So I started off on the one really nice day this past week down at the bay in San Leon. I arrived in the late afternoon at Gilhooly’s to a plate of “Shrimphooly” which is oysters topped with shrimp with some cheese on top and broiled. I’m sure there is more to it than that because the taste is wonderful! I ate a couple and brought the rest home for my husband, Steve, since I would be late for dinner. I continued by heading to the other end of San Leon, where the boats come in. At Misho Ivic’s oyster company I photographed a boat coming in and unloading bag after bag of oysters. The birds were impressed! The oysters, already sacked, were loaded into an 18 wheeler for delivery to your local restaurants.

Late in the week I headed to Austin for a meeting with the editor at UT Press. We made some decisions about which recipes would be photographed using Julie Hettiger, the exceptional food stylist here in Houston. You’ll be seeing some of those photos before too long I’m sure.

We drove down toward the river, Town Lake to locals, to the new Garridos Restaurant. It certainly is difficult to photograph a beautiful plate of food when you’ve missed lunch! It is always fun to watch the chef working, watching while he was plating the dish for me to shoot. I also got photos of him cooking that huge piece of beef. Wow!

Even though there were incredible storms during the night, I rose early to make it through the weather to the Duchman Winery in Driftwood. Dave Reilly, the winemaker whom I photographed a few years ago for the Texas Hill Country book, met me with a warm cup of tea before heading into the barrel room. Luckily I had been there before and dressed appropriately in a warm sweater. I love how easy it is to make those beautiful wooden wine barrel look good.

The weather was so nasty that we cancelled our farm shoot for the afternoon as well as the farmer’s market in Austin on Saturday. Some of the people we wanted to shoot at the market called to say they weren’t coming due to the rains. So, I headed back to Houston, along with just about everybody else in the state, I think. Never a fun drive when its wet.

Since I had been scheduled to shoot on Saturday anyway, I decided to head out to Louisiana Foods in the rain with Julie to get some triggerfish for one of the recipes in the book.

I couldn’t resist the Galveston bay oysters in now since the red tide has lifted. I got a box of the Drum Valley oysters and boy are they good. I also picked up some Hake. We’ll see how that is in a little bit.

So this next week will find us in and around San Antonio. You’ll have to check back to see what we get to eat then!

Today I finally got to shoot at the Revival Market here in Houston. I found them in a rather round-about way. While Steve and I were in Marfa last fall visiting the Chinati Foundation, talking with our guide, he asked if we would be interested in hosting an artist in residence who wanted to visit Houston. We said sure. After some email communication, our guest arrived. Turns out that he had a connection through family with the chef, Ryan Pera. He wanted to see the market and meet up with Ryan, so we dropped by for a little chat and lunch. Lucky day! Months later, after showing the market to my sister, Terry, once we had begun working in Houston, she was impressed. A couple of days later while talking with Levi Goode, he mentioned the market and offered to get us in touch and there we are…..

The owner Morgan Weber, his wife, Stacy and chef Ryan Pera welcomed me with beautiful charcuterie meats, butcher skills, and loads of homemade  and local products in this  nice new market on Heights Blvd.

And then they were starting on some head cheese, hence the hog’s head!

I can’t wait to  go to their ranch and see where they raise their animals. Having friends who do their own butchering, it will be fascinating to see how they make these delicious meats.

So next week we are back in Austin before moving on to San Antonio and surrounding areas.

Tuesday my sister and I were due at UT Press for a meeting with the editor of this soon to be beautiful book. Unfortunately, my sister had a bad stomach flu and was unable to make the meeting. I came away from the meeting with better direction for the photography for the book. Hopefully this will show up here!

I was then off to the now famous Franklin BBQ where Aaron and Stacy Franklin couldn’t have been nicer. When I drove up and saw the SOLD OUT sign on the door, I thought, uh-oh….no photo today, but they had held back an entire brisket for me to photograph! Wow again.

On the way of town very early on Wednesday morning I stopped at Boggy Creek Farm for their mid-week market day. It was indeed foggy and drizzly, but I thought the atmosphere was nice for farm photos and the produce looked beautiful. There are some scrumptious winter vegetables right now. They also have other farmers and producers who sell at their market. Go check them out.

Back in Houston we had an appointment for the end of the week at Mockingbird Bistro. We enlisted the help of Houston food stylist, Julie Hettiger to make this a photo worthy of, we hope, a spread in the book. Chef John Sheely was very helpful along with all his staff. I hope he likes the photo!

We ended the day at Airline Seafood where  Mark Musatto had just gotten a truck full of hand speared Wahoo! Wow, what luck. We got some quick shots of the fish coming off the truck.

So next week I’ll be heading off to the coast for some shots of seafood just out of the sea. A true flavor of Texas!

We watched (and photographed) while he made us this wonderful Cuban sandwich and great Cuban coffee. He served that sandwich up with a bowl of his delicious tortilla soup.  Both are specialties of the restaurant. And lets not forget that there are several locations of El Rey around the city!

What a nice lunch!

Tuesday we shot at Haven with Randy Evans, another Louisiana transplant, with great food, bien sur.

He has a garden and his own beehive along side the restaurant. The garden is in a transition stage, being winter (ha!) and all, but there is always something growing that can be used. Right now there are herbs and a little swiss chard that seems incredibly hardy.

On Wednesday, due to weather and mis-communications, we missed our shoot at Mockingbird Bistro, so we are rescheduling for a later date.

Thursday finished up our Houston section for now with The Reef and Bryan Caswell.

Boy, can that guy fillet a fish! He had that big cooler full of fresh caught gulf seafood to choose from. I watched as he took his very sharp filet blade to it and had it halved in no time. Once it was cooked up and ready to eat, I couldn’t wait to taste it! That’s the hardest thing about photographing all this food; those incredible smells wafting toward my nose behind the camera.

Hopefully there will be a couple of other spots in Houston, and we are still trying to contact with people for those few places we think fit with the ideology of this book….eat local and artisanal food made with care.

So we’ll be meeting in Austin early next week with the editor and designer, and scheduling shoots for the shrimp fleet and other coastal venues for the coming month.

So Monday morning began the year of working on the Flavors of Texas book with my sister, Terry Thompson Anderson. We photographed a lot of Texas distilled spirits and drinks in my kitchen/studio. I knew that my kitchen would come in handy in more ways than one when I remodeled a few years ago! We also began our shooting of Houston eateries, food and chefs/owners. We aren’t finished with Houston, but other work beckons for the moment. Photos from Goode Company Seafood and Enchanted Rock Vodka.

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I’ve had my share of problems with my website, all unforeseen. I am hoping that by mid-month I will have all the galleries up and running and the blog prepared for updates on the new book that my sister and I will be working on. We will be traveling quite a bit, interviewing and photographing some of the best chefs, farmers, food producers in the state. Stay tuned!