Nothing too tricky about these photos, just people accosted in public by a stranger with a camera while eating their midday meal. As you can tell, some were only too happy to share in their moment of respite, others not so much. I’d put my success rate (success being defined as allowing me to photograph them) at right around 50%, which I feel is a fairly good representation of the state of Minnesota Nice in the Minneapolis area these days.

Down the hatch!

None of this would have happened if not for the involvement of Asher Miller, Executive Chef, Wolfgang Puck’s 20.21 Restaurant. The challenge I posed to Asher was to come up with twists on traditional road trip dishes and prepare them on the road – practically on the roadway itself, as it turned out. To my continued amazement, he accepted the challenge, and invited some friends and family along for the ride. So what did he come up with?

• Watermelon cubes with feta crumbles & balsamic
• Deviled eggs
• Local cheese plate, featuring blueberry & raspberry cheddars and aged gouda
• Tuna carpaccio atop crostini with citrus greens
• Mini burgers on homemade buns
• Grilled quail
• Potato salad
• Assorted Surly beers

The food was incredible, the weather perfect. Judging by the smiles in the photos, I think the lesson is that a well-crafted piece of food can drown out quite a bit of road noise.

One more thanks to pass on, and that goes to Rachel Sherwood, food stylist extraordinaire, for her invaluable help wrangling props and making Asher’s delicious food look its best.

I’ll be posting my first behind the scenes video from the shoot in the days (weeks?) to come, so stay tuned!

When I think of school lunches I remember back to some pretty bland, mediocre stuff: the most basic of dishes, with the bare minimum of fruits and vegetables. So I was surprised and heartened to learn more about what Jean’s got going in St. Paul.

Menus have expanded to offer dishes representative of St. Paul’s diverse population. Efforts are made to source ingredients locally. Student helpers scrape food waste into compost bins prior to sending the trays to the dishwasher. As I don’t have kids myself I’m not really up on the state of school food programs in general, but what they’ve done in St. Paul gives me hope.

Not only that; the lunch ladies were super nice.

Some images from the story:

I’d definitely recommend checking out the Growing Lots Blog for all the details about what Stefan is up to. It’s inspiring. The general gist goes like this: you hear ‘farm’ and ‘abandoned parking lot’ and you assume that the black top has been ripped out, right? Nope. Stefan is creating beds right over the top. The original concept of covering the whole plot with soil in one swoop didn’t work out, so he’s been going little by little, adding on to the main bed as he’s ready to plant more seedlings. He’s also experimenting with these ingenious planters (made of tomato cages, straw, and soil clocking in at about $1.75 each to construct) that hold an incredible number of plants for such a small footprint.

Mostly by chance, I stopped by on the morning of the farm’s first CSA share pick up day. Here’s Stefan harvesting some kale for one of the CSA boxes.

Hopefully I’ll have a chance to stop by in a month to check the farm’s progress. As the early season greens are harvested, late season things like brassicas and melons are just sprouting up, and I’m excited to see what the farm will look like as Stefan finds more ways to innovate and pull food from the urban landscape.

Portrait of a true urban farmer:

From what I can gather, Stef eats a lot of cereal: for breakfast, as a comfort food after any kind of trip, and as a late night snack. Usually the snack is a mix of little bits of all the cereal varieties she has in the cupboard (five on my visit) in a glass or ramekin.

Something that I’ve noticed on these shoots is the beautiful release of tension that people get when they start eating a familiar, delicious piece of food. People can be a little apprehensive about having their picture taken, and then, once the first bite of snack hits the tongue, bam. A sigh, a low hum of contentment, a smile. Aaaaahhh.

Enjoy!

When photographing executives – or any busy person, really – you never know how receptive they will be to the photographic process. My magazine contact had asked for a fairly ambitious list of images: a group shot of James working with his team, and environmental portraits in three or four locations. Which is great, as long as the subject is willing and able to give a couple hours of time and attention to the process. Luckily, James was up for it, and I’m really thrilled with the photos. In particular, the shot above is one of my favorites in recent memory, in large part because it tells much of the story of James’s origins, as well as where he is today. It’s a personal image, and it’s not every subject that allows me in to create truly personal portraits.

Thanks again to James for his generosity of time and spirit. And more thanks to his assistant Angela for showing me around on my pre-shoot scouting trip and coordinating logistics.

The cover story was shot at the Seward Child Care Center. They’ve received a neighborhood grant from the coop to teach their kids about food. One of the teaching tools is a compost bucket, which they keep underneath the fish tank. They feed it their lunch scraps, and leaves, and keep it watered, checking in with the worms and keeping ‘em happy. If there’s one thing you want it’s happy worms. Ask any of these kids, they’ll tell you the same thing.

Next up was a house remodeled to Gold LEED certification a couple years ago – amazing and very personal in the way they used materials that in most remodel projects would’ve been chucked in the dumpster, to make a super livable and beautiful new home. Definitely check out the magazine for the whole story on this staircase and all the other sustainable touches. Pretty inspiring.

Lastly, we’re entering the inaugural year of Growing Lots, a new farm being created right on top of an old parking lot. It will operate on the community supported agriculture (CSA) model, which is a fairly cutting-edge idea for an urban core area not on one of the coasts. I got to photograph the team at Seward Redesign, an incredibly innovative real estate development firm who is sponsoring the project (among the many projects they’ve got going, all enhancing sustainability and livability in the Seward neighborhood).

How great a client is the Seward Coop, sending me to meet all these amazing folks?

My wife was a little apprehensive that my treats wouldn’t be up to the high standards of her club, or that enthusiasm for the photo project wouldn’t be there. But (a.) I know my way around a treat club, my friends, and (b.) give a crowd a couple dozen pastries and a small keg of caffeine, and you’ll get yourself some enthusiasm. I’m happy to say that the shoot was a success. Witness:

Faxin' 'n' treatin' - oh yeah!

Many thanks to the Third Floor North Treat Club for graciously hosting. May your treats always be plentiful and hand crafted.

A fine example of a snack cave

Now I’ve definitely got a certain amount of loyalty to the Birchwood Cafe – it’s the neighborhood deli in my neighborhood, after all – but I’ve got to shout out to the Cheeky Monkey Deli in St. Paul too. Beautiful fresh bread. These amazingly airy homemade potato chips. Organic meats. It’s the good stuff.

Cheeky Monkey is my friend Sarah’s neighborhood neighborhood deli, so I called her up to see if she’d be interested in letting me take pictures of her with a meatloaf sandwich – one of the signature dishes at the deli. As it turns out, Sarah orders the meatloaf sammie every time she goes to Cheeky Monkey. Her husband Craig has traveled the menu, but not Sarah. And, as she told me, every time a meatloaf sandwich lands in front of her she makes this face:

and that’s one of the reasons she’s my friend. : )

Here are a few more photos from our lunchtime shoot. Thanks loads to the fine folks at Cheeky Monkey for their hospitality and for plating up such photogenic and delicious food. Hopefully we can collaborate again.

What’s your favorite neighborhood joint? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

The magnificent Pot Roast Sandwich. Oh, the pickled onions. Ah, the horseradish sauce. . .