Photographer’s Note: Love the way the chocolate’s all melty at the edges.

You know the moment? The one where you’re supposed to come back with a witty retort or the perfect comeback or the snappy zinger that is so obvious 10 seconds after? I had one of those over the weekend when I stepped out of my bedroom at midnight onto the back porch to the sound of raucous laughter.

“Hey, would you guys mind keeping it down a little?” I called to the upstairs neighbor’s deck.

Silence fell swift and heavy. And then came two words, barely audible in the darkness.

“Fuck you.”

They hung in the silence, brilliant as a pair of malevolent fireflies. It was the moment. And I was frozen. In the space of a few seconds, a conversation played out in my head.

Anger: “Yeah? Why don’t you say that to my face instead of just muttering it in the dark?”
Sarcasm: “Really? That’s the adult response to ‘please be quiet’? Is that what they’re teaching in Behavioral Psychology these days?”
Pride: “Don’t be rude in front of their friends. It’s disrespectful.”
Spock: “It is highly doubtful that returning anger with anger will result in either your desired result or a productive conversation.”
Practicality: “Speaking of desired result, they seem to be quiet. Looks like whatever you said worked. Let’s go to sleep now.”

“Thank you.” I said and turned to go inside. As I opened the door, I was followed by some more muttering that ended with the words “Screw you.”

“I wonder if she thinks I can’t hear her?” I thought.

I’d like to say that I then fell right asleep and forgot about the whole thing. But I didn’t. I tossed and turned most of the night and woke up completely exhausted. A new group had joined the running conversation in my head.

Anxiety: “Maybe I should have said something. I don’t want people talking to me like that.”
The Oracle: “You already decided what you should do. The question is whether you know why you did what you did.”
Oprah: “She must be full of hate to act like that. I kinda feel sorry for her.”
Sofia Vergara: “Why are jou spending all jour time theeenking about her? Jou should be theeenking about jourself and how JOU feel!”
Me-at-Fifteen: “Finally, some validation that the whole world really DOES revolve around me.”

Completely disgruntled by my utter failure in the moment, I consulted my friend Sherin, a writer, a child of the genteel South and one of the gifted few who seem to always have a politely witty retort at the ready.

“Well, I might have said ‘Thanks for the offer but, as I’m trying to get some sleep, I’d appreciate if you’d just keep it down for now.’”

Sherin SMASH! I think I might have just added a new part to my repertoire – InternalSherin, can I introduce you to InternalSpock? Here, let me get you some wine.. just make yourself at home…

Hey, it’s not schizophrenia until I start talking back. Out loud. And somebody notices. Repeatedly.

I even bumped into old friends – Jeff Wolfram, an architectural photographer that I’ve assisted from time to time and Ed Bruske, auteur of The Slow Cook and the man to talk about school food around here. I also made some new friends, including Jessica Sidman, who publishes a blog about frozen desserts called The Frozen Fix. I will totally be making her Coconut Ginger Sorbet next summer.

But you don’t care about that. What you really want are pictures of the fooooooood. Very well – I give you little, fat cubes of pork belly.

The ingredients Chef Aaron put together are all local, including the pickled tomatoes he used as garnish. They were made from tomatoes grown right in the restaurant’s garden. This, obviously, is totally rad and completely in line with my thinking about food.

While Aaron prepped the pork belly offsite, there was an incredible amount of onsite preparation that went into the final presentation. It starts here with the pork belly being friend in a skillet with some of the ketchup and then being transferred to a plate to await garnishes as below.

The garnishes included the aforementioned pickled tomatoes, micro cress (I had never seen these before – adorable! And actually quite tasty.), and a pepper cracker. Crackers and pork belly, I hear you ask? As my grandmother would say, “Just eat it!*”

This is a horrible photograph, I know. But it tasted really good, I promise! I know it to be true but I can’t take decent photographs while doing anything else and I was really preoccupied with yakking with folks about my recipe and how awesome Aaron had made it.

Chef Aaron explaining the dish to one of the judges. It probably went something like this:

“Green tomatoes tend to be acidic. To balance that, we add a fatty piece of sheer goodness (AKA pork belly). Then, we pickle some green tomatoes to add some more acidity/sweetness while pairing the ketchup components. Then, we need a little textural crunch element to cut through the mostly soft components. So, we add a little salad of micro pepper cress. This has a very crisp, peppery bite to it. Then, we add a flat bread cracker that will be full of pepper to add more texture and add a classic tomato pairing like black pepper.”

