Weekend Link Love

Double Rainbow Over Seattle - photography by www.paolathomas.com

It’s been a week of sunsets and showers, flowers and sunshine, hot cross buns and Cadbury’s Mini Eggs – and the most extraordinary rainbow that I think I’ve ever seen. And you really can’t get much better than that. (Also it’s astonishing what one can do nowadays with the pano feature on the iPhone).

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I will be spending the weekend baking a Simnel cake and hosting a traditional Easter Sunday lunch with lots of roast lamb for some British friends here.

Simnel Cake photography by www.paolathomas.com

If you want to do the same, my recipe for Simnel cake – the traditional English Easter cake – is here.

 

If you want to make dye eggs using natural dyes, my friends Leigh and Pamela had fun this week.

This his and hers food photography is insanely beautiful.

Saveur magazine came up with this list of the best food blogs around. I’m looking forward to looking and drooling.

Brene Brown and Chase Jarvis did an amazing interview about Unlocking Your Creativity  which is worth watching in its entirety.

Here’s a little post on capturing authentic ‘moments’ with photography. I always think my photography is too contrived, so this is something I’m striving for.

And here’s an interesting piece on how Facebook manages its filtered feed, though not terribly helpful for those of us trying to get even a few organic viewers to our Facebook pages.

 

On the blog this week, we discussed New Trends in Kitchen Design, read Don Draper’s Tarot Cards and worked out how Mad Men is going to end, visited Bunny William’s amazing New York shop Treillage and the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, and had a stressful time baking a Roller Skate Cake.

Hope you are all having a wonderful and relaxing weekend.

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Weekend Link Love

 

madmenseason6

 

Seems I’ve been a lazy Instagrammer this week – I’ve been feeling in a bit of a photography rut – so instead of my Instagram feed, here’s an absolutely gorgeous MadMen graphic. Wouldn’t mind this on my wall.

The return of MadMen is of course going to be the highlight of my weekend (though we might also make it out for a family photography/cycling trip to the tulip fields). Here’s a gently spoilerish review of the first eppy and an overview of the college course I’d love to do.

To try and get out of my photography rut I will be perusing #Photography – a fab-looking online photography magazine by two photography graduates in the UK and following these peeps for inspiration (one day I want to be on this list).

I know I still have to share with you the story of the Minx’s latest birthday cake, but we might need to try these amazing cupcake shoes next year.

And I would imagine that this article on how to beat procrastination might be useful for us all (I can’t tell you how many times I opened Facebook in the course of putting together this post). Fingers crossed I’m not the only one for whom it resonates.

 

On the blog this week, we’ve discussed flower arranging in NYC, a fabulous food photography workshop I attended, photographing donuts for Edible Seattle and I shared a recipe for chocolate truffles (which are currently sitting in my fridge singing softly to me).

All you creative people out there, what advice do you have for getting me out of my photographic rut? I just don’t feel that my photography is improving much anymore. All advice gratefully received.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Edible Seattle January

 

The Minx went back to school this morning, the Christmas tree will be packed away tonight, a watery sun is turning the lake to molten silver and finally I am back at my desk with two grumpy cats who hate the cold. Happy New Year to me.

And January has started in the nicest possible way with my very first editorial photographs in the January/February issue of Edible Seattle !

Edible Seattle January photography by www.paoladavis.com

I can’t show you much until the issue leaves the newstands but here is a sneak peak at my new regular seasonal cake column (which will be appearing in every other issue), featuring my recipe for Spiced Parsnip Cake with Bourbon Brown Butter Frosting.  I will be able to share the proper photographs and full recipe with you all here in a month or two, but in the meantime I recommend that you get the magazine if you’re in the Seattle area. Loads of fabulous seasonal recipes to be found within its pages.

I also recommended to new editor Tara that she interview the inimitable Vicky Brown of Little Brown Farm whom I met on the Whidbey Island Farm to Table Workshop. Vicky gave an inspiring and thought provoking interview, and Tara was kind enough to use a couple of the photos I took at the workshop to illustrate it. Of course it is totally impossible to go wrong with cute baby goats.

Edible Seattle January photography by www.paoladavis.com

Again I’ll share the proper pics of our trip to the farm with you at a later date.

In the meantime there is nothing more exciting than seeing your work in print, here’s hoping I get more used to it in 2014!

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A Perfect Pairing from Simple & Crisp

 

Simple & Crisp photography by www.paolathomas.com

 

One of the fun things I did during my blog hiatus was attend the International Food Bloggers Conference here in Seattle, where I came across the Seattle brand Simple & Crisp.

Jane Yuan launched Simple & Crisp after she was looking for a healthy, gluten-free alternative to crackers. Her homemade, delicately dried, fruit crisps – they come in Orange, Apple, Pear, and, seasonally, Blood Orange flavours – are the perfect accompaniment to cheese, appetizers, cocktails and desserts.

Jane is also a marketing genius (as befits an ex-PR person) and has come up with the idea of challenging bloggers, photographers and foodies to come up with ‘perfect pairings’ for her crisps. If you want ideas of what to do with the crisps just search on the hashtag #perfectpairings on Twitter or Instagram, or anywhere really and you’ll be inundated with mouthwatering pairing ideas.

Simple & Crisp photography by www.paolathomas.com

The idea I came up with takes one of my favourite salads up a notch.

I paired the crisp, sweet, yet slightly bitter oranges (think your favourite marmalade) with a salty swirl of smooth, creamy goat cheese, and some succulently sweet roasted beets all topped with crunchy pistachio pieces, savoury thyme and a little rich balsamic glaze.

Simple & Crisp photography by www.paolathomas.com

The combination of bitter, sweet, savoury and salty flavours and crisp, crunchy, smooth and juicy textures made my mouth extremely happy. So much so that when the photoshoot ended I sat down in the the studio and ate  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE of the props. It was lunch. I was hungry. What can I say?

Simple & Crisp photography by www.paolathomas.com

Anyway, if you’re looking for ideas for appies for a holiday cocktail party, you could do a lot worse than try these. I’ve seen the crisps in the Seattle area at PCC and WholeFoods or you can buy them online at Simple & Crisp.

Full disclosure:  In return for getting a discounted ticket to IFBC I am obliged to write three blog posts about either my experience or the sponsors. Additionally I was sent some free fruit crisps by Simple & Crisp when I mentioned I would like to blog about them. However, the choice to write about the company was mine alone and I did that because these things are flipping delicious!

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