This is the Rye bread I made yesterday when I finally have learned how to make the artisan bread I see in bakeries. I put this bread on wax paper on a pie plate for its second rise. About 20 minutes before I baked it I preheated the oven at 425 degrees with the dutch oven in it getting hot. When the aluminum dutch oven (I think next time I'll try my cast iron one just for fun) was at the temp of 425 I carefully lifted the raised bread, wax paper and all into the dutch oven, put the lid on and baked for 20 minutes. I baked it another 15 with the lid off to get it nice and brown. Oh, 2 other things, I oiled the wax paper and I scored the top of the bread with a shart knife. It was wonderful but more importantly; it was beautiful. By the way, the stone it is on was about $4 and was in the floor tile section of Menards. Beat that price for a pizza stone! You can also buy other sizes and build your stone right in the oven by putting together your various sizes to get the shape and size you want. Pretty darn cool.

The Dollar Bowl ... my poor kids!

I had this revelation about my food blogging. I need more dishes! I have too many already but that's because when you find dishes you like you have to buy a whole darn set. Now, though, I can just look for random stuff that's cheap and will photograph nice with the right food in it. So today I found this bowl at the Offspring here in Pocahontas and it was whole buck. I took this rather poor picture of it but I'll cook up something hot and comfortable one day this week and do better ... maybe like some broccoli soup that my poor kids will remember as Oscar soup. (I thought if I could link vegetables and good food to Sesame Steet they might fall for it.) The real reason the title includes "my poor kids" though, is because when I croak someday they are going to have to figure out what to do with all the dishes! I'm just getting started.

Years ago when the girls were small I loved taking still life pictures. I was staying home to raise my family. In retrospect I think I was bored at times and also thirsted for creative outlets. So for lack of any other option I would create still life settings with muffins I had baked, children's dolls placed on bed pillows, candles in rain-spattered windows, antique watches on lace ... and on and on and on. I would even print the pictures and then create my own notecards. Since those days pre-dated the internet I wrote letters to family members and a number of those notecards got used for those letters. I have been amused by my self entertainment at times but when I look at some of those pictures I really do find some of them quite pretty. I still have many of them.

A few years ago while in a book store I was looking at bookmarks made from photographs and was inspired to go through my stacks of poor prints and take the best slice out of them to turn into a bookmark. THAT amused my family as I anyone who politely showed any interest in my bookmark collection, was invited to choose one of my homemade photographic booksmarks of re-cycled bad pictures!

Lately I am becoming interested in photographing food. I now have both the time and the means to cook for fun and enjoy the presentation of a dish that I have planned and prepared. I find myself wanting to preserve the beauty of the dish in a photograph before printing. I haven't done that yet but tonight I stopped all action on a bowl of popcorn until I photographed it.

We dumped in some trail mix and thought it looked pretty snacky! Then I shot it! The camera was poor and the light wasn't right but I might just start doing a little experimenting with the professional camera next time.

I must admit I was hesitant to invest in a website for the studio. I did do it though and I think it might have been one of my wisest decision. I have received a number of orders through the site and customers seem to really like the immediacy of viewing their proofs. The bonus for me is saving a lot of money in gallery expense if I can direct my customers or potential customers to the website where I can post my portraits. I am anxious to have more to post but it is coming along. I have done two families in the new studio which have included couples, babies, and small families and I have another senior sitting this week. I am really enjoying the baby photography but wouldn't want to say what my favorite is yet. Seniors are pretty fun too!