alexandra’s kitchen: Food Blogging Class In NYC

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Food Blogging Class In NYC

I just returned from a short trip to New York City where I attended a two-hour food blogging class in the Bowery Culinary Center at Whole Foods Market. Matt Armendariz, the teacher and author of the amazing blog mattbites, guided the class through the "ins and outs of food blogging," imparting along the way some invaluable insights and tricks regarding food photography. The photos on his blog — visit a recent post entitled "Sunday and The Perfect Lunch" — and on his new site mattphotographs are stunning. Inspired by the class and matt's photography site, I've put together a mini gallery of food photos, many of which have appeared in my blog. To view the gallery click on the photography link on my alexandracooks web site. For the recipe for these chicken tinga tacos click on the photo of these tacos in the gallery — eventually there will be links to recipes from all of the photos.

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding