The Hollywood Farmers Market is a Sunday morning delight, full of sensual experiences from the creeping tendrils of nag champa incense to the taste of sun-warmed berries in the sample trays to the sounds of blues being sung in deep and scratchy Japanese.  During this market tour, we’ll talk about the difference between “certified organic” and “no-spray” farmers, what “local food” means when you live in L.A., and what’s in season, with a couple of special visits to some of my favorite vendors for a “talk and taste” of their best harvests and recipe suggestions.  The end of summer is a festival of abundance at the markets, so we’ll also be talking about smart shopping and getting to know your vendors.

We’re going so early because it’s nice and cool and it’s the best time for a group to listen and learn about the market while the vendors aren’t busy with too many customers.  But not to worry, there will be coffee from Groundwork Coffee Company so we can get our early morning perk.  They’ll also be offering my tour guests a special tour-only discount on their coffee beans.

There will be a lot of walking, so wear comfortable shoes and clothes.  If your are prone to sunburns, you may wish to bring a hat or wear sunscreen as most of the market is uncovered and in open space. Also, this is an adults-only tour, though I loosely define adults as anyone 15 and over.

Details about the meeting location will be provided upon ticket purchase.  Parking is not included in the tour fee.  Ample parking is available at the LA Film School for $5, or if you don’t mind an early morning walk, on adjacent streets in the vicinity of the corner of Ivar and Sunset, or you can walk over from the Hollywood and Vine Metro Station.

REGISTER ASAP!  VERY LIMITED SPACE!

My attraction to cookbooks started early  in my life with my dad’s carefully cataloged library of clipped recipes, magazine folders, and cookbook collections.  There was never an unused book or clipping.  He took notes.  He marked pages with post-its and stickers.  He created binders full of meticulously tabbed clippings.  He taught me very early on that there was nothing really sacred about a book or recipe except in its usability.  Its ability to add to your life was its real value.  And from that I learned to value vintage cookbooks, not for their condition or whether or not they still had their original jacket sleeves, but for their content.  And not just their original content, but what was added later by the book’s owners.

There is nothing to me that is quite like flipping through the pages of a dusty old cookbook, stained from recipe splatter and carefully annotated by a previous owner along the margins with personal thoughts, alterations, and outcomes.  In some ways, it’s a bit like flipping through a meta-diary, the creation of a pre-food blog world that lacks the artifice of the usual self-aggrandizing nature of a blog, this one included.  The words I read were meant for a select few, or maybe even just one, so the language is personal and familial.  I have whole cookbooks full of notes by women who marked recipes according to which members of their families like what.  I have one cookbook that was owned by a man who wrote half and quarter portions of recipe measurements in the margins – a bachelor trying to feed himself well without creating massive servings for people not there.  I love these insights and treasure them almost as much as I do the recipes themselves.

The other reason I love these books so much is because they are markers on a culinary timeline that evolves as fast, or even faster, as our technology does. Each book puts a pin in its year – this is how we ate, drank, and lived – and acts as a tether to a life of flavors we may no longer know except through nostalgia or our fascination with history.

I have a few places where I go to mine the leftovers of someone else’s cookbook libraries.  In some cases, it’s a slightly morbid hobby, especially when I know a recent restocking of the shelves was accomplished through the demise of a one-time homemaker whose family wasn’t interested in keeping her cooking library intact.  There have been a few times when I’ve wanted to find a grandchild of one of these cookbook owners and show them all the personal notes their relative left behind.  They read almost like a culinary memoir, created one meal at a time.

The most treasured of my retail treasure chests I will keep a secret – they are stores that always  have the most interesting titles and collections for pennies on the dollar and I spend hours carefully flipping through their shelves and recipe boxes.  In some cases, the store owners will sit next to me on the floor and offer me a glass of lemonade while we talk about my selections and where they came from.  I had one of those excursions this past weekend and I walked out with an armload of 13 vintage cookbooks.

I have two particular favorites from this haul: a 1923 copy of the Los Angeles Times Prize Cookbook by A.L. Wyman and a 1953 printing of The Cook is in the Parlor by Marguerite Gilbert McCarthy, a once well-known California hostess and wife of a “motion picture lawyer”.  I love them both for two entirely different reasons, but they do have one thing in common.  They are culinary voices from the past of Los Angeles.

