New Mexico in Lambertville

A few weeks ago we were virtually transported to New Mexico. Not much makes us happier than the thought of New Mexico (except for actually being there). But this was pretty good. We spent four very full days shooting pictures for a new cookbook that our friend Andy will be publishing through his new publishing company, Leaf Storm Press. The cookbook is by Lynn Cline and the working title is The Maverick Cookbook. It takes you on a journey through dishes and meals of famous characters that called New Mexico home. Georgia O'Keeffe, Gustave Baumann, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Dennis Hopper, Fred Harvey, Billy the Kid and others. It's going to be a beautiful book, and after a week of making and eating the recipes, a delicious one!

Also, check out our Instagram feed, it's (andweate). We are trying to keep it interesting, so you need to look at the feed in grid format to see it. Let us know what you think.

Thanks!

G+K

Kick-ass ice-cream

Where: The Bent Spoon, Princeton, NJ Who: Gabrielle Carbone and Matt Errico

Why: Its their 10 year Anniversary this week! Go get some ice-cream.

I am not sure if we have mentioned that we used to live in Santa Fe, NM, and Sicily, and New York, and, yes!, in Brooklyn too. But we have landed here in NJ. Many people would, (and do), ask why? It is too long of story to get into but what is important is that we are happy, we are near family and we can get really good, really fresh ingredients that we love to cook with.

Plus we can find other people (like the Bent Spoon people) who also like to make incredibly good things with the best ingredients. Lucky us! And there is none of that Brooklyn hipper-than-thou attitude (we have our own sort of attitude to deal with in Jersey, thank you very much!)

On another note, this portrait of Gabrielle is one of my favorites that I made in the last few months. Sort of Patti Smith meets artisanal ice-cream.

Shoot today

And this happened today... a shoot for Applegate Kitchens. Tasty sandwiches.

People Eating: Elio

I like pictures of beautiful food. I like beautiful pictures of food. But what is meant to happen to that food? Hopefully it will be eaten, enjoyed, appreciated; happily. This is something I want to start seeing more of. It should be an interesting challenge because who wants a picture of himself eating? I started with Elio the other day after making these little potato croquettes (Banatages) from the gorgeous and under-appreciated book, Medina Kitchen by Fiona Dunlop. This book focuses on the cooking of North Africa and I hope to cook from it a lot and report back here. So this is my first try with the book and my first try with pics of someone eating (along with beautiful pictures of beautiful food). Fortunately Elio liked these, because that was dinner!

10,000 hours

Back in December, we spent two and a half crazy weeks developing and photographing 50 recipes for Food & Wine's online site. It was actually fun, and the creative and physical challenge really inspired us, in that Malcolm Gladwell–10,000 hours sort of way. Food & Wine just started to post the recipes and photos to their site, and we are thrilled that they have asked us to do more! So if you live nearby, or are thinking of visiting, here's some advice: April would be a good time to pop in, you'll eat well. And often. These are some outtakes that we particularly like from the first go-round. See all the recipes and pics here. We would love to hear if anyone cooks these recipes--if you do, let us know. Comment on F&W and/or take a picture and post it on our Facebook or your Instagram so we can check it out!

(un)intentional

When Guy and I met, I remember being surprised by a collection of dried-up tea bags tacked up along one wall of his kitchen. A tiny art installation, made of an ordinary thing that I had thrown out thousands of time, turned lovely by focus... One of my favorite food photos that Guy ever took was a Polaroid of two pomegranates that had sat on the windowsill above the sink for too long. They had dried in the New Mexico sun, becoming wizened maracas. But their dusky color stayed true, darkening only a little with age...

Our fridge is always overflowing, so most fruit stays out, surrounding us in bowls and on plates, masquerading as centerpieces. Stuck on shelves near the water glasses. Usually the fruit gets eaten in time, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it gets fed to the chickens, sometimes it gets tossed, and sometimes it keeps sitting there, becoming very old and turning into something completely new.

Grilling for Applegate Farms

Capricious Mother Nature and her sun kept us guessing most of the day, but finally the light was right and we were able to dive into this grilling shoot. An old friend dropped in just as we were finishing up—always a nice way to end the week!

6 months, blood, sweat, untold amounts of money, one lost chicken, countless mosquito bites and an endless battle with a determined groundhog for this…our first egg

Grazie #gordonconvery (at Eataly)