Congratulations to Steven Brown on the successful opening of his new restaurant, Tilia, in Linden Hills. Andrew Zimmern posted a stellar review yesterday on one of his blogs, which I’m sure will be followed by more praise from the other critics in town.

Photographing the chefs and food that went in to The Culinary Mistress, we ended up setting up our roving photo studio in some. . . nontraditional spaces in order to accommodate the schedule of a chef: dining rooms during service, kitchens, back hallways crowded with ladders and spare 4-tops. My favorites were the chefs we photographed who were in the process of developing their next restaurant: Stewart Woodman prior to the opening of Heidi’s, Stephen Trojahn during the Gastro Truck off-season, and Steven Brown during the lead up to the newly-opened Tilia. Since these chefs didn’t have restaurants for us to invade, they opened their homes to us. And since there wasn’t the crush of responsibilities generally pressing down on an executive chef in the restaurant, we were able to have some great conversations.

Steven talked about the gastro-pub trend of the past several years, and about how the public’s growing embrace of craft beers has mirrored his own shift toward a cuisine that is much more approachable and affordable, but still well thought out and crafted. Based on Zimmern’s review, it sounds like Tilia is a perfect realization of Steven’s latest food thoughts, as well as exactly what tons of people (me included) are looking for these days in a restaurant.

Chris Damskey is one stylish dude. Maybe it was because he was on vacation, in town for the weekend on his way to a friend’s wedding, but what impressed me photographing chef Damskey was his cool and ease. I guess another factor could’ve been that we got to roam outside for his portraits, since the weather had yet to turn over to winter, and being out in the world always helps a person feel more natural in front of the camera. In any case, Chris was great to hang out with for a few minutes, and a great portrait subject.

Chris’s recipes, prepared by Sea Change Executive Chef Erik Anderson, reflected his cool, and went perfectly with author Geri Wolf’s art direction: vivid reds and oranges in all three of his dishes, giving a very contemporary, saturated look to each plate. The carrot broth in particular, being poured from above in the book photograph, photographed beautifully.

Pastry chefs are magicians. They take raw ingredients, add some science, and come up with tastes and shapes and textures that are just. . . fun.

Diane Yang, of La Belle Vie fame, is one of the top, most talented pastry chefs in town. She’s also particularly nice and easy to work with. In fact, of all the chefs featured in “The Culinary Mistress,” Diane was one of the toughest to get to not smile. But just like any chef, she can kick ass when necessary, so we got through our shoot with some great images.

A quick story (fun fact?) from our shoot for the Culinary Mistress at Saffron. Sameh Wadi and his brother Saed told us about a piece of unfinished business of their father’s that they intend to finish for him: an encyclopedic cookbook of Palestinian cuisine. Their father’s manuscript – which he had finished but was never able to have published – rests in wait until Sameh and Saed can make their contribution to it with contemporary recipes and techniques. Sameh clearly draws a lot of joy and meaning from his relationship to his family’s food traditions, at once honoring them and expanding them. Not everyone has such a strong rationale for how or why they cook, and I have a lot of respect for the amount of personal meaning Sameh puts in to his livelihood.

A couple other things to pass on. The serious portrait poses fit beautifully with Geri Wolf’s art direction for the overall aesthetic of the book, but when you meet Sameh you sense immediately that he is FAR from as serious as he looks here. No one portrait can reflect every facet of a person’s personality; Sameh has an easily-accessible serious side that we explored on these portraits, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to reflect his other sides on another shoot someday. Also, we got to sample the small plates pictured below, and if you think all hummus and baba ghanoush are created equal, think again. Sameh’s subtle spicing took dishes I thought I knew and transformed them completely.

Congratulations to the Wadi brothers for all the accolades that they have recently received!

In case you missed it, earlier this week, The Culinary Mistress, a cookbook I photographed last November and December, was successfully launched into the world. For Geri Wolf, the author, the book is a tribute to some of the Twin Cities’ top chefs, and the quickfire completion of a long held dream. For me, it was the perfect opportunity to combine two of my core photographic specialties – portraits and food – and a chance to spend a little quality time with some of the most creative, gutsy people in town. Now that the book exists and is ready for sale, I’m SUPER excited to be able to show you some of my favorite images collected for the book.

To kick things off I thought I’d start with Stewart Woodman, in honor of the opening of his latest creation just yesterday, Heidi’s Minneapolis. Since Heidi’s was weeks away from opening its doors, we used Stewart’s dining room for the shoot. Led Zeppelin was on the stereo, the living room was wallpapered with various restaurant opening-related lists scribbled on white butcher paper, and a team of four chefs churned out the sea bass recipe Stewart contributed to the book.

Stewart, aka Shefzilla, has a certain reputation around town as a man whose passions for his craft sometimes spill over onto the spicy side of the thermometer. But sadly, I can’t add to the legend; true, I was only around for a few hours, but what I experienced was a confident, friendly, cohesive bunch of people. And the sea bass? Holy crap, it was delicious.