Back To Where We Were

Balthazar, a French bistro in SoHo NYC, holds a special place in my heart. Sure they serve my favorite duck confit dish but this place is so much more than that.

My sister, Connie, had somehow found this place on the internet while she was apartment hunting with me in June 2003. We took the red eye and landing in a rainy (and at times pouring) NYC. We had spent the day wandering around with a broker and put down deposit for a place in Astoria (though of course the next day I found another place in the UES and got my deposit back). So after a long tiring day in the streets of NYC, we went to Balthazar for a nice cozy meal. My friends, that meal not only made my tummy happy it also recharged my soul.

And ever since then, I would go back once in a while. Almost every time I would get the same two things, a French onion soup and the duck confit.

Balthazar 80 Spring St.

Great Food Photos: Marie Pierre Morel

Last April I wrote a little thing about this awesome pork cookbook I got for my birthday, Pork & Sons by Stephane Reynaud. Flipping through the book I was so inspired by the simple and beautiful photos. The photos were rustic and there weren't much "food styling props" to clutter the photos. So you should know how excited I was when Marie Pierre Morel, the photographer for the cookbook, allowed me to ask her few questions!

Q. Can you tell me what you’re trying to capture when you take your food photos? A. Nothing else but food with humor or poesy.

Q. Have you always been interested in photography? If not, when and why did you decide to start taking photos? A. Yes, from the age of 15.

Q. What inspires you? A. Natural light, colors, and composition.

Q. How would you describe your photography style? A. Simplicity and natural light.

Q. Any food photography heroes? If not any photography heroes?Irving Penn, Robert Frank, Bernard Plossu, and Abelardo Morell.

Q. Best meal so far in 2011? A. Alexandre Gauthier where I was recently for a service, the first meal I had there, when I was alone with frogs "meunière" and a glass of St Aubin nice for the mouth (le palais en français) and for the eyes.

All photos courtesy of Marie Pierre Morel

Pork & Sons By Stephane Reynaud

I received this cookbook for my birthday. It's a giant, cute and beautiful cookbook written by Stephane Reynaud, owner and chef of Restaurant Villa 9 trois just outside of Paris, France. Marie-Pierre Morel was the photographer and she beautifully documented everything about the lives of butchers. Accompanied by the words of Stephane Reynaud where he remembered his first pig killing with his grandfather. And really awesome pig illustrations by Jose Reis de Matos really made this cookbook more than a cookbook. It's a great journey of celebrating tradition, farm-to-table and nose to tail eating. I'm excited to dive into this cookbook but some of the recipes are REALLY hardcore.