The McCarthy book fits my previous description.  It is FULL of personal notes, including one heart-breaking little sentence that reads, “Very sad.  No one liked this recipe but me,” referring to a minestrone recipe that she had crossed out using a big black wax pencil.  Other recipes get gold or red foil stars or little penciled happy faces.  It’s one of the most charming cookbooks I own, thanks to the diligence of this anonymous homemaker.

The LA Times Prize Cookbook has no charm whatsoever. It’s methodical and spare. But what it lacks in flair it more than makes up for in sheer volume of content. Hundreds of recipes line pages measured out in newspaper column inches. The endpapers are splashed with LA Times advertising data, bureau descriptions (they had a mining bureau in 1923? Wild.), and conversion tables. It’s one part cookbook, one part chemistry manual, and one part corporate tool, all of which make for a fascinating read.

The trick with this obsession is making it all fit on my shelves, which with this purchase, I’ve just maxed out. Don’t ask me to cull the herd to make room for others. They aren’t so much books as voices, and mine is now among them.

The original plan was to spend the weekend up in SF and do some wandering. But the schedules didn’t quite work out on the homefront. So I buckled down and decided to do a day trip – 6AM flight up and a 10:30PM flight back. I’d get there in time to try the famous pastries of Tartine and then hoof it over to Contigo, where our workshop would begin at 10AM.

Saying goodbye to SFO from the AirTran to the BART station.

Tartine has this vaguely mythic hold on me. I’m generally wary of liking any one place or food item simply because so many clamor for it. The flip side of that is that where there is fuss there is usually fire.  That fuss said Tartine was the pinnacle of the pastriarchy in California, and they had an acclaimed cookbook to back it up. But I had to know for myself.  Science demanded it. This required getting out of bed at 4AM to make my flight, board BART, and hoof the rest to get to their doorstep 15 minutes before they opened.

Was having a serious case of kitchen envy, looking at all the whisks, bowls, chinois, and pastritastic supplies.

Tartine has no recognizable signage that identifies it as the place for pastry. It sits quietly on the corner of 18th and Guerrero, sporting a glossy black Victorian façade with big picture windows on both the café side and kitchen side. The way you know its Tartine is the line that forms at the door before they open. Fifteen minutes before 9AM the line was 12 people deep. And right at 9AM? The line kept building out the door and down the block.  Cars were dropping off passengers on the corner to save a place in the queue.  Already the Tartine experience was unmatched by any other bakery experience and I hadn’t even ordered yet.  Even what I consider to be the best bakery in Pasadena, Euro Pane, only forms lines out the door when they are understaffed and almost never before they open.
Inside Tartine’s shelves.  What IS that round mound of sweet tart on the bottom shelf? I never asked.  I was too shy.

My Tartine Haiku -
I spy my quarry.
A croissant darker than me.
My world expanded.

Momma.

I kept it simple – chocolate croissant and a cappuccino, though they had mountains of other delectables that I wanted but couldn’t cart home. The deep brown color of the croissant (they bake them deep at Tartine) gave me a little pause. It was so dark that it almost looked burnt .  A quick inspection showed that none of it actually was baked to charcoal black.  But it had a very consistent deep brown coffee color, glossy but not greasy.  One flakey, mess-creating bite told me my concern was unfounded. The croissants I’ve had up until now have been over-buttered, doughy pretenders to the throne. The crispy, caramelized outer shell protected a perfectly baked middle and a thick vein of melted dark Vahlrona chocolate. I tried to savor it. I really did.  One minute it was sitting there on a plate at the communal table by the window, catching the light in a way no other croissant can.  The next, the remains were scattered like coffee-colored snowflakes on the table and my shirt.  It was a decadent start to my sojourn in SF, but not nearly the last.

The J Church looking north and then south along beautifully unkempt rails where wildflowers bloomed.

Google Maps won’t tell you much about how hilly a particular route might be, but they do let you know what local transit is available.  I had planned to take the light rail, affectionately called the J Church, down to 24^th St. to get to Contigo for the workshop.  The funny part was that I had briefly considered hoofing it all the way.  I had never been to this part of SF before.  So when I saw the trademark SF hilly streets between me and the southern side of Castro Street, I nearly choked.  I was more than happy to put up with the grumpy J Church operator.  The creaky little train ambled up through its curvy right-of-way behind old Victorians and nasturtium-covered walls.  I love BART.  I wish LA had a BART-like connection to LAX.  But the J Church is now my favorite piece of public transportation in SF.   It dropped me off about four quirky blocks from Contigo, and I took my sweet time getting there.

