PHOTOGRAPHY: In the garden . . .

Fresh picked yellow pear tomatoes in the bath

I can hardly tear myself away.  My camera sits on the counter by the door when I’m home.  I watch for the right light, for the sun to hit those leaves just perfectly, bringing out the texture and fragrance, and I go out and shoot. 

I need the thyme

This garden season is winding down and I’ve been photographing the progress and bounty since the seeds hit the dirt.  From the first emergence from the soil to the time they came to the kitchen, my camera has been as much a part of my gardening tools as watering can.

fell in love with the peppers early on

I thought I’d share the results of my hard work.  Hope you enjoy each little detail as much as I do.

Lots of bee activity on the sunflowers



Tomatoes early in the summer



Soon, tiny green tomatoes

Then a nice little group

Then into the harvest basket

ready to eat . . . yum!

 

portugal hot peppers

love the little guy

after a while, they got all twisty

then they got picked

nice harvest

late summer

containers bursting with peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and flowers

pots of peppers



beautiful basil



rosemary



sage with water droplets



all comes together for some awesome salsa

pretty and fragrant lilies



row of morning glories against that blue sky



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and then the sunflowers bloomed



love the bright yellow against that blue sky

love how they twist and intwined

feels like you could just slide right in

just look at them so hard at work

the tomatoes and green beans ready to eat

something very satifying about eating what you grow yourself

That's the end of my self indulgent food porn for today.  I would love to hear from anyone who enjoys photographing their garden's success and harvest.  Is there anyone so obsessed? 

On to the newest thing . . . the hummingbirds.  Beware.

Life in Maine: The Lore of Lobster or How to cook a lobster

It may be hard to believe this: We really only eat lobster a few times a year here in Maine. Of course, I can’t speak for every Maine resident. Heck, I have heard of some Mainers who don’t even like lobster. Given the way the state is marketed to visitors, you would think that most meals in Maine homes have a lobster component. The truth is that eating lobster is usually reserved for an occasion. Unless you have a direct lobster connection, which I do not, lobster is expensive to buy, even if you’re living mere miles from the sea.

I have a confession to make. I’ve only had one lobster this year. It was a beauty, though. It was a hard shelled 1 ½ pounder whose claws required a hatchet to crack open. We brought two of them home to cook, against my better judgment. In the past, I have preferred to request that the lobster pound or fish monger cook the crustaceans for me. I don’t own a lobster pot. In fact, I wasn’t really sure HOW to cook it. Steam or boil? For how long? How do I know when it’s done?




Perhaps by this point you’re questioning my native Mainer status, thinking that I should turn in my resident ID card.

My husband apparently has done this before and said that steaming is what restaurants do as it preserves the flavor. He set about filling the largest pot we have. My daughter and I hung around the kitchen, poking the bag of live lobsters. When the water was boiling, my husband took one of the lobsters out of the bag and made him face his fate, head first into the pot. The lobster flapped his tail and kicked his little crawling legs. A claw tapped the glass cover. We decided that next time we’ll have the store cook it or at least use a cover we couldn’t see through.

I'm not much for killing.  I eat meat but don't want to lead the cow into the kitchen to prepare her for dinner.

Call me what you want.  I just winced and looked away when that lobster clamoured to get out.  Wimp.

The pot was too small for the two lobsters to be cooked at the same time. While the first one was changing colors, my daughter and I took the other one out to check it out. We set it on the kitchen floor. Our cat was cautious and curious. He sniffed the creature as it tried to creep across the floor. He got in pretty close, as did I to get this photo.

When cooked and cracked, they were packed with meat and very tasty with butter. My father tells me that this time of year – May and early June – is the best time to eat lobster. They haven’t molted so the shells are still really hard and full of meat. Late June to October the shells are soft. Hard shell lobsters are harder to eat, given that you need tools. Soft shell lobsters are usually less expensive. That won’t be the case in restaurants, but in the markets, the prices usually go down. The soft shell lobsters tend to get over cooked because people cook them for just as long as the hard shelled ones (another reason to have your lobster pound cook them) so the meat will be overcooked and tougher. If you’re coming to Maine and intend to have a lobster or two while you’re here, I suggest that you do so pretty soon. My friends Mitch and Dawn have a restaurant in Boothbay Harbor that’s awesome. It’s called The Lobster Dock. Here’s their website: http://www.thelobsterdock.com/. Tell them I sent you.

