Feeding My Passion

I made this photo from the kitchen in the Branding Iron, a restaurant that’s been in Merced for more than 52 years. When I was a kid growing up in Merced, it was the best place in town (probably still is) and when my grandfather gave me a choice of any place in town when I turned 9, I chose The Branding Iron.

Wow, that sounds really familiar!

So that was day 1 of my first 30-day series. This is day 30 of my second 30-day series. Besides having a much better camera this time (thanks to my brother-in-law) than than the one I started with, I’m also feeling much better about the photos I’m making under any circumstance, even in this dark environment. And it’s not just the higher ISO. Moments are better, expressions are better, rapport is better. I had A LOT of catching up to do with my classmates, but now I feel confident I only have a lot of catching up to do with my classmates.

My mother was quite determined to get the last of the chocolate transferred into the fondue pot. The fondue was good.

My family has a fever, and the only prescription is more ice cream. Fortunately Gunther’s in Sacramento scratches our near-constant itch.

My dad had mocha almond fudge, my mom had baseball nut (vanilla ice cream with raspberry swirl and peanuts) and Swiss orange chip. I had baseball nut and peanut butter cup, on a sugar cone. My sisters weren’t there, but they sure wished they were.

This may look familiar. Yes, I made pictures of my friend’s sculptures for an earlier daily assignment.

Kamila liked my detail of the mermaid sculpture and wanted prints for her birthday, but she also wanted to see the entire sculpture. Because I wanted the light to match for all of the pictures, when I made the overall picture, I re-made the detail, plus a couple of others I hadn’t seen before. She is happy with the results, and so am I.

One of my favorite things to make from my favorite cuisine in the world, Vietnamese goi cuon. The filling ingredients are pretty flexible, though I’m partial to these: red leaf lettuce, hothouse cucumbers, green onions, rice vermicelli, cilantro, bean sprouts, poached shrimp (cut in half and place in the wrapper skin-side out so the pink shows through like it does here), and mint. We added carrots for a little color, and you can put in other herbs as well, red parilla, thai basil, rau ram, watercress, poached pork, vietnamese chicken or pork sausage (a delicious and subtle forcemeat).

They’re so easy and inexpensive to make, that you can play around with them, people can make their own (I’ve taught classes and friends how to make them several times now.).

We served them with hoisin peanut dipping sauce and Thai tom kha gai (chicken coconut milk soup). Actually, “tom” means boiled, “kha” is galangal, and “gai” is chicken. Since the important thing is the galangal, you can actually vary the protein. The recipe I’m using now is from the inestimable David Thompson’s Thai Food, and he gives a couple two major variations of “dtom khaa” (his Anglicisation), the other with trout which I’d like to try sometime. Here are his head notes for the dtom khaa gai we made:

Although this soup’s name means ‘boiled glalngal’, it has become associated in most people’s minds with chicken. However, many othe ringredients can be used in a dtom kha: fish, shellfish, mushrooms of all kinds, quail and pork are some possibilities.

He also has five variations of tom yum (dtom yam in Thompson, hot and sour soup, made most often with shrimp in the US).

There is a pair of bald eagles nesting at Yosemite Lake, a man-made reservoir and recreational area about 3 miles away. Occasionally they tour the neighborhood, and I ran outside with my camera when I saw one fly by.  It was perched on top of an electrical pole eating a rodent. The longest lens I have is an 85mm, which converts to a 127.5mm on a Nikon D200. So yes, this frame is very, very cropped.

The sky and field behind the after a strong Spring rain.

Columbia, Calif., is a state park, an old gold rush town in the foothills that’s either been very well preserved or very well re-created (or imagined).

I used to go there as a kid both with my family and with classes on field trips. I remember really only two things, the candy shop, and from the candy shop I most remember the gigantic jawbreakers they sold (don’t know whether they made them there), and I remember the blacksmith shop where I once bought a ring made from a horseshoe nail. Which I promptly lost, on a flight I think. Bummed me out for days if I remember correctly. Anyway, the candy shop still sells gigantic jaw breakers (and I saw more than a few kids with them) and I bought a new ring made from a horseshoe nail. Still have it.

The last few pictures are of a very rare stone corral that’s one of two stone corrals on the road to Sonora.

Kamila, on the beach near the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

Day 2 on Shumei’s Santa Cruz Farm, where they use natural methods to grow produce that is beyond organic, at least organic as it is known and certified now. The friend I visited Santa Cruz with, Kamila, is a part of the Shumei organization, and I was fortunate enough to gain access and make pictures there for one of the four sections of my photo essay that is a kind of visual companion to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

What can I say about UC Santa Cruz? Hmmmm…how about WOW! Definitely not a traditional-looking campus, it’s more like a nature preserve set on a hill above Santa Cruz where someone has sprinkled buildings here and there. I might go back to school someday just so I can go to school here.