Food: baked artichokes with bread crumbs & anchovies

The weather in New York was brutally cold on Friday and Saturday.  I began to feel like a need a brief getaway to some where warm and sunny, like Miami, Mexico, Hawaii or….  Don’t think I can afford the vacation time now, but at least I can go to restaurants like Rosa Maria, where you can sit under the banana plants while enjoying a good guacamole.  Well, winter is not good for outdoor portrait shooting, but is a good time to watch a movie or cook at home and take some food photos.  So  after seeing “Up in the Air” by George Clooney, which I thought is a pretty good movie, I bought some artichokes from Whole Foods, $2 each, grown from California.  I made a rather classic dish, stuffed with bread crumbs and anchovies.  I am happy with the photos, and love the lemon flavor with the anchovies in the bread crumbs.  Let me know if any of you have tried with other stuffings!!

Food: Tomatoes

Last Friday, I bought a bunch of tomatoes from Whole Foods.  Tomatoes are reliable source of Vitamin A and C and they make delicious dishes.  However, I don’t know what to do with them yet.  May be a tomatoes spread on a bruchetta?  Tomato pie?  bake? (No.. all the vitamins will be lost in high temperature).  Well, I am sure I will come out with something later.  Before I make a mess, I decided to take some shots in my kitchen.  This is a high resolution shot, if you take a closer look, you can even see the tiny hair on the stalk!!

Food: 猪肉饺子/Pork Dumpling

Oh boy..I love food and dumpling is one of my favourite snack.  This pork dumpling from Lanzhou Lamien Shop at Doyer Street is so delicious.  I took this shot with their dumpling at my own home settings.  What else can be better than starting your day with a freshly hand-made dumpling.  It tastes heavenly and check it out if you are around Chinatown in Manhattan.

汉唐乐府:韩熙载夜宴图 / Hantangyuefu: Hanxizai night banquet

韩熙载夜宴图

Part of the scroll painting depicting the night banquet of Hanxizai by Gu Hongzhong (AD 910-980)

It was friday night, I met up with my 琴(Qin) tutor, Peiyou, at the Joyce Theater in Chealsea aroung 7:45pm.  As usual, I greeted Peiyou as 老师(laoshi), meaning teacher.  We were so excited about the show as it is one of the master piece of 陈美娥(Chen Mei O), a staggering art director bringing one of the oldest Chinese theatrical type - 梨园(liyuan) theater – back to modern busy life.  The show is based on the famous Chinese scroll painting of 韩熙载(Hanxizai) entertaining his guests with lavish night banquet at his courtyard.  The painting was done by 顾闳中(Gu Hongzhong; AD910—980) during the 五代南唐(wudai nantang) period.  Hanxizai was born in Shangdong, Beihai.  He escaped down to the south during the uprising of the Northern Song and wanted to serve the Southern Tang government.   However being a northerner, the emperor 李煜(Liyu) has been hesitating in employing him, fearing he might be a spy for Northern Song.  To avoid others suspicion and accusation, Hanxizai indulged himself in epicurious life style, drinking, banqueting, dance and music.  Although emperor Liyu hesitating in employing him, he still wish Hanxizai will show some dedication to serve his government.  Imagine this: Your boss said you are good but refuse to promote you, and wanted 100% dedication from you.  Hell no!!  That’s why I won’t blame Hanxizai being a slacker.  I would do the same thing!! >_<

Emperor Liyu had great respect to Hanxizai and thought of an indirect way of telling Hanxizai of his concerns.  Instead of direct confrontation, Emperor Liyu ordered Gu Hongzhong, the court artist, to attend Hanxizai banquet, memorised the banquet scenes, then painted all down on a scroll.   The scroll was then presented to Hanxizai as a kind reminder.  Basically it was like in our contemporary wordings: “Hey, you got to stop drinking and having too much fun.  Get some work done.  I leave you alone but don’t get too crazy!!!”.  But of course Hanxizai was a clever and learned man, he knew all this was just an intended superficial disgiuse.  Emperor Liyu was known for his love of art especially in painting, caligraphy and poems.  No wonder he chose to paint the evidence but not in writing. Cool!!

Thanks to this dramatic historical event, we are now able to understand how was the entertaining, furniture, clothing, music, tea ceremony and food culture of Chinese in the past.  The entire show comprises of six chapters as appear in the scroll painting:  沉吟/Deep Doze, 清吹/light blow, 听乐/Listen music, 歇息/Recess, 观舞/Watch Dance, 散宴/End banquet.