Strolling west along 24th Street before the shops opened.

More strolling. Could this day be any prettier?

I arrived at Contigo with time to spare.   The workshop was coordinated by Tara “Tea” Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies fame.  A brief round of meet-and-greet and we were underway.

Tara starts us off with a brief intro while Penny sets up, stage left.

Penny de los Santos, Senior Contributing Photographer to Saveur and National Geographic alum.

Penny’s advice to photographers isn’t revolutionary or groundbreaking.  Its simplicity is its power.  It’s demystifying the sometimes exoticized world of photography and breaking it down into its essential components – storytelling, composition, and light.  There are no hip-banging bags full of heavy and expensive lenses carted around to every location.  And you can kiss multiple camera bodies goodbye, thank God.  She reminded me of one of the first lessons I learned when I picked up the photo bug – f8 and be there.  Your presence and ability to shoot a moment are more important than all the camera equipment in the world.  After her presentation, it was time to put some of that advice to work.  The Contigo crew had plated up a bunch of their signature menu items, all camera and close up ready.  Time to dive in.  I took more pictures than I thought I would, nearly filling what I thought would be a more than ample SD card.  Here are just a few, and I’m going to let them do the talking.

Many many many thanks to Brett and his crew at Contigo for their generosity and time.  Their food and friendliness made a good morning into an even greater one. Go there and eat well.  You will NOT be disappointed.

To be continued…Next up: Part II of Penny in SF – street photography in the Mission District…

There are over 40 farmers markets scheduled for Saturday between Thousand Oaks in the west, all the way to Laguna in the south, and as far east as Riverside. Obviously I can’t hit them all in a day.  My selection criteria? Had to be a market I’ve never been to before, which eliminated about a dozen off the Saturday list. Also, it had to be within a reasonable distance to the homestead – I have a lot going on today and can’t invest in a trek out to Calabasas or Irvine…yet. And they had to be markets that are community-driven. And what I mean by that is that they are markets that fit the community and the community fits them and they dance and chat and talk and connect.

The South Pasadena Market on a still sunny summer evening.

In the decade since I first established my market obsessions in Baltimore, I’ve visited probably 50 markets, give or take a dozen, both here in LA and around the world. A market doesn’t have to be big and bustling to be a slice of community building heaven – I’m looking at you, Honoka’a – I still dream about the aroma coming from a pile of ginger that could have been considered an island in the Hawaii chain. But I digress…

The Hollywood Market on a cold, Sunday morning.

A market should fit snugly into the rhythms of its neighborhood, neither intruding nor hiding away. Just there, like an aunt you like to visit because she has a great orange tree and a good biscuit hand. It’s a hard, and admittedly very subjective balance to achieve, especially when so many cities are told by so many consultants that in order to have a good image, a good quality of life, a well-thought-of city, perceived or otherwise, you have to have a market.  Some grow and morph into little slices of community heaven because they’re given the support and care they need from both the local government and the people that live there.

Some? Well, some are not those things.  Some aren’t really certified California markets, or don’t have much in the way of variety, or are more flea market than farmers, or are facades for larger corporate interests, or are just plain eye sores. No one of these things alone is a total deal killer for me.  Flea markets do have their place and even the smallest of markets – Claremont’s winter markets come to mind – have a warmth and selection that count them among the bigger players when it comes to quality and just plain friendliness.

The three markets I’m visiting today -  Monterey Park, East L.A., and Burbank – are reputed gems of their respective neighborhoods and all for different reasons.  Pictures later. Off to gear up.

I do go to the market though, even on rainy weekends. Most of the markets here in LA are rain-or-shine and I figure if our farmers (I always call them ‘our’ or ‘my’ farmers…it’s as easy as saying my partner/my mom/my friend. It’s not a vocation. It’s a relationship.) are going to go through the trouble of setting up shop in a downpour, I can at least show up and support their efforts. The weather at the market on Saturday morning was very wet and sloppy, and since I’m a bit chicken about pulling out the camera in the rain, even when I swath it cumbersome cling wrap, I managed only all of two pictures, of which this was one.

Bull’s Blood Beets, Weiser Family Farms

Under a tarp that was somewhat scarily bellied with a small pond’s worth of water, I quickly aimed and fired, a subconscious seed planted in my brain that popped open when I scooted over to the Underwood Farms booth to nab some early season artichokes (3 for $5 – not bad). They always have a giant wall of gorgeous beets at the market and the wet weather had washed them clean and saturated their rainbow colors in a most appealing way.

