Sprouted Kitchen Food Photography Workshop

Hi, friends! Sorry for the absence. Life outside of this space has been a little hectic. I feel like the week leading up to vacation is always a crazy whirlwind of tying up loose ends, getting as much work done as you can so your team isn't left floundering after you leave, clearing the fridge so it's not a science experiment when you get back, and throwing a Riverdale season finale watch party. Yes, I made cheeseburgers, french fries, and sprinkle milkshakes for a bunch of ladies and it was excellent. Once I found out the fate of the poor citizens of Riverdale, I was ready to fly off to New York to watch my best friend get hitched! I spent the last few days running around New York City, eating things, drinking things, dancing on a boat, and catching up with some of my best friends. Weddings are so great for obvious reasons... you know the whole mushy love thing. But they are also such wonderful reunions. Jeff, Katie, Hali, and Ben - I miss you all so much already! Still going through some friendship withdrawal. Why don't we all live in the same city again?!

Vacation is not over though! Reuben and I are spending a few days in New Jersey with his parents before heading to Philadelphia for the weekend. I really do enjoy New Jersey, at least where Reuben is from. It's green, rural, and peaceful. Everything that I crave while living in San Francisco. Plus it's filled with the best carbs in all the land! When we are not eating, we're watching The Great British Baking Show and planning out how to make sure my audition video isn't super embarrassing. If I haven't told you already, I'm going to audition for the Great American Baking Show, so wish me luck and send me all your tips if you're a GBBS super fan.

Part of the application is submitting a few photos of my best bakes. So while I was going through the gajillion photos hogging up space on my laptop, I realized I never shared with you my weekend of taking pictures of pretty food at the Sprouted Kitchen Photography Workshop a few weeks back! It was a literal dream. Sara Forte and Hugh Forte of Sprouted Kitchen taught the class. It was held at Aran Goyoaga's extra dreamy studio kitchen. It was filled with so many beautiful ceramics, linen napkins in every color, and stacks of stone slabs and backgrounds. A DREAM. I might say dreamy a little too much in the remainder of the post. 8 other ladies and I all few in from other parts of North America to spend the weekend together in Seattle arranging microgreens and playing around with our cameras. Hugh, Sara, and Aran were so sweet and were so knowledgable. I was fan-girling a little hard on the first day. It's just so crazy to actually meet these people that you've been following on Instagram for years and they are making breakfast for you! Like, what?! 

Without getting into too many painful details, the weekend workshop was spent shooting and styling the beautiful food Aran made for us, soaking in all the techy knowledge Hugh shared, and becoming Lightroom wizards. It was so fun! A little intimidating in the beginning because everyone's cameras were like triple my size... but size doesn't really matter, right?? As much as I loved playing with my food, I would have to say that my favorite part of the whole class was reflecting on why we do this. Why do we take the pictures we take? If there was no Instagram involved (no one would see it), why are we doing this? I think for most of the other people in the class, they had photography in mind. But for me I was reflecting on cooking. Why do I cook? Why do I want to make it beautiful? Why do I want to share it here or on Instagram? Big questions. I took the questions back home with me after the first workshop day. I had dinner with my friends in Seattle, but kept the question in the back of my head. That night I went to a friend's house for a birthday BBQ and I some how commandeered the grill and made some top notch  hot dogs for the group : ) . I think while I was grilling up basic Oscar Meyer hotdogs, I remembered that I love making food for people because I just love taking care of people. I want to make them happy. I want to share with them the joy I get from good food. I want to share with them something surprising and unique, but may be a pretty normal thing for me and my family. I want to share with people a little bits of me. I'm hoping that if you've been reading this for a while that you feel like you know me. Or if you actually do know me IRL, that I sound like myself!! The internet is such a big crazy space, but my hope is that my little corner of it feels cozy and like we're sharing a virtual slice of cake and coffee together : )))

Okay, my v heavy pasta dinner is starting to put me to sleep. Gotta sleep and semi watch the Cavs game. Bye, I'll let you know if Philadelphia is fun!