I might be a little biased but I thought it was delicious. It was not only really popular with the East Asian contingent – two different woman told me nearly word-for-word: “You can never go wrong with pork belly.” – but also very popular with the male contingent of the evening’s festivities. One guy, stated very seriously, “This is the best thing here. If the announcers ever give me the microphone, this is all I’m talking about.” Another guy, after hearing the judges’ final results, said, “You guys were robbed. Yours is the best stuff here.”

And then they had to pop my head to get it out of the Pavilion Hall. Heh.

Actually what she would say was “You don’t have to like it, you just have to eat it.” Which I could never come back with a witty retort for, honestly. Hopefully my kids will show me the way.

Of course, I’m still vacillating between chuckling inwardly that my green fruit recipe won a final spot at the Red Fruit Fest and OHMYGODIMGONNABEONSTAGEWITHAFAMOUSCHEF!!!!!1111.

Heh. Wow.

Unless, of course, you’re talking about making 7-Layer Bars (thanks, Meagen Ryan!) a prerequisite for a birthday party. That is definitely a lifestyle change everyone should embrace.

The party was definitely Midwestern, all the way from the contributed food & drink – Steve Mandzik’s strawberry, almond leafy greens with vinaigrette, Jenn Bonsall’s homemade marshmallow fruit salad, the aforementioned 7-layer bars, chocolate and lemon cakes, countless sausages and hot/chicken/tofu dogs, buns, and condiments in addition to beer and vodka lemonade courtesy of Matt McNabb – to the the Midwestern cookbook our neighbors brought Wayne as a present.

In addition to literally bringing home the bacon (to wrap the hotdogs in, of course), I committed myself to four dishes: green bean casserole, potato salad, something involving Jello and Kool Whip, and Mac-N-Cheese cupcakes. Here’s my postprandial redux with recipes:

1. Green Bean Casserole

During the research phase, I spoke with a fair amount of Midwesterners and they all agreed that this is pretty standard party food. The basic ingredients – milk, one can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, and green beans – definitely didn’t stir up as much debate as the topping. When one of my choir mates suggested potato chips for the topping, another looked at her as if she had just suggested topping a California roll with peanut butter. I was intrigued but I do love me some fried onions.

Ingredients

• 1 can Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup
• 4 cups of green beans
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 can of french-friend onions
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Cook the green beans and set aside in a strainer. Whisk the soup and milk together until smooth in 1 1/2 qt baking dish. Add the beans and 2/3 cup of the french-fried onions. Bake for 25 mins at 350°F.
2. Sprinkle another 2/3 cup of the french-fried onions evenly over the top of the cooked mixture and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the onions are lightly browned. Best served warm.

2. Potato Salad

I’m kinda picky about my potato salad – I don’t like crunchy stuff in it (unless it’s bacon) and I’m not a huge fan of vinegar. I tend towards things involving dill and some mayo/lemon juice but I was committed to making something Midwestern. I started with this recipe because the author shares the same Germanic/Irish background that Wayne does and ended up modifying it as below.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs red potatoes
• 2 small onions
• 2 cups mayonnaise
• 3 tbs mustard (from a jar, not the spice)
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar
• salt and pepper, to taste

Preparation

1. Boil the potatoes until just done. Set aside to cool and drain. I leave the potato skins on (Cue the voice of my grandmother: “It’s where all the vitamins are!”) but you might feel otherwise. If you really can’t stand the idea of eating potato skins, it is much easier to slip them from their skins AFTER they’ve been cooked. Once cooled, place in a big bowl and break into chunks with a fork.
2. Chop the onions finely. Saute in some oil (or my favorite, bacon grease). Once cooked, turn off the heat and mix thoroughly in a bowl with the mayo, vinegar, and mustard. Coat the potatoes evenly and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm. Also tastes great from the fridge

This was hands down my favorite recipe of the day (that I made). Since I expected a couple of vegetarians at the party, I left out bacon but I have plans to make this again with sauteed bacon and onions. Very definite plans.

