eating crabs in the boat shop during a storm

Big storms rolled through Delmarva last evening, with tweets and photos of twisters flying all around. We hung out at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s boat shop, eating crabs with friends old and new. Master shipwright Marc Barto hosts these crab parties from time to time, and always invites any museum wanderers in, to sit at the table and join in the fun.

There’s something about a boat shop. Piles of tools, the smells of wood, projects half-finished. It feels like our old sculpture studio and honestly, I’d rather hang out in a place like this eating crabs with strangers and sharing stories, than spend the evening in the fanciest of restaurants. We met folks traveling up the coast on a big trawler, and people from our own neck of the woods. Such a great time, in spite of the pounding rain and scary skies.

The waves kicked up on the Miles River, and we watched layers of clouds fly fast across the sky. It was beautiful, powerful. And it was a great time – thanks Marc!

Food photography workshop at Eat, Write, Retreat – with Renee Comet and Lisa Cherkasky

Day Two of Eat, Write, Retreat,  the excellent food blogging workshop – was packed with fascinating speakers and topics. We started the day with food photography, led by the sought-after DC team of photographer Renee Comet and food stylist Lisa Cherkasky. These women KNOW food and photography – they do cookbooks, restaurants, the Washington Post, magazines… they’re legendary.

It was fun just to watch them work together. You could tell that they work synchronistically – they would finish each other’s sentences. Instinctively, one would move the food around the set and communicate with the other without using words.

Each of our tables had a chance to get up on the set and deal with a different type of food – avocados, carrots, tomatoes, bean salad, etc. My group got cheap grocery store chocolate chip cookies -  try to make THEM look good. It was tricky…..and I’m not sure we succeeded, but it was fun to observe how different people would change things up to find a good shot.

 

Of course, good equipment has everything to do with taking good photographs. And while lighting is key, natural light is best. They showed us how to use lightboxes, reflectors and white cards, and ways to position the product relative to the natural light from a window.

But a lot of the food bloggers in the room take photos of food after 11 at night, after their kids go to bed. These folks don’t always have the luxury of natural sunlight or setting up elaborate sets – they’re in a hurry to finish cooking, photographing and then blog about it. But honestly, you’d never know it by looking at their sites – there are some pretty amazing images on all of their food blogs.

We looked at different angles – lower isn’t always better and sometimes food does look best photographed from straight above looking down on the plate.  They moved the food around, looked at every possible angle.

Start with the surface – a large element, and build on top of that.

Moisture is everything, and spritzing water doesn’t always work. Lisa uses a paintbrush with oil, then wipes it away with a Qtip. But drips can make the shot – they were clear to stop and look, and look and look. Sometimes they’d both stand up and stand back, almost using a new eye to see what they were doing.

We learned about using dental wax and food coloring and adding darkness to white foods (kitchen bouquet).

Curves are good, and kleenex wicks up moisture better than anything.

Capture steam by using a dark background, remember to use textures and layer with props.

Liquids pop when they have bubbles in them – blow some dish-soapy water into the glass with a straw.

Composition was a big topic. Bloggers shared their favorite tricks. Marbles in the bottom of soup to push the vegetables and noodles to the top.  Hairspray and glycerin to freshen up drying foods, white glue for milk, soaked and microwaved cotton balls that create steam. Etc. It was cool.

They didn’t talk a lot about post production, that would be another workshop – or ten. We did look at some dozen photos of each food, from each group, and evaluated them as a group. I think it’s fair to say that – at least with food, I have a more shrewd eye, as a result of the workshop.

The morning flew by fast. I find myself looking at food and certainly food photos – quite differently now.

So cool.

An Old Time Holiday in Bozman

The village of Bozman celebrated Memorial Day with a parade, a big tent, BBQ, potluck side dishes, balloons, singing, games, prizes, politicians, cupcakes and watermelon. With the possible exception of the kids driving golf carts and mini cars down the road, the celebration could have taken place a hundred years ago. There is a timelessness to holidays in rural villages on the Shore.

Postmistress Kelly Haddaway Bodensick belted out patriotic songs and the crowd sang along. Little Dale May Swan walked around with a tiara and a “Miss Bozman” banner, and even more tiaras were seen in the parade as three “Bozman belles” waved to the crowd from the back of a convertible.  A flock of young mothers fussed over their babies and every third person wore red, white and blue. Boys were spied driving four-wheelers on the green, filling balloons with helium and sneaking around looking guilty. Neavitt native Jeannie Haddaway Riccio, 37th District Delegate and State Senator Richard Colburn rode in the parade and worked the crowd.

