Max's Restaurant

Sep 21st, 2010

Max’s Restaurant

Sous vide. I’d been reading about it for years. It’s one of those gastro-alchemy gimmick things that Thomas Keller and my headbanger friend (and St. John’s grad) Jeth gets into. I was pretty psyched to have the opportunity to see sous vide in action in Chef Mark Connell’s immaculate kitchen at Max’s Restaurant. It’s the […]

Atrisco Cafe

Sep 18th, 2010

Atrisco Cafe

“What’s your opinion on lard?” That’s how I met George Gundrey, owner of Atrisco Cafe, and his esteemed mother. George comes from a long line of good food establishments. Since his grandmother’s first restaurant in Albuquerque, his folks, his aunts and uncles are responsible for New Mexican food icons like Tia Sophias and Tomasita’s. George’s […]

Growing Real Food Nation II

Sep 7th, 2010

Growing Real Food Nation II

In February, 2010, I began documenting the new approach to being a restaurant – from cultivation to supper club to compost – embodied by Real Food Nation. When I began shooting in February, I had little sense of the potential hidden in the the dry dirt acreage behind the restaurant. Throughout the year, grower Kathy […]

Pizzeria Da Lino

Jul 13th, 2010

Pizzeria Da Lino

Owner & Chef Lino Pertusini takes his pizza seriously. So seriously that when he decided to make Pizza, he wasn’t satisfied with simply serving it up in his already i his Santa Fe landmark italian restaurant, Osteria D’assisi. No, Lino needed a new location, Pizzeria Da Lino dedicated exclusively to the fine art of Making The […]

Eating Real Food Nation

May 19th, 2010

Eating Real Food Nation

It’s one thing to wax philosophic with friends about what good food grown right means. It’s another thing entirely to open a restaurant to prove it. That’s exactly what owners Blyth Timken and Andrew MacLauchlan and chef Kim Müller have done with Real Food Nation. In addition to my ongoing personal project documenting sustainable and […]

Growing Real Food Nation

Feb 19th, 2010

Growing Real Food Nation

in 2007, Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” changed the way I see farming, cooking, eating. I’d been hearing phrases like “Slow Food” for years, without really absorbing what it meant. I grew up mere miles from Alice Waters’ iconic Chez Panisse – and thought this whole concept of creating cuisine from locally sourced ingredients sounded pretty […]

Harry's Roadhouse

Jan 18th, 2010

Harry’s Roadhouse

The magic of movies is in the sense of scale – everything is bolder, brighter, bigger than in Real Life. By that measure, Harry’s Roadhouse is from a movie – it looks the part, it smells the part and tastes the part of the mythic country road neighborhood diner. Thing is: all that vivid color, […]

Counter Culture

Jan 15th, 2010

Counter Culture

Usually when I go to Counter Culture, it’s about sitting in a warm cocoon of caffeine, insanely sweet smelling cinnamon buns… It took being there on assignment to discover the careful design details that make it such a great place to hang out.

Jacona Winery

Sep 20th, 2009

Jacona Winery

Go figure. I was born and raised in Northern California, spent countless seemingly endless summer days in tow with my Zinfandel advocate parents going from Sonoma county tasting room to tasting room…. and it took moving to Northern New Mexico to see my first harvest. A full on pinot noir harvest a half mile from my front […]

Terra Encantado Wine Cellar

Aug 26th, 2009

Terra Encantado Wine Cellar

There was an actual wine key. I love that. The glass wine cellar at Terra Encantado with beverage director Michel Darmon. The beauty of the cellar at Terra Encantado is its the visibility of its design – usually cellars are hidden away, not displayed for the incredible collections they are.