Winter Farmers' Market

I've been working with Nourish Knoxville for a year or so to produce photos for their Local Food Guide. I spent a little time at Knoxville's twice-monthly Winter Market this weekend to get pictures ready for the second issue of the guide. Here are some selects from the market, which runs through March.

Foraging for Food at Blackberry Farm

A few weeks ago I shot pictures of the fine folks at Blackberry Farm for a New York Times story on restaurants who forage wild ingredients for their meals. Jeff Ross, garden manager and forager extraordinaire, showed me around the farm while harvesting sorrel, Jerusalem artichokes, sumac, and a ton of other plants I didn't know existed.  Joseph Lenn, executive chef of the Barn restaurant at the farm, then made these ingredients into dishes as delicious as they were beautiful. [portfolio_slideshow]

My take-aways from the morning I spent at the farm: Jerusalem artichokes are delicious and (supposedly) easy to grow, I decided to grow mushrooms at home, and there is a breed of dog (the Lagotto Romagnolo, see photos below) that is better than hogs for finding truffles because a) they don't try to eat the plants and b) they smell better and let you love on them.

See the Times' slideshow for more photos from the shoot.

PS: Here are some gratuitous pictures of cute truffle-sniffing dogs.

Sweet P's on the Water

In accordance to my life rule to never pass up a BBQ buffet, Dale and I went to the 2nd annual Smokin' Day Festival at Sweet P's BBQ last weekend. There was a cornhole tournament, banana pudding eating contest, and a whole smoked hog. Nice. Check out the slideshow below. See you next year, Sweet P's!

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