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The Weekly Newsletter for September 3-7, 2012 |
The Honey Cookbook progresses
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| Label thoughts for the book |
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Oh what fun this is! Last Sunday was the first photo shoot for The Fresh Honey Cookbook! We had a gloriously sunny day at my house. The bees were in fine fettle, mostly behaving themselves (we had one sting all day...)
I thought it'd be fun to show you bits and pieces of the day. I must say that shooting food takes enormous patience - much more than I have. Fortunately this crackerjack team is very skilled with styling and waiting for the light to be just right. WAY more patient than I am. |
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In the bees |
The book is a cookbook first, but there is a lot of bee information too. Johnny suited up and got as close as he could to take close up snaps of me in my bees. We saw everything we could have hoped for: the workers, the drones, the Queen!, honey, babies, lots of action. It was as if the girls knew they were needed for this very special project. I, for one, was delighted to get everything I wanted to show.
Can't wait to see the book - um, it'll take until this time next year to be done. (Can you believe that? Talk about patience!) |
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| Dinners to go for the week |
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Monday is Labor Day and we will be closed
Tuesday, September 4
Chick Pea Cakes with Tomato Basil Salad 7.25
Wednesday, September 5
Chicken Baked in Wine with Egg Noodles 7.95
Thursday, September 6
Local Beef Bolognese with Bowtie Pasta and Garlic Bread 9.95
Friday, September 7
Salmon Teriyaki 9.95
Call by noon and we'll have your dinner ready at 3. You can stop by to pick yours up until we close at 7. Add Salad (3.25) or bread (1.25) if you like. |
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Laurey's |
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Casserole and Lasagnas to go |
Casserole to go:
Wednesday, September 5
Seafood Paella
Whole: 62 (serves 9-12)
Half: 31 (serves 4-5)
Lasagna to go:
Friday, September 7
Spinach Lover's lasagna
Whole: 38 Half: 19
Call by noon and then come pick up between 3 and 7 |
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| Smoking the bees |
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Smoke calms things down. I mostly visit my bees without smoke, because I know it disturbs them. But I also knew I was going to be messing around with them for a longer amount of time than usual, and also, with a second person involved, I lit up the smoker and used it to calm us all down.
The guard bees get riled up when the hive is disturbed but smoke calms them down. I send great praise to the Johnny and Charlotte, who conducted themselves very calmly - not so easy to do when bees are swirling around. |
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Sheesh - a star turn for the shrimp! |
Here's a shot of the computer looking at a possible cover shot. My what a lot of attention! Yes, I have a strong idea of how I want the food to look, and fortunately Charlotte understands my aesthetic. We settled into a nice groove. After discussing the recipe and the look of the food, I presented a model of the shot and she followed behind me to do the real plate.
The hilarious thing is that I toss a plate together, making quick order of the thing. Charlotte follows behind, manipulating each bit of tomato and each sliver of basil with tweezers. She trimmed little pieces off the shrimp to make them look, well, barbered. Oh my! |
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| Finessing the tomatoes |
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See what I mean? Tweezers!
True confessions: we wanted a picture of a bee sipping water from one of my upended wine bottles. None of the bees seemed interested so we staged the shot with a no-longer-living bee. The tweezers came in handy for that too. |
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Precise grill marks |
| And even though we grilled the shrimp skewers Charlotte enhanced them by searing new marks onto them. SO funny! I mean, I know that food styling is an art and it is SO great that my friend knows how to do this. It would never occur to me to do the things she did. But she knows what it takes to make food look really nice. I know what to do to make it taste great - but that, in a photograph, is superfluous. |
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| A word or two from Laurey |
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September 1, 2012
Is it true? Another Rabbit Rabbit day already? Yesterday we had a Blue Moon and now, just like that, it is September. Town is quiet today which feels nice. We have a bit of Hurricane Isaac in the air, with unusual clouds swirling around. It is warm but a lot of folks are not here – maybe they scooted to the beach for a last swim before school and fall start in earnest. For me it feels like a touch of my earlier days in Asheville, before the streets were jammed with visitors. I LIKE the visitors, but I also like these quieter days.
It has been a fun week for me. Well, in and out of not fun. But yes, mostly it has been fun. I got a call from Livestrong asking about my bike size and now I hear that my new bike has been ordered and will be shipped to Liberty Bikes, our local Trek dealer. In a short time I’ll have it and that will be swell!
As you see also, I had a really fun day observing the photography for my book. It makes it all so very exciting! I mean, I’ve been so focused on the words all this time. Recipes, bee information, honey information, that sort of thing. But to watch it go to the next step is a bit thrill. My mother’s books (she wrote 5, you know) were wonderful cookbooks but there was no photography in them. She did little pen and ink illustrations but that was really before glossy pictures were a part of most books. I find myself following in her steps a lot, but catch myself living within the norms of her time. Just because her books were not accompanied by photographs does not mean that mine should not be. Ha! Funny how these sorts of things catch me by surprise.
Tomorrow and Monday will be the next photo sessions. Tomorrow we will shoot the chapter openers: twelve pictures of honey with the things that they come from. Avocado honey with an avocado; Sage Honey with fresh sage…get it? And then on Monday we’ll take some pictures of me cooking. All fun.
In the meantime, well, things just move along. The bees are beginning to hunker down, gathering the last of the summer nectar. My garden has a lot of Goldenrod, Phlox, flowering Lespedisia and other things. I hope they have enough to collect to get through the winter. This beekeeping stuff is a big challenge as you know. One of my mentors lost all the honey in one of her hives this past week – stolen from some marauders from another hive. The bears have done big damage to hives this year too – destroying entire apiaries from folks I know. Even with the experts there are no guarantees. But we plug along.
Okey doke – time to gather materials for tomorrow’s photo shoot.
I do hope you have a nice Labor Day weekend.
I’ll be in touch next week.
Cheers,
Laurey |
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Tye Masterton supervises |
This dog of mine is quite the watch dog. She watches everything. Mostly she stays out of the way, but she is always ready and very willing to hop into a picture.
She's a wonderful companion and I hope she makes it into the book in some way or other. |
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