Roasting beets for later use used to be a pretty common habit in my kitchen. But this was the first time in about a year that I had. I like keeping them around for salads and snacking. And it’s such a simple undertaking …

Cut off the tops and tips…

…then peel off the outer skin. Some people leave it on for roasting and then peel, but I prefer this.

I cut them in half for faster roasting and easier storage. You can also leave them whole – just adjust your cook-time. Set them onto foil or parchment – whatever your preferred roasting wrapper is – and then do one of two things: leave them alone or season with a little salt, olive oil, and herbs ( fresh thyme or tarragon are my favorites). If they are fresh-from-the-dirt beets, I leave them be and let their beety goodness shine on its own. If they’ve been ignored in my fridge for a week, I season.

It’s a wrap! Set the packet on a baking sheet (the envelope sometimes leaks) and put it in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or so, depending on the size of your beets. Longer, if you want the beet sugars to caramelize and coat the beets in their own dark amber richness. They become soft and pliant with a rustic and earthy sweetness – sometime too heavy for some people.  These lighter colored beets are much less iron-heavy and veer away from the earthy potency of a darker beet.

Tea at The Scarlet Tea Room in Pasadena. We were parked in a corner so ambient light wasn’t great.  And I refuse to use a flash in a restaurant.

And to be honest, I’m a bit guilty of over doing it. But the other reason I’m almost always parked in f/1.x range is because I’m almost always trying to take shots in very low light – wide open =’s more light. During the day, I’m parked in an office doing all manner of work not at all related to blogging, food, and/or photography. By the time I’m out the door in the morning or walking in at night, the sun isn’t out and I’m taking shots under three different types of light bulbs in a granite-lined kitchen. Yes, a lighting rig for photography is high on the ‘must buy’ list. But for now I make do.

Mom’s cherry and apple pies at Christmas. Lots of dramatic direct light.  The wide open app on this was on purpose.  I wanted to make it seem like the cherry was sneaking up on the apple ala film noir.  A bit overdone. But fun.

I’ve been going through a lot of my photos lately and have been a wee bit disappointed. Tons of narrowly focused shots where about 75% or more of the image was blurred out in a shallow depth of field. Even with the stuff that’s shot outdoors on weekends at the markets. Bad habits, I think. That and lazy photography. So this weekend, I got bold. Daring even.

I shot in f/5 or above almost the whole time. I know! I’m a woman on the edge. I’ve done this before – a few years back I spent a week shooting the whole range of apertures on each of my lenses to teach myself how to better use them.  But it’s been a while since I’ve ventured past F/2.  The results, of which there were many, were mixed. I have a lot of relearning to do. But a few images made me smile because they achieved mostly what I wanted – a nice, mostly in focus picture, without a lot of distracting and overdone background fuzz.

Cauliflower is all about texture – from the leaves to the head.  Wanted to capture it all.  And I think I did.

Artichokes have so much to say from top to bottom with all those layers.  Wanted to get most of the leaves in focus.  Score #2.

I asked the vendor to stand behind these to block the direct sunlight – they would have been blown out otherwise.  Didn’t want to lose the texture of the roots. This was a tougher shot, in part because the vendor had to go help customers and I’d patiently wait for her to come back (she always did, bless her), but also because I had a bunch of people who wanted to know what the big deal was (green garlic, the first of the season) and when they figured it out, surprise, they wanted to buy some.  So I couldn’t linger and play with my settings the way I would have liked to.  I want to get the shot, but I also want to stay in good graces with the people working the market.  I don’t want to become part of the mad world of vegetable paparazzi.

I can probably count on one hand how many jars of jam I go through in a year. I like jam. I just don’t like jam. So I make it when I want it, and in very small batches, usually not meant for preserving in the strictest sense – there is no sterilization of jars, canning bath, or cupboard lined with homemade jams.

I used to do the whole “save the harvest” thing and ended up with over a dozen jars of blood orange marmalade one year after trying to save a bumper crop off the tree. Which is fine, if you like blood orange marmalade. A lot. And if you like giving away your jars of blood orange marmalade. A lot. At the end of a year, I inevitably had jars that would end up emptied into the trash, their contents a mockery of the word “preserved.”