Tommy “Buckets” Pisciottia wowed the crowd with his ingenious bucket drums, a pile of recycled plastic buckets turned upside down and taped together as a drum set. With a cymbal and some toe-stomping aluminum cans, Tommy is a one-man band. A kid magnet, Tommy had a gaggle of assistant drummers by the end of the picnic. Funds were raised and prizes won. One lucky Bozmanian won a bushel of crabs from PT Hambleton Seafood Company.

Kids raced around, played hard and nobody left hungry. At the end of the day, the extra food was packed up and whisked off to the St. Michaels food bank. Organizer Mary Bryan said “This event is so fun. These kids really don’t know how special it is to grow up in a small town like this. It’s important to keep these traditions going, and we love to bring everyone together for a great time.”

–Reposted from the Talbot Spy

A Wet Affair – The 20th Annual Chestertown Tea Party Raft Race

Chestertown, seat of Kent County, holds an annual Tea Party event on Memorial Day weekend. The weekend includes two days of fun, including a reenactment of the day that town citizens dumped the tea cargo from a ship on the Chester River following the Boston Tea Party in 1774. I didn’t attend that event, but saw photos in the local paper of costumed “Brits” being tossed into the Chester River. What good American doesn’t like that? It’s in our blood to cheer that on.

For 20 years, Chestertown has held a Tea Party River Raft Race, with entrants from all age groups and walks of life. This year’s event was sponsored by the Chester River Association, which protects and supports clean water efforts on the Chester River. It was a beautiful summer day, and the Chester River was packed with boats of all kinds.

This group brought a crab lunch to enjoy on their boat – great idea!

And as always, some people just can’t get enough screen time….

As usual, this year’s race included clever and imaginative homemade rafts, most of which were actually seaworthy for much of the event. With fourteen different entries and costumes galore, there was plenty for the large crowd to watch. Four kid’s entries started the race, and Team “Flyin’ Hawaiian” definitely looked practiced and steady as they took off and left all of the other boats in their wake. As is typical in these kind of events, the adult boats had a jangled mess at the start, with rafts colliding and heading in every possible direction.

Raft teams chose clever names such as “Sinko De Rafto”, the “Hungry Games”, and “Dead Men Floating” – a team of zombies. There was a replica Delorean with actual smoke coming from it’s exhaust. Two teams named “I’ll Have Another” tried to replicate the winning racer’s chase. One team’s raft was made entirely of plastic swim noodles. Another used paddles made from recycled water bottles, which, although clever, didn’t appear to be particularly effective in moving the boat.

There were a surprising number of people who chose to sit in the tall grass at the river’s edge. You can see some of them below, and my entire body starts to itch as I wonder just how many chigger bites those people woke up with this morning. Hel-lo! Unless you’ve spent your entire life in a city, or are from some distant land without chiggers, anyone sitting in tall grass is just asking for trouble.

The judges were given “excellent” bribes, such as chocolate brownies and champagne, which added to the points teams amassed for awards that included “most impressive failure”.  With a dropping tide and strong winds, all boats eventually made it to the finish, and the crowd split, heading up to Wilmer Park to watch “cow plop bingo”, a game of chance in which a ticket can win $2000 if a large Guernsey cow “plopped” on that ticket’s 4 sq. ft. piece of park land. A fun day was had by all, and more assistance was offered to support the good work of the Chester River Association.

biophilia

…according to Edward O. Wilson means that “we need to affiliate with nature in order to be happy.” He says that this is so deeply rooted in our biology that we are hardly aware of it, but feel it, crave it, require it for health and well-being.

 

My neighbors who work the water would agree. Out on the water in the early morning, feeling the rivers and tributaries, the fish and crabs, clams and oysters, the sands and muddy bottoms…….following the weather and tides and moons. I felt that way recently in the Arboretum, walking in the woods, taking deep breaths of the layers of life. Connected.

“come for lunch?” she said…

the food…..simple and delicious.
the setting….whoa.
the company….soul satisfying.

Thank Youniverse.

Racing on foot, on bikes, on sailboats

It was a busy racing weekend in Talbot County! The inaugural St. Michaels Running Festival attracted over 1400 runners to our small town – a huge success for the first year.

The Tour De Cure in Easton brought cyclists from near and far to support finding a cure for diabetes, and the second annual Elf Classic was like last year – beautiful to behold.  I appreciated Mike Kabler taking me out to chase the sailboats from the entry of the Miles River all the way to the finish.

Most fun of all, we loved the boatpix.com helicopter which swirled all around the boats, taking photos for sale to the owners – they circled us twice. We reminded the 3 kids in the boat that there are a LOT of ways to make a living…….look at these guys!