It’s been a little while since I’ve posted on the status of The Big Project – not because there’s been no progress, of course. I’ve just been a bad blog friend. Sorry about that.

But here I am now to give you some of the scoop! First of all, branding. Maybe you caught my announcement of the new wedding portfolio site, where you can see the wedding version of my new logo in action. If not, let’s put a spotlight on the logo, because I for one have a hard time getting enough of it.

Man, I am so. . . stoked. . . about the job Andrew Voss has done so far on design. (And by the way, I never use the word stoked.) He hit it out of the park, as far as I’m concerned. It’s modern but authentic, sophisticated yet hand-hewn. I love it, and I feel like it speaks to my photographic style perfectly. Big props to Mr. Voss for the logo and the layouts he’s come up with for my print portfolio, postcards, letterhead, business cards. . . the whole works. I can’t wait to unleash the green side on the world in the coming weeks.

The wedding site was accompanied by a new print portfolio book, housed in a spectacular hand made slip cover and cover made by the immensely talented Scott Mullenberg. If you’re in the market for a custom book maker, you couldn’t do better than Scott. His product is absolutely top notch, he’s creative, responsive, and professional. I’ll be using him for my non-wedding portfolios, and for all high end wedding albums I produce.

Once the wedding site and book were wrapped up, I moved on to marketing my wedding business. Compared to last year in particular, the rate of bookings for 2010 has been gangbusters so far, and I think a lot of the credit for that should go to Andrew’s beautiful design and Selina Maytreya’s editing and sequencing of the images used. I’ve had nothing but fun working with these guys, and I feel like I’m projecting a much more true idea of my capabilities to the world, which feels great.

In other wedding news, I will be the preferred photographer for events at Solera Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, which is particularly exciting because I have so much respect for the food they put out. I photographed a wedding there last June and had a great time using their bright colors and wide windows and views of Minneapolis as my backdrop. Hopefully I’ll be there lots more in the months to come.

Most recently, this week Selina and I have been at work editing my non-wedding work. They’re still in a bit of flux, but here are the sequences for the three galleries I’ll be relaunching my site and print portfolio with as they stand today.

Portraits

Foodies

Sun City

Having this new edit is super energizing; working on your own portfolio by yourself, it’s easy to get bogged down in your attachment to certain images and your own individual artistic sensibility. Working with another person you trust – especially someone like Selina, who has a ton of experience in the industry – clarifies the work you do, and how it holds together as a whole. I really like the way these images flow one to the next to lead a viewer through some of the best of what I’ve photographed so far. It’ll be fun to package it all up and throw it to the winds in 2010.

Josh Hill has been around the Minneapolis food scene for a long time. After starting out in New York, he moved to town and worked at Goodfellow’s. Then he opened Cosmos. Then he opened the Red Stag Supper Club. Now he’s Executive Chef for W Hotels in the Foshay Tower, running Manny’s, Prohibition, and the Living Room.

Josh is one focused dude, like the other chefs I’ve met this year. He’s organized, straightforward, always moving. And man, can he cook. For last night’s Sample Circuit in the Living Room he sent out a huge assortment of dishes, forming a huge spectrum from comfort food (beef tamales, pigs in the blanket with Fisher Farms pork), to gourmet (curried king crab sushi roll, crostini with rare beef, roquefort, and smoked tomato marmalade), and points in between (truffled deviled eggs, scallop and kobe beef sliders).

Aside from actually eating and photographing all this amazing food, my favorite moment from the night illustrates another side to Josh. It was getting to the end of the evening, and the pigs in a blanket had run out. They were, after all, delicious, and made of pig. My friend Val noticed the absence of the pigs, grabbed Josh, and pretty much demanded more. (You’ve got to know Val to understand that this isn’t particularly surprising behavior.) It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Josh to blow her off, say sorry, how about some lamb meatballs instead? But he said he knew where there were ‘a few more,’ ran off, and three minutes later came back with a small plate loaded with pigs in blanket, just for Val.

