5 and 10-for-$10 are the new supermarket trend to get consumers to buy more. People should pay attention to this kind of supermarket trickery as it's a recipe for food waste and overconsumption. 

Collectively, Americans toss about 35% of all the food they buy. There's a rampant obesity crisis which disproportionately affects the lowest-income people. It's one thing to buy 10 cans of tomatoes or tuna, but the majority of specials run toward chips, frozen meals, soda, marshmellows and so on.

If you're interested in this sort of info, check out expert Phil Lampert's ultra useful site Supermarket Guru that follows everything that happens behind the aisles, including consumer trends, market analysis and product reviews.

The Boston Globe covered a Tufts University study that unearthed major inaccuracies on the posted calorie counts at both fast food and casual dining. Meanwhile, The Consumerist reported on how McDonald's won't allow parents to request a cup of water instead of milk or soda with their kids Happy Meal. 
Nourish Network: I'm a huge fan of my friend Lia Huber's Nourish Network. While people want to "eat healthy," they struggle with concrete strategies to figure out how to do things such as add more veggies into everyday meals, or make better choices on the go or on a budget. A busy mom herself, Lia offers pragmatic tips from a wider perspective, not just a few recipes. To get an idea what it's all about, check out the free ebook with recipes that I use all the time, notably the oven-fried buttermilk chicken.
12BottleBar: From healthy to non-healthy, but then I guess it's all about moderation. I'm not much of a bartender. In fact, I normally stick to wine. But I love this blog by David Solmonson. His most recent post is on the old-school bar food, pickled eggs. Like other posts, he offers an exhaustive history on the eggs, a recipe and other helpful tips. The store near our farm used to sell pickled eggs when I was a kid, and as he notes, you don't see them anymore. I have a jar of them pickling now. Thanks David.

Self Portrait

As part of an ongoing series of assignments from Penny de los Santos, last week I had to compose a self-portrait. Among the rules: It had to express something about me. I had to push the shutter (no help from anyone else). It needed to something conceptualized and composed, not just a straight photo. It had to tell a story. She finished the list of rules with "Take a breath and just try…leap."

So I thought about what scene might capture some essence of me. How often do we wonder about that? What scene could I place myself into that would tell a story, one that, at least to me, conveyed something essential?

I settled on a scene of me roasting a chicken and drinking a glass of wine as I cooked, my trusty chef's knife on the cutting board at the ready. I think the exposure's a bit off (that chicken looks a bit radioactive) and I had to crop it to avoid showing off the laundry on the table in the background, but I'm OK with it.

There's something strange and curious to the experience of setting up a camera with the sole purpose of shooting a photo of yourself. Not a beautiful plate, not another person, not a landscape. It's a weird kind of self interaction. It made me feel both deeply self conscious and vunerable, yet also a bit liberated. I recommend giving it a try.