Charlie, Emory and the Decadent South (28 photos)

U.S.A.

Jul 212010

While in Savannah, Georgia for Kara and Zach’s wedding, Kelly and I had a chance to spend a day with a couple of Kelly’s good friends from college.

Charlie and Emory had visited us in New York City a few months ago when we all went to a Camera Obscura show at Webster Hall. They live in a house — yes, an actual grown-up house! — in Gainesville, Florida. In honor of Father’s Day (and to see us!) they made the drive back to Charlie’s hometown of Savannah.

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We made plans to meet up for “brunch” (they still do that in the South, right?) after which Emory casually asked, “Do you guys want to go for a swim?” Continue reading »

Vietnamese Grocery Shopping in San Gabriel

Food, U.S.A.

Feb 212010

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It’s not everyday that I’m bringing my big camera to the grocery store. In fact, I’ve lived in New York City for almost a decade and never had the impulse to snap a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. I find myself taking photographs to document experiences, not filling a mandatory checklist of sights to see or brag about the places I’ve been to. I’m not saying this is neither good, bad or even intentional; it just works out that way.

So, there I was at the Hawaii market — which is actually a Vietnamese market — in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles with my parents taking pictures of packaged items in the frozen foods section. Continue reading »

Dinner With Friends in Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, Food

Aug 172009

I live for a good dinner party. So when Emily suggested a cookout with our blogging-minded friends, I jumped at the opportunity.

But the “North Brooklyn Bloggers Banquet” would not be a spectator event, I was alerted. Each participant would either cook or assist in the preparation of a dish and then publish their experiences in a blog post. So, with my camera and a curried squash soup in tow, I joined the group at Liz and Joe‘s lovely apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

There, I found a kitchen full of delicious aromas and Sunday conversations. Beans and corn were being shucked, avocados expertly peeled. Breads and tarts came in and out of a very busy oven. Someone plopped a case of PBR into a bucket of ice. All the while, Kenan, inconspicuous sketched portraits on a simple notepad and Jake screwed on his brand new 50mm 1.2 lens to his 5D Mark II (jealous!).

I helped myself to some delicious rosé from the fridge and then got down to work. And by “work” I mean snapping tipsy shots, sampling sliced tomatoes from the balcony-garden, refilling my glass one more time.

A quick thunderstorm. Some strong sun. Occasionally, we took our drinks to the balcony where a hammock was stretched and looked down at the garden below.

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[Photo of Joe and Emily by Kenan Rubenstein.]

Brooklyn continues to exist as the most magical place I’ve ever lived in. Continue reading »

Breakfast in LA

Food, U.S.A.

Apr 252009

I’m normally a cereal-for-breakfast kind of guy. I stock my cubicle cabinets with multiple varieties of corn flakes and wheat thingies, and alternate them on a daily basis. But not when I’m home visiting my parents in LA.

There, I eat things like spicy goat bone marrow soup, with all the hanging layers of fat, muscle, tendons in tact. Yes, for breakfast. It’s really delicious. There’s hardly any meat, and the idea is you sop up the goodness that comes out of the bone marrow and mixes with the broth for several hours (overnight ) and sop it up with some simple thin, homemade roti (flatbread). Since it’s just broth and bread (and tendons and things), it doesn’t even feel that heavy. It’s just spicy and good.

But yes, it’s not cereal of eggs or pancakes, but the idea of breakfast in Bangladesh is very different from here. There, you eat a full breakfast to fuel you for all the manual labor you’ll be doing, anything from cutting bricks to hand-picking rice from paddies from sunrise to sunset. It’s hard to do that if all you ate were syrup and waffles.

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A Southern Barbecue Experience

Food, ON THE ROAD, U.S.A.

Dec 232008

At age 27, I’m ashamed to admit as a fanatic carnivore, I’ve never had proper barbecue until today. Sure, I’ve been around it, smelled it. sampled it. I was even fortunate enough to attend the Big Apple BBQ festival as a member of the press a couple of years ago. The greatest barbecue chefs from all over the country gathered at Madison Square Park and fed me to my heart’s content, for gratis! But I wouldn’t even count that as a proper barbecue experience.

The big problem is I don’t eat pork, which of course, is the centerpiece to any barbecue. I used to avoid it for religious reasons but now since I’m not used to the taste, I just don’t enjoy it as much as beef or lamb or any other red or white meat. So I’ve always ate around barbecues, loading up on collard greens and macaroni and cheese and nibbling at a couple of riblets at a friend’s barbecue for the sake of being polite. Continue reading »