That, my friends, is how to build a fan club.

Last image from the night: not the best picture I’ve ever taken of my wife Johanna, but we just had to get a shot of these Diva Glass Slippers given to her and Val. Like a coozy, but for your wine glass! Brilliant!

Johanna really wanted an Obama one, too, but all that were left were white Obamas, and that just didn’t seem right.

When I started the latest photo shoot for the Sample Circuit, I figured I had a pretty good idea what I was in for: hang out with chef Craig Johnson and shoot some portraits, showcase their new restaurant space in a way that highlighted its deck and general Mediterranean-ness, shoot some food. Then they said they wanted a shot of owner Tony Nicklow with one of their signature dishes, saganaki. Turns out saganaki is an Asiago-like Greek cheese that is doused in brandy tableside then lit on fire. Flames erupt, everyone yells “OPA!” the flames recede, and the tray is set in front of the happy diners.

Now that’s a subject! First of all, you’ve got to know that I love cheese. Second, beautiful as the new Santorini is, it’s not actually the Mediterranean. It’s a very nice restaurant in an Eden Prairie strip mall. Tough to muster maximum excitement for that kind of setting. But you throw in some flaming imported dairy, held by a guy who’s been serving this dish for over 30 years? My attention had been piqued.

But first, chef Craig Johnson. Great guy, fun photo subject in part because he actually did the non-standard things I asked him to. Case in point.

Then it was time for Tony and saganaki. A testament to his true professionalism: no eyebrows were harmed in the making of this image.

OK, I’ve got to apologize in advance: this is the post where I reveal the full extent of my ability to geek out over food. Be forewarned.

Food is fascinating for so many reasons. It’s an art form, a vast sector of the economy, a focus of many communal experiences, a basic human need. Cooking is a broad spectrum from the most simple to the extremely complex, and each point on along the way has its own distinct kind of deliciousness.

One of the newer points on the food complexity spectrum is on the high end – it’s molecular gastronomy, and it’s a worldwide trend in cutting edge cheffing. What is this molecular gastronomy? It’s post-modernism on a plate. Familiar dishes deconstructed and presented in small, surprisingly presented, multi-sensory, highly distilled packages. Here in Minneapolis, our representative on the cutting edge is Hakan Lundberg Chef de Cuisine at Cosmos Restaurant. The dude is kind of a magician.

Here’s his fois gras plate:

Served with dried fruit compote, pistachio pickled watermelon radish, and. . . more fois gras mousse frozen in liquid nitrogen. The frozen bits look crunchy and jagged on the plate, but get them in your mouth and they melt and transform in seconds. Here are a couple shots of the making of the plate:

Breaking up the frozen mousse:

Another example: fruit ‘explosions,’ served between courses as a palette cleanser. Now I’m blanking on the exact flavors involved (strawberry and melon?), but the juice is frozen in to semi-circular forms, then dropped in to a warm solution that forms a thin gelatin layer as the juice thaws. The globe of juice is floated in another juice and served as a shooter:

And as you bite the globe, it explodes and the flavors merge. Pretty fun.

For entree-style fun, here’s a photo of the lamb chop as served.

Before being brought to the table, wood charcoal is fired, the smoke is caught in the glass globe and placed over a cut of lamb belly. Like the highest-end smoked bacon. And such a cool effect when the globe is lifted – like a micro camp fire in the middle of this beautiful dining room.

It’s fun to encounter a style of cooking that hits you in such different and unexpected ways. Obviously I’m only touching a small (and probably not the most representative) tip of what Hakan’s cuisine is all about – we only had a couple hours to hang out – but it’s the kind of experience that opens up new possibilities. Hakan is himself a blogger, so definitely check it out and see what kind of tricks he comes up with on a regular basis. And, of course, get yourself to the Sample Circuit to get your ticket to the event hosted at Cosmos Wednesday, June 3. It’ll be a party.

More at chrisbohnhoff.com