Monday Photo Dump: Week 12 | Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer

Here we are facing another Monday. I'm still sick. In fact today I am call in from work amounts of sick, so I've spent the whole morning on the couch reading Divergent, cuddling with my pets, and feeling all around crappy. But, I'm taking a break from all of that to share this week's photos.

3-15-14: We start off in the heart of Savannah's St. Patty's day celebrations. This holiday is kind of a big deal here, for some odd reason, so the party lasted all weekend long.  We went out on Saturday with some friends and I did some drinking and street photography. I wrote a quick post about it and shared some pictures here.

3-16-14: Sunday I revisited some old music that I used to love as a teenager and realized I've not developed an attachment to music in the same way since then. There is something about hiding out in the orange and yellow bedroom of my teenage years reading Ray Bradbury and listening to A Ghost is Born that in some ways, I'll never beat.

3-17-14: Monday was shopping day 'cause I was in desperate need of a new pair of running/work shoes. I made a first attempt at product photography, which, although it's a bit dark, I think I did pretty decent on (especially since I was working with natural light).

3-18-14: On Tuesday Sam took in this absolutely adorable foster puppy who we both got instantly attached to (for me, all it took were some puppy kisses).

3-19-14: Wednesday I decided to revisit my writing after coming to the realization that I never write anymore, so I busted out this old tattered journal.

3-20-14: More writing on Thursday, but this time in the form of poetry.  Inspiration hits at such random times for me (I wrote most of this in my head while counting jewelry at work), but it's such a great feeling when it happens.

3-21-14: Friday I did an impromptu photo shoot with Sam, her jeep, and the setting sun. I'm so excited with how this shot turned out!

That's it for this week.  Next week's photo dump will be kicked off with the cutest puppies in the world, so stay tuned!

Monday Photo Dump Week #10 | Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for another Weekly Photo Dump! This week was rainy and awful, but the weekend was gorgeous. I spent the weekend outside (yet didn't bring my camera, what was I thinking?) and then spent the rest of the week playing with dogs and eating (hey, my two favorite things.

So without further ado:

3-1-14: Okay so technically this was taken the night before, but since I had to work early Saturday morning, and this is what we were doing the night before, I think this gives you a good idea of how my Saturday felt- sleep deprived.

3-2-14: Sunday was also spent outside, somehow without my camera. Although I wasn't able to get any pictures of my adventures, my hubby did let me take this quick portrait of him and my dobe, Jerry.  I can't believe how big that dog has gotten!

3-3-14: My Monday consisted of work and then hours spent at the car dealership while they figured out that they needed to replace my transmission.  This is how I felt about things.

3-4-14: And then came the rain.  A five minute storm flooded my yard, and then we were stuck in the cold, wet, gross weather for the rest of the week.

3-5-14: I used to be totally scared of raw chicken. It freaked me out. But this chicken is about to be delicious!

3-6-14: Thursday I decided to embrace the rain and play with my friend Sam's dog Sassy.  She was not phased by the nasty weather. She just wanted to play!

3-7-14: I spent Friday playing with the dogs too.  Magnum was so kind as to pose for me.  He looks so dignified here!

After my missed photo opportunities this weekend I decided to take my camera with me more places, and I am much happier with this week's photos because of it.  Sticking to this idea, I already have some great photos for next week including a day at the shooting range.  I'm excited to bring some new life into this project and see where we can go with it.  Stay tuned!

Eating With Your Eyes: A Matter of Perception

"That looks delicious!" It's a phrase you hear all the time. I use it every time I pass an olive bar drooling, or whenever I see a piece of tiramasu. Its the visual appeal of a food that often leaves our mouths watering.  Why do you think people spend so much time on Pinterest pinning recipes that they never actually make?  Why do I spend my afternoons watching Food network? It's the way the food looks.

But what exactly makes a food "look" tasty?

The first thing that pops into my head is frosting, fluffy decadent frosting-- clouds of sugar draped over a rich red velvet cake. Or flavorful vegetables steaming over a pot of grainy rice, each object in sharp contrast from the one next to it.

These foods will look good, regardless of how they taste.

But what about the foods that aren't exactly visually appealing?

Quite frequently  I visit the Asian market with my friend Sam who is from Thailand.   Every time we go there she introduces me to some interesting food that I have never had before.  Have you ever cooked with Thai soy sauce (and actually known the difference between the multitude of types of soy sauces?) or eaten fresh lamyai? If not you are missing out.

But there are lots of foods there that honestly freak me out.  To me, the jars of fermented meat and fish look like scary science projects gone wrong.  To Sam they look delicious.

Yet she is completely grossed out by the thought of gravy.

On my most recent trip she introduced me to Basil Seed drink which, when I asked her to describe, she couldn't.

"Just try it," she said.