Jamming is just another way to prepare something. It’s an ability that everyone should add to their skill arsenal in the kitchen. Small batch, as-you-want-it jam has the added advantage of being more fruit forward and fresh tasting than something you have to boil twice in order to properly seal it away from the world of microbes. And it’s immediately enjoyable. All you need is some fruit, some sugar, maybe a little pectin, and voila – jam.

Here in SoCal, we get blueberries at the markets year round. And I like blueberry jam, but I’m not so crazy for it that I want or need jars of it sitting around. So I made a nice small batch out of one carton of berries. Just enough for me to enjoy in the coming month or so on some toast as I head out the door. It’s a recipe that can be adapted with small changes for almost any kind of fruit – strawberries, oranges, peaches, raspberries, etc. As you make more jam, like with any cooking skill, you develop a better sense of what each fruit needs more or less of – more pectin for some berries, less for other fruits, more sugar in one to balance the acid, less in another to let the fruit really shine. You’ll get the hang of it.

Blueberry Jam
Makes about ¾ pint

1 carton whole blueberries (about 2-3 cups worth)
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup water
1 Tbs pectin
1 tsp fresh lemon zest

Mix the pectin and sugar while dry and then toss everything into a pot on medium high heat. When the liquid starts to boil, reduce heat to low and maintain a steady simmer. The length of time for cooking a small batch varies according to a few factors, including how much water is in the fruit itself. For a batch this size, I let it cook on very low heat for about 30 minutes uncovered and then check on it every five or ten after that. Test it on a cold plate. When a puddle of syrup on the plate starts to thicken up after a few minutes, your jam is generally done, depending on if you like a soft jam or something that requires more spreading. Cook a little longer for something thicker. The jam will set up as it chills so don’t judge the jam by its warmed state in the pot.

This is after about 25 minutes of low simmering – the berries jammed up really quickly.

When it’s done, put it in a clean jar or Tupperware in your fridge. No sealing required as it’s not jam meant for the cupboard. Though if you wanted to preserve one jar, you could. This recipe makes one full half pint and a half of a half pint – so save the full and fridge the half.

Not the greatest shot in the world, but the only one I took where you could see the real color of the jam. So pretty.  That’s Sunday’s Strawberry Jam next to it – almost gone

I’ll go into the details of actual preserving another time. There are a ton of places you can go to read up about safety precautions and proper technique, the USDA being the most reliable and scientifically tested. But for now, this is jam for jam’s sake.

A writer by trade, who examined food with a trained poet’s eye? And why aren’t there more of them?

Since that first getting-to-know- you set of e-mails, Amy and I have been enjoying the occasional dinner at the house, soaking up the view and some good conversation. During one of these dinners, I had told her  that desserts were the soft point in my repertoire, and she must have stowed that info away.  Because the next time I saw her,  a book was placed gently in my hands, complete with a thick wine-colored satin ribbon set into the page with the cocoa fudge sauce recipe – Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert.

Dessert deficiency or no, I know who Alice Medrich is.  The ganache queen of the north, she raised the bar for how we Americans relate to chocolate.  This particular book of hers (she has a few, and this one was published in 2007, so she’s about due for another) is ingredient-themed, with milk and dairy taking the primero chapter space.  Chocolate, surprisingly, sits in the mundane middle.  But she opens the chapter with a bang – New Bittersweet Brownies.

SJ was hankering for something sweet one night, and after a quick rummaging through the pantry and pulling out a depressing box of milk chocolate Duncan Hines (not mine – from the previous tenants.  NOT a fan of milk chocolate anything), I decided to consult Alice.  And to show my dessert newb-ery, imagine my surprise when I saw the brownie recipe didn’t have a lick of baking powder in it.  I, apparently,  have been led astray.  But the 8 oz. of 70% chocolate (which I had from the Nicole’s Warehouse sale) that the recipe called for made it an easy sell.  Six tablespoons of butter didn’t hurt either.

My giant bar of Valrhona 70% wasn’t the bittersweet chocolate Alice was asking for, so I cut the added sugar in half with perfect results.  I don’t think I’m ever going to settle for another “brownie” again, though to call this a recipe for brownies might lead one to assume this is a rustic, fit-for-kids, sweet desserty snack.  No.  It’s not.  Save it for when you have a nice glass of hand-warmed cognac.

Alice Medrich’s New Bittersweet Brownies

8 oz. bittersweet 70% chocolate
6 Tbs butter, cut into pieces
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar (though I used 1/2 because my chocolate was pretty sweet already)
Scant 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup plus one tbs all-purpose flour

Equipment – 1, 8-inch square pan

Preheat oven to 350 with a rack positioned int he lower third of the oven. Prep a baking pan (she says with foil, I butter/flour it.)

