DAVID PERRY PHOTOGRAPHER

So it all finally comes down to this: Tomato Clafoutis.

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:10:47 -0800

Last year it was mid-October (I checked the date), a good month earlier than now, when that mystical transformation of the last garden tomatoes became this labor-of-love, flavor-intensive, cloudlike taste-amazement known as a clafoutis. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is what I said, a clafoutis. In this case, Patricia Wells’ stunning, tomato clafoutis, from page thirty-eight in her “Patricia Wells At Home in Provence” cookbook.
I’m pretty sure I had never heard of a tomato clafoutis before Mary-girl began lobbying on this one’s behalf last fall. My sense of a clafoutis was more sweet, a fruit and eggy-batter affair, baked to dessertish perfection. But I knew enough to trust my cooking partner, (she’s got a wonderful palette and great instincts), keep my head down and willingly play the participatory role I’d been invited to play. OMG!
I won’t kid you. It was a great deal of work, slipping the skins, slicing and then seeding all those tomatoes, followed by salting them and resting them between paper towels for a good half hour to pull the excess moisture from them. After that, we still needed to carefully layer them in the bottom of the baking dish before pouring the thyme and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese-flavored custard batter over them, and then sprinkling on the rest of the cheese and thyme before baking it in the center of a 375º oven for a generous half-hour (gas ovens take a little longer).
I’ll admit it. About three quarters of the way through the seeding process on all those tomatoes I began to have my doubts. But I soldiered on, and thankfully, never gave those whispering voices a chance to turn up the volume from faint grumbling into full blown whines.
And then, well, as soon as the smells from this savory delicacy began to whisper themselves outward into my kitchen, burrowing into my salivating awareness (ten or fifteen minutes into the oven), I was really, genuinely excited. One could tell, just by the smells that there was a unique, new form of magic bubbling within my oven.
Finally, it was time to pull that clafoutis from the heat and head over to Mike and Joy’s for another of our neighborhood’s Sunday, sit-down pot-luck dinners. (Have I told you about our dinners?) But first, quick, “we need to make a photo to help us remember this one.” The dish was piping hot, so I set it down on a sheet of rusted metal on my basement floor, to place it visually within a warm, rustic, non-obtrusive background and clicked off two quick frames. Then on went the foil, into the basket, and off we skipped to share it with the neighbors’. There were many delicious dishes on the table that night.
So, here I am better than a year later . . . I’m down to the last of my garden tomatoes, and this, this, of all the options that I can think of, is what I want most to make with them. If you tasted it, you’d understand.
What would you choose to make if you had my stash of ripened tomatoes at your disposal, and the time to turn them into anything you wanted?

Winter Pears

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:12:13 -0800

I ate two perfect pears today. An apple too, which was pretty amazing in its own right. But it was those pears that put the absolute shine on an already glorious day. Not store-bought pears, but farmer’s market pears. Double the taste pears. Sold by a the guy who grew them, pears. They were almost make you weep pears. And the second, that sliced up with toasted pecans and dried cranberries and crumbled blue cheese on a spinach salad that Mary made pear, well, that really, was quintessentially . . . a to-die-for pear.
And you know, those perfect pears, they got me thinking about more pears. And then researching pears. And that lead me to finding “Winter Pears,” which is a magical poem written by Doug Tanoury and published in Pif Magazine way back in April of 1998.
Oh sure, there were other poems, but this one carried my imagination the farthest. Which gave me to wonder if my reasons might be a-pear-ant to your eyes and heart too.
Enjoy!!! And while you’re at it, go find yourself a pear . . . as perfect a pear as can be found. Feel its buttery skin and let your eyes devour every sensual, curvaceous inch of it. Now bite it . . . and understand.

The strong are saying nothing . . .

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:26:25 -0800

I’ve been sitting with these pictures for a few weeks now, and have gone back to look at them, into them, several times, still fascinated by what I saw, still trying to make sense of their hold on my imagination . I was driving home from a shoot in Spokane and into sustained headwinds so strong that they buffeted my car until my arms began to grow weary and my gas mileage slipped by nearly thirty five percent. This was not your typical blow.
As I approached the town of George, I began to see an immense reddish brown cloud in the near distance, a billowing upward, east-heading form that continued to captivate my attention for the next several miles. As I got closer I could begin to make out its source, a large, newly plowed field: raw dirt.
I wondered how many tons of precious topsoil its owner/leaseholder would lose that day, and if it could ever really be calculated or reflected in the value some bean-counting appraiser might tally, or even be able to, should he wish.
I wondered too if the landowner downwind could possibly weigh the boon of topsoil he was receiving against the negative value of those unknowns that had blown in with it. Wherever that soil eventually came to rest, so too did whatever spray residuals and weed seeds and who knows what had been living in, or been applied to that now airborne field.
Unintended consequences.
And that notion of being one’s brother’s keeper.
What we as individuals do or leave undone changes things for others downstream of us, downwind of us, whether intentionally or not.
So I look into these pictures once again and am left wondering: What might be blowing off of me, off of my windswept life . . . and unknowingly into the lives of others?

Fallen

Sun, 9 Nov 2008 18:59:47 -0800

After dropping off my absentee ballot at the neighborhood polling place the other day, I decided to make my way home via the more circuitous, scenic route. There were hundreds of fresh leaves on the sidewalk, damp and colorful, and still untrodden. No one had walked that way yet, no other eyes seen just what the previous night’s rains and wind had wrought.
Standing there above them, I felt almost as if I was looking into one of those amazing, Hubble telescope photographs: those thousands of swirling galaxies floating within a sea of a million stars. I pointed my camera down, straight down, and snapped, smiling.
Back at home, before heading into that day’s dungeon of work, I granted myself one more aesthetic gift: a leisurely circling of my garden, with spattering raindrops . . . without recrimination or guilt.
More scattered leaves. More sodden magic and breathtaking color. Damp, thick breaths of cool, pregnant air.
What can I say . . .

Still-life with slug salad tom

Wed, 5 Nov 2008 14:12:09 -0800

I’ve been studying this tomato for more than a week now; watching as rays of warming sunshine through my kitchen window and that steady accumulation of time upon its cells has transformed it from a firm, earthy-green, to a shade more readily sanguine.
I still have dozens of tomatoes ripening in my basement. Tomatoes of many shapes and shades, carefully spread out upon newspapers, not touching, waiting for that transformative process which will color and flavor them up to the point they are ready to eat. (I’ve occasionally still had a few fresh, ripe tomatoes via this time-tested method as late as Thanksgiving, which has always been an additional cause for thanks in this gardener’s humble world.)
This year I took several still-green ones to Burning Pram, sliced them into 1/4 inch thick planks one evening and grilled them with little more than salt and garlic and a couple of strips of Glondo’s smoked bacon to enhance their delicious acidic flavors. Yummmm! Green tomatoes, whether dipped in egg, dusted with cornmeal, and then fried, or grilled, or sauteed with garlic and olive oil and fresh thyme, or . . . (got any favorite recipes you want to add?), are a taste treat well worth the trying.
But I’ve been waiting to understand why this particular slug-eaten tomato so captured my attention and loyalties, and then somehow convinced me to save and ripen it. I mean, I know why it is so full of holes. And I know why the slugs got away with so much on this and a few other of my toms: Overwork and inattention. I’ve scarcely been out in my little garden haven since oh, say, the end of August. Instead of chasing and squishing slugs, I’ve been chasing dollars, trying to bank enough work, and put enough away to get me through the coming slow season, especially in this newly devastated economy. (A self-employment survival strategy learned over many years of surviving.)
It occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, this battered tomato holds several significant lessons for me. It is a reminder of what simple neglect can cost. And yet, as the still adoring grandson of my long-departed, thrifty, gleaning, canning, berry-picking, cookie baking, butter-foil-scraping Scotch grandmother, it is also a reminder that a few scars are no reason to discard anything in its entirety, simply because of compromised aesthetics. I see it also as a marker . . . of days from late summer and into the depths of fall that passed by in my garden with scarcely a notice by me, or my normally more hungry and attentive eyes.
This morning I was washing dishes and trying to take in all that the powerful and moving events of last night’s election results portend, when my friendly and arguably ugly, slug’s-salad-tomato caught my attention once again and bluntly asked to have its picture taken. And so we, this tomato and I, enlisted the help of the large, friendly, bamboo salad bowl. Picture the three of us playing then, collaborating to make shots that seemed fitting tribute.
Since this brave tomato made no attempts to hide its scars, nor feel any apparent shame for them, neither did I.
And strangely, as I studied it from several angles, I found that to my eye it was really much more interesting than some of the other more perfect tomatoes that had grown up alongside it, and also, uniquely beautiful.
This tomato is a survivor, utterly tomato still, and still full of flavor . . . and willing to offer itself to a worthy culinary cause. Now, having captured a bit of its unique, scarred beauty, and having allowed myself time to understand a few of the lessons this unique, teaching tomato had to offer, we have agreed that I may cut out its slug-scars and then put it in with the lamb shanks I’m about to braise, as I was taught by Ann, that Elvis-lovin, Idaho sheep ranch owner in the “Lessons From A Sheep Ranch” story linked above.
May you all find the beauty in things scarred (isn’t everything, really?), and may each of our lives be richer for what those scars add to us and our surroundings, in flavor, in wisdom, in character and yes, in beauty.
Namasté

Your Fugitive Presence

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 20:56:52 -0800

When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgement of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself. And I think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.

Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid

Happy Halloween!

Sat, 1 Nov 2008 00:00:42 -0700

May this day have become for you a playful respite, a chance to smile and laugh . . . a place to help rekindle that inner child.

Burn the Pram

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:57:44 -0700

OK, so this one isn’t about gardening per se, but it is about seeking sanity. Sometimes I find that in the garden.
Sometimes the best thing I personally can do for my mental health is to go fishing.
Which is precisely what I’ve just done.
Too much work and too many “to do” lists; they had begun to wear me down, dry me out, hide that essential humor and joy that can imbue every day when you’re looking in the right places and with the right eyes.

Thank goodness for Pauly and Timmy, and the 45 or so other flyfishing souls that gathered this past weekend along the Yakima River for bonfires, potluck, trout fishing and dog races. This was our sixth annual Burning Pram weekend, (think Burning Man and then shrink it down substantially, give it a flyfishing theme and locate it in the Great Northwest. There, now you’re starting to get the picture. If you want to understand it even more completely, Google it. “Burning Pram” Or click the link just below to see a video from Burning Pram 3 a few years ago): Clickety! Or this one for Burning Pram 2: Clickety! Or see a slide show from BP1. As you can see, we tend to have ourselves a bit of fun. Anyone is welcome. Think about joining us next year.

Scenes from an awakening orchard

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:01:28 -0700

I’ve been out a-wandering again. Working, yes, but in some of the grooviest of groovy places. Potato fields to the north of here, a regional airport to the east. And then there was this apple orchard over by Wapato, WA.
I had travelled there to make a shot of an apple, hmmmmm . . . would he be an apple king, an apple giant, an apple magnate?
Regardless the adjective, this guy is a major player in the world . . . of apples. I needed to make a hero shot of him for my client’s annual report.
As often happens in some variation, while there in his orchards looking for the perfect place to make my ‘shot’ of him, I happened upon other shots, pictures that had nothing specifically to do with the problem I’d been sent to solve, but pictures that practically demanded of my eyes and heart that I capture them as well, time allowing.
Above is a scene I found while laying prostrate on the ground beneath a row of Fuji apples in the first grey light of morning. It was cold, and still a little dark, and I was waiting for the light levels to come up across the orchard, and for the pickers to fill the first bin of the morning with apples so we could move it into our shot just behind him, and of course, for the ‘big guy’ himself to finish his interview with Stacy, the writer.
Now it occurs to me that some among you may be asking yourselves why on Earth I would choose to lay on the ground beneath a row of apple trees in the cold chill of an October morning. Well, sillys, I was laying there because I wanted to see the way that delicious, damp, cool light of morning was filtering down through all those turning leaves, then kissing and embracing those beautiful red apples. Duh! What you see is my attempt to capture some elemental edge to the magic of that moment. Does that make me crazy? OK, so here’s another variation (below), that takes in a bit larger visual story along with the apples and light.

Ripe Abundance

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:35:12 -0700

Most of them are in the basement for now, sitting atop newspapers on the floor . . . just close enough that they can whisper encouragements to one another if they want to, but not close enough to touch. They reside in this dim-lit room temporarily, their work cut out for them. Ripening work. Sweetening work. Coloring-up and flavoring-up work.
Some of them have already ripened fully, been sliced and then eaten fresh. Others went to Buzzy’s house as a thank you for loaning me the basket you see in the pictures. Some went to Mike and Joy’s house. Several of the “Orange Bananas” were sliced lengthwise into wedges, seeded, drizzled with olive oil and then sprinkled with sea salt and fresh garden savory, followed by drying time in the oven, a delicious series of tricks learned from Mary last year. Those tasty tom’s now sit frozen upon the cookie sheet they were dried on, in my chest freezer, awaiting transfer to a Ziploc freezer bag. Later this afternoon. Maybe.
Of course, a few choice fruits sit on my kitchen window sill, ready for salads, a BLT maybe, or just a B&T sammy . . . and tacos. Mmmm!
Several pictured here, those first to ripen, now sit in a jar in the refrigerator, transformed: I simmered and sieved and sauced them until they became a thick, sanguine Marinara. Spaghetti for supper anyone?
Tell me, tell us . . . describe the things you are putting up . . . have put up.
This . . . this tending to the harvest; some of my favorite work of the year.

So you wanna be a Beet Poet.

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:09:51 -0700

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical
     naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry
     dynamo in the machinery of night . . .

     --Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"

***

Garden Writers means really fun people!

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:21:39 -0700

And I mean really fun!

My Youngest is Married

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:40:03 -0700

Big, big day yesterday!
My littlest one, all grown up, married her best friend.
Takes my breath away.

Though it's not really garden related, it might explain a bit, my absence here.

I'd like to introduce you all to Jen and Todd.
May God bless this new union abundantly.

Namasté

Visual Haiku

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:35:22 -0700

OK, anybody wanna play along?

So, Layanee’s observation/question from my “Call for Topics” posting a few days ago, and then Heather’s follow up has had me thinking. Here’s what she wrote:

Layanee
I think the hardest shots to achieve successfully are those that show the 'whole' garden where eliminating some portions are as important as including the right ones. Most blogs which are picture driven show closeups. I think that is because it is easier to compose those shots to great effect. Some tips on the overall shot composition would be useful.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 04:40 AM

In reply:

First off, I’m not sure it’s close-ups as much as it is really simple, pared down shots. Is the shot above a close-up? How far back do you need to be for it not to be a close-up? The challenge for me as a storyteller is to keep imagery simple enough that you the viewer will know what it was I was hoping to provide him/her a glimpse of. And that takes an active mind, and active decision making. This is the main arena where I feel many of us quit well before we should, if we want others to see into a place the way we did when we decide to make a photo.

I refer to these sorts of shots as “Visual Haiku”, because like haiku, they attempt to pare down the image to a single thought, or a few thoughts within a very limited pallet and within an aesthetic context. (Less is more.) If I show you too much, you won’t see anything. This is why the “Where’s Waldo” books have been so popular, and why those “find the hidden picture” features in the Highlights Magazines were so much fun back when I was a kid. We are hard-wired to see patterns, and yet, while seeing them, we often miss the individual, the little magical miracle, the especially amazing element within that larger whole. Focusing to find those individual little visual miracles is great mind work, great meditation. But I never assume people who visit here are looking for some sort of “Where’s Waldo” experience. I assume they want to see magic, and that they will appreciate the glimpses that I have very carefully found within the larger, much more cacophonous whole. With as little time as we all have, and with all the visual clutter that the world at large hammers us with, moment by moment, I suppose I am actively choosing to refine and simplify certain garden spaces visually, and to thus provide peaceful little asides, waypoints, from the screaming highway of life. I don’t assume that you, my visitors are coming here to see if you can peer deeply enough into a picture to see something especially delightful. I assume that is my role in this dance. It is my work to show you.

So, though I am a fan of well designed overviews, I suspect that in this fast-paced world, those who come a wandering into a blog such as mine will relate better to imagery where someone has already eliminated much of the clutter, to help show the meditation.

Which isn’t to say that you can’t show a large part of a given garden. It is just to say that one must deliberately make choices, to help direct the viewer’s eye. Here’s an example of a wider scene, but one where I am still doing my best to help the viewer move into the picture and see what is magical there.

And here is another, closer in, and focusing on a single flowering plant, but still giving the viewer a sense of the space and flow and mood of that particular garden. See how the big structural element of the tree frames both foreground subject and the wooded background?

Now, here (below), is a larger overview of the garden yet. Helpful, yes? But to my eye, this is much more an informational shot, more than an interpretive shot. In it, I may be giving you context for the other shots, but it feels much less insightful, or mood setting or intimate. I wouldn’t want it to have to stand on it’s own as a representation of this garden. Because, this is not a particularly fascinating glimpse. It is busy and somewhat impersonal, and yet, if I want to explain the magic of this garden overall, I may need such a shot to work as an establishing shot, a larger context within which to place the more intimate glimpses. I can still use the rules of good composition with such an impersonal overview to help make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible. But this sort of image will seldom carry the “AHHHHHH” emotional weight of a more intimate view. (The rules/guidelines of composition simply grow out of the way we Westerner’s tend to see things. Because of the way we were taught to read, we enter a newspaper page, a magazine and or a photograph most often from the left and move to the right. In other cultures, they are trained to enter the page from the right.

Context for Making Pictures and Navigating an Election Season

Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:23:11 -0700

“It has long been thought of science, particularly in evolutionary biology, that nature does not make extended leaps, that her creatures slip in slow disguise from one shape to another. A simple observation will reveal however, that there are rocks in deserts that glow with heat for a time after sundown. Similar emanations may come from the writer or the scientist. The creative individual is someone upon whom mysterious rays have converged and are again reflected, not necessarily immediately, but in the course of years.

That all of this wispy geometry of dreams and memories should be the product of a kind of slow-burning oxidation carried on in an equally diffuse and mediating web of nerve and sense cells is surprising enough, but that the emanations from the same particulate organ, the brain, should be so strikingly different as to disobey the old truism of an unleaping nature is quite surprising, once one comes to contemplate the reality.

The same incident may stand as a simple fact to some,
an intangible hint of the nature of the universe to others,
a useful myth to a savage,
or any number of other things.

The receptive mind makes all the difference, shadowing or lighting the original object.”

Loren Eiseley
from his essay ‘The Last Neanderthal’