I was instantly thrilled by the contents of that can. The drink is sweet with little balls (aka basil seeds) that fill up your straw and can only be described as squeaky because of the wonderful sound they make when you bite into them (Sam thinks they are crunchy, but I don't think that's quite right.)

Later that night I opened the contents of a can into a glass to see just what basil seed drink looks like. One word: scary! It would have been tough to stomach if I had seen it the first time I tried it. The basil seeds make me think of little amoebas swimming in my drink, or, as Sam described it, frog eggs.

But how could that be? This stuff is delicious, like, I want to go back to the Asian market and buy a case full, delicious. That made me wonder, what other wonderful foods am I missing out on just because the look or idea of them bothers me? It's not hard to think that Sam is missing out because of her aversion to gravy, but what about me and liver, tripe, fermented foods? It took me at least a year of convincing to try sushi before I realized how delicious it is.  A friend got me to face it head on and go for some sashimi, despite my head and gag reflex telling me it was a bad idea. Now I love sushi.

Sam thinks that a blindfold is all that it would take before I'd be eating all the strange-to-me foods that she loves, and she's probably right.  That may be a bit of a extreme way of handling things, but I will try to approach each new foods with an open mind.  I'd suggest that everyone do the same.  We wouldn't want to miss out?

But before I go cook up the weirdest foods I can find in my fridge (while sipping on basil seed drink,) I will leave with a parting question.

What's the weirdest food you've ever tried? Did you like it? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments below.

Monday Photo Dump: Week 7 | Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer

I know I was a bit absent this weekend, but I wasn't able to do my shelter work this week (and may not for a while) so there was no weekly adoptable post to share.  I also spent Saturday celebrating my hubby's birthday which is Tuesday, so I decided to take the weekend off. That said, I'm a little behind on this whole blog thing.  Instead of my usual planning ahead, I have been rushing through in the past half hour or so to edit these weekly photos.

Anyway, let's get right to it, huh?

2-8-14: This was a Saturday workday, cranking out blog posts and working on business cards, among other things.  A photo of my keyboard seemed fitting, since I spent so much time with it.

2-9-14: I followed that up with a Sunday of rest, and a lot of playing with my goofy doberman. He's got crazy eyes!

2-10-14: Let me just warn you right now that this week was all about the food photography.  Judging by the pictures I must have spent this week just eating. Sounds like the perfect week!

2-11-14: As I pulled into the driveway from work, I did this.  Now I get to replace this $300 tire, because I was too lazy to move a jack that was in my way.  I'm a smart cookie! Needless to say, I was a bit angry for the rest of the evening.

2-12-14: Thank goodness I was able to turn that flat-tire attitude around with a day with Sam. She took me to the Asian market where I tried this Basil Seed Drink.  It looks creepy as hell, but it is seriously delicious.

2-13-14: Speaking of weird foods, what better choice is there than celery root?  This stuff looks evil, but it's tasty, I promise.

2-14-14: Ah Valentines day, the day of every year where my lovely hubby buys a little potted rose, and every year I kill it.  Plants and I don't get along. But this year he got it right with some already dead roses (and very pretty ones at that!) along with chocolates just in time to satiate an extreme chocolate craving, shopping, and some lunch at Bonefish Grill. Yup, he definitely got it right!

So there you have it, another week of photos.  I must say, this has been going much better than I originally thought when I planned this 365 project. I thought I'd really struggle, and while I do have some rough days where I have a hard time caring, I've for the most part been really enjoying this project (and all this oh-so-photographable food!)

Superbowl Party Homemade Pretzels

For me, Superbowl weekend is all about food, friends, and commercials.  I could care less about football, and especially so this year, since the game was awful.  This game bored me more that football normally does. Seriously. Luckily, my lovely hubby saved the day by deciding that he wanted to try to make homemade pretzels.  It was a random idea and it turned out to be amazing one.  The game may have sucked, but I was consoled by the delicious food.  Yum.

So I thought I'd share the recipe with you fine people.

Let me just start out by saying that this is not my recipe.  I found it here at Sally's Baking Addiction.

We didn't quite follow her recipe though.  I can't seem to stick to a recipe 100% in anything I make.  It stifles my creativity or something.

We made two different batches, since one of our friends is gluten free.  The first batch we made with regular all purpose flour, the second was with King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour.

The process is pretty simple.  The dough is a basic bread dough with flour, water, salt, and yeast.  You don't need to let it rise or anything, just roll it out and bake it.

I usually mix dough with my kitchenaid, but Robert wanted to do this old school and mix by hand. It didn't really take much kneading, so this wasn't a bad choice.

And so we have a nice little lump of dough to work with.

We cut it into pieces, rolled it out,

and shaped it into pretzels (some recipes recommend you to dunk these in a solution of baking soda and boiling water at this point to get them to brown up nicely, but due to laziness, we just cooked them on broil for a few minutes to get the brownness). We brushed on some butter, sprinkled on some course ground sea salt,

and then we baked them.  And devoured them.  Seriously these were amazing.

