Beets Resprouting

It’s amazing. After a long winter of storage these beets are bursting with life. As a kid, I remember taking potatoes with toothpicks and sitting them in a glass of water to sprout. Sounds lame when you compare that to surfing the web for half pipes in San Diego or looking for used laboratory equipment for your next science project on eBay.

I can’t find anything about eating or preparing resprouting beets, or other vegetables for that matter, but I have to guess that they’re at the market for a reason. Does anyone know how to prepare resprouting veggies?

01/09/2010 - Akamaru Modern Ramen at Ippudo, NYC

I put an ad up on Craigslist in February for a food stylist and much to my surprise, there were responses from 2 chefs: Corey Earling, the third place runner up from Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen (season four) and Rob Endelman, a wonderful natural food chef and educator.

These responses plus responses from 5 other established food stylists and one dessert chef left me stunned. I never expected such great talent to respond to my posting.

This winter I started making my own udon and ramen at home. I’d been eating out regularly at Setagaya Ramen, Rai Rai Ken and Ippudo, each within a few blocks of each other, and each bowl of ramen is so very different in taste and appearance, it intrigued me. So it was bound to happen; this all started to migrate to my home cooking and somewhere along the way, I got the notion to shoot food and thus, the posting on Craigslist.

Everyone is so thrilled to be collaborating toward a vision and style that expands each of our individual books. I’m really looking forward to this new endeavor.

And I love the fact that digital food photography isn’t something that can be done with 3-D.

12:37PM, 3/10/2010 - Apricot Blossoms for Sale in Union Square Market

Nothing says “Spring” like twigs with blossoms. So, I’m going to assume winter is officially over, even if we still have 10 days to go.

Somehow, mushrooms don’t say “Spring” at all.

Injury and Recovery, Back Pain

After a lifetime of back pain, I am now starting my third year of life, pain-free. A little over two years ago, Dr. Doug Schottenstein, treated my chronic back pain with a facet block. The procedure is called radiofrequency (RF) rhizotomy and basically, he just disabled the nerves and the pain stopped almost overnight.

As a photographer, this was a lifetime of debilitating pain that was relentless and constantly affected my ability to work. Simply breathing could feel like a raw nerve being poked with an electrical cable and it got worse from there.  I worked in fear, always wondering when I would have my next episode of raw, knee buckling, back pain.

It’s gone now and I’ve nearly forgotten what it’s like, except for the occasional reminder of a twinge.

That’s okay. It’s humbling instead of debilitating.