Place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bow and set in a wide skillet of almost-simmering water.  Stir frequently until the mixture is melted and smooth and quite warm.  Remove from pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla with a hand-held mixer on high speed until the eggs are thick and light colored, about two minutes.  Whisk in the warm chocolate and fold in the flour.

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly.  Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 25-30 minutes.

If you can wait, cool the pan on a rack.  We didn’t, and enjoyed them steamy hot out of the oven.

But thankfully, things evolve. And the internet is a lightspeed evolver, wormholing us in a few years time to a place where people are doing amazing things with their blogs. The pictures (and photographers) that have been born from this crucible have not yet ceased to amaze me. Shoot, there’s a whole website dedicated entirely to checkering your brain with some of the most delectable food porn available.

Despite this digital cacophony, the grandaddy forum of food porn is still in old school print. Saveur Magazine. The sometime home of my food photography idol, Penny de los Santos. The birthplace of Canal House Cooking. And since the demise of Gourmet, Saveur has taken a yet more revered place in my heart. I review each shot and watch the lighting, the placement, the styling. I take mental notes. I experiment with a page open nearby to see if I can mimic the feel, the tone of an image. Maybe you do, too?

This is the new world we live in, the product of blogging forcing us to take picture after picture to tell the story the way we want it told. And to do it again and again in each new post. There are some amazingly talented folk out there. People who five or ten years ago wouldn’t have given much of a thought about having their photo be a focus of attention or a point of information. And the liberating part is anyone can do this. Anyone.

But there is that line. We want to evolve. And while the Internet may have formed us? It’s a print publication like Saveur that some of us strive for. And now they are having a cover photo contest.

That screenshot above is the closest I have come to seeing the Saveur title above one of my shots. Even though it’s a contest and it’s on the reader submitted page – I love seeing it there.  And I did take a moment to actually read the contest rules. There’s a lot of the typical contest rule hoohah, but the thing I was looking for was the limit. How many can I enter?

The answer is one.

A few other entrants didn’t read the fine print and have deluged the entry page with a half a dozen images each. Multiple entries, according to the rules, will disqualify you.  Choose carefully.  Choose wisely.  And get input from others that you trust.  I chose the above shot for the contest because SJ loves it.  It’s not my favorite shot, but SJ had a grocery list of reasons why he felt it was Saveur worthy, and all of them made sense.  And in this, where I have emotional ties to not a few of my pictures, I trusted his judgment.

I don’t work for Saveur.  And I’m not an art director.  But I do work with some magazines in my day job and I have an inkling of what makes for a good cover shot.

It’s a magazine cover – so vertical orientations are a good thing.  Choose a shot with decent ‘headspace’ to allow for the Saveur title on top.  The image subject can run into it, but you want the main focus of your image to be much lower.

If you can, choose an image where the lighting is coming more from the right.  Saveur tends to put their content text on the left side of their cover images.  They adjust according to the image, but they have that inclination.

Like you leave room for the header?  Also leave room for that pesky delivery label at the bottom – it’s about two inches up.

Of the past several issues, almost all of them are of prepared food.  I know, I know, I chose a raw food shot, but that’s what I do.  But their big focus is food travel and stellar recipes.

They seem to LOVE texture.  And props.  Gorgeous silverware.  Dulled pewter platters. Wood.  Cloth.  Char marks on the food.  Whatever is appropo to making the food seem more alive.

Enter.  You have until the end of the month.  And good luck!

I love some of the vegetable colors we get this time of year. The purple cauliflower above is just one example. I usually don’t care for it, foodwise – too crunchy raw and when you cook it you lose some of that vividity that drew you in in the first place. But oof, it makes for some delicious looking eye candy.

See what I mean? You can get beets here any time of year. But for some reason in winter, they have these extra shocks of hot pink in them that just sing.

And the greens. Also proof that timing is everything. Five minutes later when I walked past these asparagus at the market they were bathed in blinding sunlight. This is why I go so early in the morning. The lighting can get overly dramatic. Works for some shots. But not a lot.

So what to do with the above? Roast the beets and the cauliflower on high heat with a little salt and olive oil. Peel and gentle steam the asparagus. Chop and toss with a light vinaigrette of white vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, sugar, and a little water. Add fresh chives for pungency and verve. Add the freshest chevre for creaminess.