Work, Potatoes with Life Lessons and Loree

Yep! I'm at it again! Working at the photo studio. Do you want to come along and see what I've done?



What? No?



Oh.



Okay....sorry to bother you.



Hey! Wait! This is MY blog. If you don't want to come to work with me, you just point that cursor to that red box with the white "X" and get outta here!



Sheesh. Ungrateful Internets.



Okay. Here we go.



You know where we need to go first? Do you?



In my business, this will always be the answer: "To the grocery store." Always. This question will be on the final exam, so file it away in the ol' hard drive, people.



Here we are at one of the nice ones. Brand new in Northeast Mpls. Not too far from the studio. This store is so great that I almost try to go there for every shoot.
Anyway, we've got to get some red potatoes. The ones I found the day before at that other store (with the harsh lighting) had skins that were too thin.



Ha! Did you hear that? The potatoes had skins that were too thin.



This brings us to a new feature on this blog.....Life Lessons Through Food.



MJ will laugh at this because we've been learning life lessons through food together for about 12 years. It's times like these where I'm reminded how much I want to work with MJ every day.

Because I miss her.

And nobody else thinks the life lessons are the least bit funny.

So then I sit there and giggle to myself and everybody thinks I'm a crazy person.



Okay. So I get to the studio and the first thing I do is grab some of Dave the Photographer's delicious coffee. It's really really strong. And made from the very best beans.
Yummy.
But I need some milk to tone it down a little bit...........oh look!
No milk...........but there is some HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM!!!!

Don't you judge me!

Okay. I need to sort out the potatoes and pick the best ones (life lesson).

It's kind of hard to tell which ones are the best when you first look at them.

All I know is: They shouldn't be too small or too big:

A little character is a good thing. You don't want (your potato) to be too perfect.

Sometimes, though? You find out that very character you loved so much in the beginning? Well....it's too much. It's just not working the way you thought it would.

Sometimes (potatoes) things aren't classically beautiful.......But they're almost so ugly that they're cute:

And you know what? Sometimes life hurts. And once in a while you'll get stabbed in the back. Don't worry, it happens to all of us. You just need to let it go.

Okay. Lessons over. But they were useful, right?

So I baked up my potatoes and now I need to scoop out the innards for Pegi, the food stylist. I try to make them as beautiful as possible. I futz around and figure out that I need to use a melon baller to get a nice edge on the potato. Then I need to trim the skins with a little scissors because they get a little raggedy:

After all of this, lunch came. The studio caters in lunch every day. Today was Asian. After lunch, the potatoes that Pegi styled and baked up need a little freshening up.......a"facial" perhaps? Pegi gives them a little steam.

Now I go into the other kitchen to bother my pal Loree. 'Memba her? She's the one who turned 50 and got the hair-brained idea to run a marathon to "celebrate". Freak.

Anyway, Loree just styled a thick, juicy steak for a grill shot. Here's Mara, our hand model. Kevin, the photographer, will take a close-up of the steak and of Mara "flipping" the steak.

Isn't Mara just tiny and cute? The grill has fake, glowing coals. I love the fake glowing coals.

This is my old new best friend, Loree, with Mara.

Loree just found the love of her life at age 50. She knew him years ago when she was in the Coast Guard and reconnected with him through the wondrous Internet! Exciting, huh? And he's sounds so sweet that I now have a mouthful of cavities from listening to her nauseating stories of all of the sweet things he says to her.

Okay, I've gotta go. More on Loree and Mara another time!