So that I – a Mainer –don’t find myself  not knowing how to cook a lobster, I looked up some of the major points. This was a very helpful website: http://www.lobsterhelp.com/

Lobster Cooking Times

For steaming a lobster

Lobster Weight Cooking Time

1 - 1 ¼ lb. 10 - 12 minutes

1 ¼ - 2 lb. 12 - 18 minutes

2-3 lb. 18 - 25 minutes

3-6 lb. 25 - 40 minutes

6-7 lb. 40 - 60 minutes

8 lb. and over 7 minutes per pound

How Do I Know When The Lobster Is Cooked?

Lobsters will turn their characteristic bright red color well before the meat is thoroughly cooked inside. Follow these easy tips to ensure that the lobster is cooked.

 Tug on an antennae or pull off one of the small walking legs. They both will come off easily when the lobster is done.

 The meat inside the lobster will be firm, white and opaque The tomalley, which fills much of the body cavity will be greenish-yellow.

 The roe in female lobsters will be bright orange-red and firm. If it is a dark greenish-black, with an oily tar-like consistency, the lobster is under cooked.

 The internal temperature should be 180 F (80 C)

Shoot the fruit (and veggies)

I am food obsessed. I love planning our menu for the week. I even love - gulp - grocery shopping. Now, like so many other families, we are on a budget of sorts and I try to save money when I shop. Not only do I get the coupons out of the newspapers, I subscribe to the coupon websites, so I get a slew of coupon emails every week. I also have requested that the local grocery stores' circulars be emailed to me as well. Saturday morning comes and I am often at the kitchen table with coupons and my sale lists. I coordinate our weekly menu accordingly, factoring in the usual mom kind of stuff like how we need quickly prepared meals on guitar lesson night. My husband is great at getting the meals ready for us to pull together when we get home. The other night - taco night - he did all the prep work while we were gone. Take a look at this. He's awesome, right?

I also love to take photographs of food. The colors and textures are as captivating as those of flowers. Recently we went to Whole Foods in Portland. Joe and I had gone once before (we don't get to the big city much) and I had remembered how beautiful the food displays were. So this time I came prepared. When we arrived, my husband knew that I was planning on taking pictures in the market on a busy Sunday morning and therefore would embarrass him. Some people get squeamish if someone they're with calls attention to themselves and therefore anyone associated with them. My daughter wasn't fazed and in fact, hollered across the produce department, "Hey Mom, check out the avocados!" So, with Joe slinking over to the organic hummus and Nola juggling the lemons, I started taking photos of the amazingly displayed peppers - a personal favorite - the carrots, the zucchini, the summer squash - it was all too much. No other department holds the riot of color that the produce department does. There was a guy working there, putting out some new veggies, and prior to the first click, I asked permission to shoot the fruit. Turns out he had just moved from Bangor to Portland and had worked at our local natural food store, so he was more than accomodating. I complimented his produce and, thought he could have, he didn't take the credit for the array. He said they have a guy whose job it is to prepare the display. Amazing. We call this "food porn". Here is some of his awesome work.

I'm also a huge fan of farmer's markets for this same reason. The baskets of tomatoes, piles of potatoes, and those fabulous wooden crates of greens just suck me right in. Most folks are pretty cool about my photographing their goods. Sometimes I actually buy something.



I rarely take my camera to my local supermarket. I'm there for business. Get the stuff on my list. Get it for the best price I can. Get out. Get it home and get it put away.

Perhaps I should reconsider this. Take a look around your local markets and see what you can see. They say that you should eat the rainbow - in colors on your plate - and if this stuff is any indication of what's available in the market, it's going to be a delicious road to the end of the rainbow.


oh - one last image to share from my visit to Whole Foods. This was a couple of weeks before Easer and I couldn't resist.

Remind me to write about my obsession with signs sometime