I especially drawn to the beautiful traditional Chinese clothes – 汉服(hanfu) - made by Oscar winner Tim Yip and the subtlety of the 南管(nanguan)  instruments.  The lady who play the 琵琶(pipa) while singing has a beautiful voice and throughout the show the performance was done with elegance puppetry movement.  There are acts showing 花道(huadao)/flower arrangement, 茶道(chadao)/tea ceremony, 艺伎(yiji)/or “geisha” entertaining guests and all kinds of interesting musical/percussion instruments.  I wish I could get up close to take their portraits as the costume and makeup were outstanding, but sitting at 6th row away from the stage, this is as good as I could get.   My personal rating: ***** plus two thumbs up!!

Visit the Hangtangyuefu website:

link: http://www.hantang.com.tw

Roasted Pumpkin with Hazelnut Salad

I always remember that Halloween is also the birthday of my niece, 紫萤/Ziying, literally means “purple firefly”.  I called my ealdest brother, Weixiong, and wish his daughter, now 13 year-old,  a happy birthday this morning. 

Halloween is one of my favourite holiday and I suppose to join my friends and gear up for the Halloween photo shooting tonight.  But, it was raining, fearing the rain will ruin my camera, so I decided to cancel my trip down to the village.  Instead, I decided to make a roasted pumpkin with hazelnut salad for dinner.  >_<

Pumpkin has an earthy flavor, and it goes well with roasted hazelnut, tahini (sesame paste), garlic and cumin.  The source was made by mixing 2 tablespoon tahini, 1/2 cup plain yoghurt, 1 teaspoon freshly chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and 1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin.  This is also good as a spread for biscuit or flat middle east bread. 

I baked the cubed pumpkins with spanish olive oil and fresh ground pepper at 350F for about 20 minutes until golden brown.  I also roasted the hazelnut in the oven until the skins start splitting. 

The baby romaine salad was toasted with olive oil and red wine vinegar. 

I only used 1/3 of the pumpkin for this dish.  So, I can make 2 more dishes with the rest of the pumpkin.

Pumpkin

Delicata Squash

Acorn Butternut Squash

Japhet, New York

Today portarit theme is clean classic look and the model is Japhet, a jovial, friendly and down to earth kind of guy that everybody will love to be around him.  Born in Haiti but moved to USA with his family at the age of 17.  He told me his family still owns a piece of beach-front property in Port-au-Price where he will tun it into a resort/B&B one day.  Nice!  I think I will invite myself when it is all done.  ^_^

We met around 1:30pm at Time Warner Center as there are some interesting spots around Columbus Circle and also a safe place in case we were caught in a down pour.  I told him to wear a white button down shirt, a sweater, a jacket, dark color pair of denim and a pair of cool glasses.  However, after a few shots I found the blue sweater doesn’t seems to agree with his skin tone and most importantly it overshadowed his well-built body, apparently a result of the 5-day-a-week workout schedule at the Gym.  My instinct was right, a brighter, and freer Japhet was in front of me without the blue sweater.

“Less is More” definitely works well in this case.  Well, it is 46F outside.  I guess we have reached our limit not to catch a cold in this chilly October weather.

Yu Zhanpeng / 余展鹏, New York (folio-2)

Today is Columbus Day holiday.  I took the chance to have another portrait shooting with Zhanpeng after lunch.  It was a chilly day and overcast, but luckily no rain and not windy.  I picked the Meat Packing District for the shooting site as I love the wash-out brick buildings and the gritty structure of the Highline. 

Last night, we worked out the details of the wardrobe from head to toe.  We agreed on the purple v-neck overall and the black pant.  He wore a black button-up sweater but I had him changed to the green/gray  checked sweater, which turn out look better for the shoot.  

It was chilly but I had him took out the jacket and rolled up the sleeve for a shot.  Bravo!!  有种!!

The weather conditions were a little unpredictable, at one minute there is bright sunlight, the next minute it was overcast.  So, I planned to shoot outdoor first and then indoor when the daylight gets dimmer.  I am happy with my dicision and the photos look adorable.  The results came close to my theme: young, fun, cute. 

We had a lot of laugh and fun during the shooting and that is the reason I love shooting portraits.