This was our gluten free batch, which didn't puff up quite as well and refused to brown, but still tasted quite good.  I know nothing about gluten free baking, so I just used the same recipe with different flour, but I'm pretty sure that you have to use something extra to get them to rise. That said, I'd eat these just as they were, and the friend we made them for like them, so I guess that's what counts.

And there you have it: homemade pretzels!

After all that work baking (not really, they were actually super easy) we were too lazy to make any sort of sauce for them.  Luckily for us, the pre-made cheese (or cheese-like) sauce that you can get at the grocery store was a perfect pairing.  You could also do mustard, or just enjoy the pretzels for the buttery goodness that they offer.  Either way.

If you aren't like me and you actually like the structure of a recipe, you can find it here. Or maybe my loose descriptions are good enough.

Either way, give it a try and let me know how they turn out!

Monday Photo Dump: Week #6 | Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer

Today we are launching the Monday photo dump since Fridays are now my afternoon at the animal shelter and I will no longer have time to edit and post my photos that day. You can find out all about that here. I know I've made a lot of changes all of a sudden, but the format for this post is still the same and the pictures are still from the same part of the week, we are just switching up the days.  With that said, here's last week's photos, the first set for the month of February.

2-1-14: Can I just say that I love food photography.  We see a lot of people posting pictures of their lunch on Instagram and it's kind of a running joke that gives food photography a bad name, but food that is prepared by hand can be gorgeous and really great to take pictures of, like this colorful pork stir fry that I made for a lazy night dinner.

2-2-14: More food! My husband had the random idea to make handmade pretzels for our Superbowl party.  It was actually pretty easy and very successful (I couldn't stop eating them).  A recipe is coming soon.

2-3-14: Just some Jerry toes.  I sure do love Jerry toes.

2-4-14: It's a pretty self explanatory shot of the penny jar.  I just like the colors of the pennies,

2-5-14: What used to be a nice view of a wooded area out of my computer room window is now construction.  They cleared the trees quite a while ago (which I was pretty upset about) and then just recently they started construction.  My work is now accompanied by the sounds of hammers and construction equipment.  This is my new view. I can't wait until they are done building.

2-6-14: X marks the spot, I guess.

2-7-14: This is one of my shots from my day at the animal shelter.  I didn't use this as something to post to get this dog adopted (for obvious reasons), but I do like the moment that was captured.  This dog is anything but vicious, I swear, but caught mid bark he does look kind of mean, doesn't he?

So there you have it, last week's photos.  I didn't do a theme, which left me with kind of a hodgepodge of photos, but I think they captured my week pretty well. As always, if you have any theme suggestions leave them in the comments below.  Otherwise, I'll see you next time!

Chia Seeds (What do you do with that?)

Alright everybody, after some grocery store inspiration last night (Thank you publix cashier), I have come up with a new segment for the blog called, "What do you do with that?"

Let me explain.

Almost every trip to the grocery store I buy something that most Americans would consider to be weird. Maybe I watch too many cooking shows, but for some reason, where most people would give it a glance and walk by, I find celery root, rutabagas, or parsnips in the grocery store and I see them as an interesting challenge.  I often fill my fridge with foods that I have no idea how to cook or eat.

Every time I get in line with these items, the cashier will ask the same question about at least one of them, "What do you do with that?"  I always have the same response: "I'm about to find out."

So this segment will chronicle my experience in figuring out how to cook my unusual food purchases.  I grocery shop twice a month, so you can expect these posts about that often.  So, shall we give it a go?

This week's item is: Chia Seeds

My first step in any unknown food endeavor is to check the internet.  In this world a person can teach themselves just about anything with a little youtube and pinterest.  I am sure to take full advantage of that.

Well according to Pinterest there is approximately a million things you can do with chia seeds. Case in point:

After a lot of browsing I did discover a few interesting things about the little guys.

• They are super healthy.  They are high in protein (great for all you vegetarians out there) and, according to a pinterest user called mygreenworld, they are high in antioxidants, useful for weight loss, good for the heart and brain, and much more. (http://www.pinterest.com/mygreenworld)
• They are also very useful in cooking.  A blogger who goes by Wellness Mama says she uses them as a gluten free substitute for just about everything.  She even uses them as an egg substitute in some recipes (seeds instead of eggs, really? This is where I get a bit skeptical).  She also says that they make a great thickening agent in many recipes, which is something I'd be very interested to try since my cooking usually involves a lot of flour. (http://wellnessmama.com/4981/10-uses-for-chia-seeds/)
• They actually taste very good!  This one I didn't learn with research so much as trial and error.  I happened to be making a tortellini salad last night, and since the Chia Seed bag said they were good with salads, I thought I'd give it a go, so I threw a tablespoon in.  They added a slightly sweet and nutty flavor which went perfectly with my haphazard recipe.  Doesn't it look good?

