I feel the need at this point to admit that I don’t love kale. I mean, it’s no chard.

But this stuff beckoned to me, with its color palette and texture. And while it’s not my favorite, make no mistake: I will eat it. Soon. Probably stewed, with sweet potatoes.

Once you start looking at vegetables, it’s easy to get mesmerized: the colors, the textures, the variety between individual pieces.

I returned to the studio from Heartland Market with a bulb of fennel, which is fun for its contrasts. The very sturdy and layered bulb gives way to amazingly delicate fronds. I tried to do justice to both identities here.

Many thanks to my friend and photo colleague Mette Nielsen for the prop loaners. So nice to have friends with good taste.

A couple weeks ago I got a call about a project from Rachel Sherwood, my favorite food stylist. As often happens, it was a last-minute need for an image. Unlike most, though, the call came at 9:00AM on a Saturday. The shot needed to happen the next day.

But when duty calls and leaves you a message, you call back. And as it turned out, it led to a couple of firsts for me.

The client was Giggles Campfire Grill, one of my favorite food vendors at the Minnesota State Fair, and they have a new dish for this year’s Great Get Together: Northwoods Salad on a Stick. Here it is, in all its glory:

Giggles wanted to make a splash, following up on the splash they already made this spring, when they were featured on The View; they wanted Salad on a Stick on billboards and bus shelters surrounding the fairgrounds. An unheard of marketing coup for a State Fair food vendor.

Now, like many many Minnesotans, I’m nuts for our State Fair: until recently, with the influx of food trucks in Mpls and St. Paul, the fair was about the only place to stroll and stuff yourself on simple portable foods (one of my favorite food categories). So any opportunity to work in connection with the fair. . . I’m there. Plus, I’d never shot anything for outdoor use. Two birds, one dish on a stick!

Which is how I came to meet Rachel at Gabe’s in the Park (another fine property owned by the Giggles folks) at 9AM on a Sunday. We set up in their game room, Sunday morning gospel on the sound system, beautiful salad on our minds. Here are a couple behind the scenes snaps of the glamour:

If you’re on the University of Minnesota campus, or driving south on Snelling in the vicinity of the fair, keep your eyes peeled for the billboard and bus shelters. And it goes without saying that you should get yourself a nice, healthy salad on a stick this year at the fair!

One of the moments I’m most proud of from the Culinary Mistress project happened during my shoot with Lenny Russo of Heartland Restaurant & Farm Direct Market: Lenny was intrigued by an appetizer recipe I was kicking around in my head.

As a portrait photographer, one of the main challenges I’m continually faced with is how to break the ice with my subjects and create some semblance of a relationship very quickly. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it doesn’t happen. But with Lenny I had a perfect in. The shoot was two days before Thanksgiving, and the next day I was co-hosting a pre-Thanksgiving party. I didn’t exactly know what I was going to make for an appetizer, but as I was checking out at the coop a few days prior, the cashier had seen my container of buttermilk and mentioned she was going to make a parsnip pie. Now I was mulling that idea over, trying to think of how I could make parsnip pie in to an app. And what better giver of advice of one of the true champions of local ingredients and deliciousness than chef Russo?

Lenny joined me in the dining room and as I took a few test shots, I told him about the recipe I was trying to come up with: phyllo cups filled with pureed parsnips and. . . what? To my surprise, Lenny gave it some real thought. Not that I didn’t think he would be courteous; I just have a lot of respect for him as a chef, and not a lot of respect for my own culinary talents. But he said, “Hmm. Interesting. Was this your idea?” I conveniently forgot my conversation with the coop checker and claimed it as my own. But after the initial interest, he proceeded to pretty much shoot me down. First, he wouldn’t use parsnips so early in a meal. Second, phyllo cups are clearly way too bush league. “What you really need to do is come back here and get some high quality lard from the Farm Direct Market and make yourself some proper crusts.” Points taken.

As it turned out, I didn’t get any pointers on my recipe, but our conversation definitely got Lenny in a good place for photos. And if you ever see a parsnip pie on the Heartland menu, think of me.

By the way, if you want to cook like Lenny Russo or any of the other chefs I’m highlighting here, you’ve got to get your hands on the Culinary Mistress. You’ll find the recipes for the dishes pictured, and more fun personal facts about the people behind the food.

A few months back I shot a story for Food Management Magazine profiling Jean Ronnei, the Director of Nutrition and Commercial Services for St. Paul Public Schools. I met Jean at one of the public schools some portraits, then I stuck around to photograph a {gulp} lunch hour. Yes, it was a melee.

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: