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A really good week for Thyme Bombe

The last week has been kind of amazing for this little blog. Lots of good things happening that make me excited for what Thyme Bombe has become and where it’s going. Let’s start at the beginning…

Smitten Kitchen cookbook

On Thursday I hooked up with Laura, Carol, and Carol’s sister Anne to see Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen at her book signing at a local Atlanta bar. We had a great time listening to Deb’s entertaining stories about transitioning to blogging as a career and her long struggle to make a cookbook she could be proud of.

Deb Perelman

During the Q&A session, I asked Deb what she had learned about the publishing process that surprised her and was delighted to hear that her answer very nearly matched my own! She also struggled to meet deadlines and vastly underestimated how much time and effort it would take to make a product she was proud of. For her, she explained, making something excellent was much more important than making something on time. While I haven’t had the chance to delve into her cookbook yet, it’s clear that she’s put an incredible amount of work into it and I really respect that she took the time to make it perfect.

So speaking of cookbooks…I received my very first royalty payment for The Japanese Pantry! It’s really not much, but it feels so so good. I plan on hosting a giveaway for a signed copy soon, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet you may have a chance to win it!

And that leads me to some more exciting news… Several weeks ago when I announced the release of my book on my blog Facebook page, it caught the attention of a local photographer! Jimi of Jimi Filo Photography offered to do a collaboration with me so that he could take pictures of me cooking food for his photo blog that I could also use in a post. He and his wife set up at my house Saturday morning and snapped away in the dining room as I prepared 2 recipes for the blog – cold soba with hot duck soup for dipping and matcha bars with strawberry jam filling. I snapped a few pics too while I was waiting for things to cook.

tetsubin

Shiitakes and scallions

Hopefully Jimi will have his images ready in a week or two so I can share them with you all, along with the recipes for the delicious food I made. Seriously, those matcha bars were incredible.

Last bit of awesome news is that I had not one, but two, recipes accepted to Tastespotting this past week! This may not seem like such a big thing, but this news comes after submitting content to them for nearly 3 years and being rejected every time, so to have 2 recipes in a week finally accepted is just indescribable. I was floating all day when I found out. I’ve worked very hard to improve my photography skills over the last year, so having my work validated by such a notoriously picky site feels really good.

So that was my week!

What’s the best thing that happened to you in the last week?

 

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Shooting a book

I am a total slave to the light right now. Everything I do these days is planned around the weather forecast. Sunny days are spent at home shooting book photos, and if it’s dreary or rainy out I go run errands. It’s not fun to spend the pretty days indoors doing work and the gloomy ones out slogging around in the elements.

One perk of writing a cookbook though…you get to eat your props!

Eaten biscuits and shiitake gravy

I shot some biscuits with miso shiitake gravy yesterday morning and had them for lunch as soon as I was sure I got the shot I needed, along with some green tea that was also in the photo. This isn’t the shot I’ve chosen for the book, but you can see how delicious all this hard work can be!

Biscuits with shiitake gravy

Yeah, it can’t all be bad when there’s biscuits and gravy afterwards. 😉

It is hard to get any work done when there are nosy cats around though. Liam loves to sniff at my recipes, like this green tea and pistachio frozen yogurt before I put it in the freezer to set up.

Liam sniffs a semifreddo

He likes to swarm me while I’m setting up shots too, knocking things over with his tail and just generally being in the way.

Photo table setup

Almost all of the book shots are being taken at this little table next to a window, with my light box being used as a light bounce and various props used to change the look of the table surface and with different colored backdrops taped up behind it all. I am so proud of the photos I’ve been taking and I can’t wait for you all to see them. You’d never know they were taken on a tiny Ikea table propped up with some old mail on an uneven floor.

Today is a gloomy-ish day so I’m out of the house shopping for ingredients for more book photos to take as soon as the sun comes out. It seems like a never ending cycle, I seriously won’t know what to do with myself when this book is done. In fact, I’m already planning another one!

It will be nice when I can spend a sunny day outdoors again though, so that’s what I’m working towards. Gotta get it done in time for spring!

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Lightbox

Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I discovered on Tuesday that all the pictures I’d taken over the 4th of July weekend were gone due to a faulty memory card. In truth, we didn’t do anything exciting for the 4th anyway since the Decatur fireworks were washed out with rain, so I didn’t have much to show you anyhow.

I did manage to do one constructive thing this week though…build a photography lightbox!

Lightbox off

Jeff did some research for me on how to build one and we set out to procure the materials. Apparently, all you need is some white foam board, 2 utility lamps, and some bright lightbulbs. Oh, and tape, lots of tape.

We put in a couple of daylight CFLs and got to work testing it out.

CFL bulb in lightbox

Wow, it is bright all lit up! I almost need to wear sunglasses to take pictures in it.

Lightbox on

I practiced taking pictures of many different objects and playing with my camera settings to see what worked.

I still need to purchase some cloth backdrops to hang inside so that I can completely eliminate the background in the photos, but overall I like the effect.

Yixing pot in lightbox

The lightbox was needed for a super secret project I’m working on that I’ll tell you all about when the time comes. 😉

Ever used a lightbox?