Does anyone else have any great ideas for how to use Chia Seeds? Let me know in the comments!

And if you are interested in seeing some of the recipes that I use in my cooking (well adapt into my own, anyway) you can follow me on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/mikaelajoyphoto/

Friday Photo Dump Week #2 | Mikaela Joy: Savannah Lifestyle Photographer

My first full week of my photo a day project is complete and I'm here to share the results.  Want to see?

 

January 4th, 2014: A close up shot of the Christmas decorations that I just can't bring myself to take down (more out of laziness than the fact that they are pretty, although they are.)

January 5th, 2014: This morning started out with some canadian bacon that my dad cured and my husband cooked (delicious!)

January 6th, 2014: After having company at my house for almost a month during the holidays, I needed a few days of me time.  So after work I got lost in a good book.  In case you are wondering, the book is Enduring Love by Ian McEwan and it is quite good.

January 7th, 2014: Just another lazy day with my pets and my books.

January 8th, 2014: It's been surprisingly cold for Georgia this week, and the weather inspired me to start a knitting project.  I picked this gorgeous yarn, but the problem is that the yarn is very thin.  I might be done with this scarf by summer, just when I don't need it anymore.

January 9th, 2014: With the house to myself this day, I consulted my Julia Child cookbook and made a huge mess of the kitchen, leaving not much time for anything else.  I did happen to snap this shot of Blitz being cute though.  He does it every once in a while.

January 10th, 2014: I wanted to play around with Bokeh today and using it as the subject of a photo, rather than a background.  Technically that just means I took a blurry picture, but hey I think it looks cool. I took this using the Christmas lights since I still haven't taken down our tree.  I should probably get on that before it dies, huh?

This week was a pretty slow one, but it is exactly what I needed.  I spent some time in solitude, just relaxing and working on my own projects.  It may have left me with photos of food, books, and cats, but that's not a life that I'll complain about.  I could pull of crazy cat lady/librarian any day.

A Food Obsession

I've found a new obsession. That may be somewhat apparent by the lack of blogging that I've been doing lately.  I've never been much of a multi-tasker (I am working on it).  That said, my latest obsession is food.

It all started a couple of months ago when I got a new cell phone.  It's a windows 8 phone (I know, I was skeptical too but I absolutely love it) and the first thing I did after getting it, aside from figuring out how to use the thing, was downloading apps.  Sort of by accident I found a calorie counter app called myfitnesspal and decided to give it a try.  I've been interested in food and getting healthy for a while now, but, aside from a plan of eat more vegetables, never really knew what I was doing.  I started logging my food mostly out of curiosity to see how well I was doing.

Well that one little free app made me realize just how often I get "too busy" for food and end up with hamburger helper and pizza.  I realized that I was often eating double the portion size that I should have been and that my lazy eating was affecting my waistline and how I felt about myself.

At first I ate the same foods as always, just less of them.  From a weight loss standpoint, that worked.  I lost about five pounds in the first two weeks.  But that was hard to maintain.  My daily calorie goal (which is relatively high compared to many other app users) seemed impossibly small.  It wasn't until I spent a lazy day on the couch watching food movies and documentaries on netflix that something clicked.  I realized exactly why my getting healthy plan wasn't working quite like I wanted.

As of today I am approximately 20 pounds and 2 jean sizes down.  I feel great, am full of energy and my calorie goals are easy to meet.  So what miracle secret did I tap into on the couch that day?

The answer is cooking. In the past few months I've spent more time and money at the grocery stores and farmers markets than ever before.  I'm buying eggplants and beets and kale--things I've never bought before.  I'm spending hours in the kitchen watching cooking shows, reading food blogs, and eating fresher, better-tasting, and healthier food than I ever have before.

I'm lucky enough that I enjoy cooking.  If I didn't this would be an impossible change.  There is just something so great about picking out ingredients, prepping them, and putting them together into something handmade, beautiful and unique.  I get a huge sense of accomplishment from each loaf of bread or ricotta that I make and share.  Putting work into my food makes me savor each flavor and appreciate my food instead of sitting on the couch eating chips and hardly paying attention.

I should probably mention that my diet solution doesn't consist of flavorless diet foods.  I'm eating full fat milk, cheese, and sour cream.  I'll even have some ice cream sometimes.  But I'm have smaller portions and everything I buy is good quality. I'm buying more organic foods, tons of farmers market vegetables, and becoming aware of every ingredient in every meal that I prepare.  My bank account is taking a toll with the new grocery bills (maybe my next obsession should be couponing to support this habit) but I'm eating great food, losing weight, and having so much fun doing it.  That right there is definitely worth the price tag.