3. Jello Molds

A couple of years ago, I found an Easter egg mold for Jello and Wayne and I made some striped Jello eggs for his parents one year. It must have left quite an impression because what should I find under the Christmas tree this year but 3 Halloween-themed Jello molds – an anatomically correct heart, brain, and a tray for Jello eyeballs. Spiffy!

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait until Halloween to use them. I will confess that I didn’t oil the heart mold before pouring in the Jello and ended up completely ripping the first heart in half trying to get it out of the mold. The second one turned out just fine. Definitely go for the jiggler version of Jello instead of the straight up Jello – your body part will hold its shape much better.

The super cheesy part of making a heart and brain Jello mold for Wayne’s birthday was that I got to tell him I love him with all my heart and mind. Awwwww….

4. Mac-n-Cheese Cupcakes

When I went through a big cupcake phase last year, I spotted this this recipe for Mac-N-Cheese cupcakes on Bake and Destroy and filed it away for a rainy birthday. Or a sunny birthday, as it turned out to be. I cheesed out* and went the Jiffy corn muffin mix route due to my demanding pre-birthday preparation schedule but given the feedback, I’d definitely be up for trying them again with a nicer corn muffin base.

Disclaimer: Being allergic to milk, I didn’t have one of these myself. I will say, however, that they didn’t last very long.

*Yes, that was a deliberately bad pun.

It’s a pretty versatile recipe – two years ago, Wayne used it to build a scale model of his parents’ farmhouse in Michigan. Last year, we got ambitious and designed modern art interlocking sculpture cookies. In the middle of July this year, I was struck with a vision of Tetris-shaped gingerbread cookies.

Side Note: I was lucky to have this idea in the middle of July because it gave me exactly 5 months to procrastinate, pretending to look for Tetris cookie cutters online and then 1 week to infect my crack cookiecutter engineering and production team with a nasty stomach bug. Fortunately, it was easy enough to lure unsuspecting cookie production staff to the house with promises of homemade chicken stew, apple cider, sugar cookies, SomaFM’s Xmas in Frisko, and Apples to Apples.

Ingredients

• Dough
• 2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/4 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses
• Glaze
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 1/3 cup (1 ounce) juniper berries, lightly crushed
• 1 pound powdered sugar
• Assorted decorations (colored sugars, nonpareils, and dragées)

Preparation

1. Whisk first 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in molasses. Beat in dry ingredients. Gather dough; divide into 4 pieces. Shape into disks. Wrap; chill at least 2 hours and up to 2 days.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Roll out 1 dough disk to 1/8-inch thickness. Using 3 1/2-inch cutter, cut out cookies. Transfer to sheet. Gather scraps; chill.
3. Bake cookies until almost firm in center, 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 2 minutes, then cool on racks. Repeat, using all dough. Store airtight at room temperature up to 3 days or freeze up to 2 weeks.
4. Bring first 2 ingredients to simmer. Cover; chill 5 hours. Strain. Place powdered sugar in bowl. Whisk in half and half by spoonfuls until glaze is spreadable. Frost cookies; decorate. Let stand until glaze sets. Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Note to self: If you’re going to invite people to a potluck involving chili, be sure to delegate the bringing of chips to one person and one person alone. Otherwise, be prepared to horribly torn between the fatty salty goodness of Fritos and the light crispy goodness of Xochitl.

This meeting was extra fun for 2 reasons: 1. It was at my house. 2. We made playdough.

Or, to be accurate, our fearless leader Kelli Shewmaker made playdough. She had the sneaky idea that playing with playdough would free our subconscious creativity during our planning discussion. And boy was she right! While we made bees, flowers, tiny vegetables, sheep, and things disturbingly shaped like human organs, we had really productive conversations about event scheduling, venue, attendees, website, eventbrite, ticketing, meals, etc. I think we even impressed our newest member who was attending her very first meeting and decided to come again (although it could have just been the excellent food).

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• food coloring

Preparation

Mix flour, salt and oil in a saucepan on the stove, and slowly add the water. Cook over low heat, stirring until dough becomes stiff. Remove to a plate or wax paper and let cool to a temperature where you can handle it easily. Knead the playdough to desired consistency. Use as is, or divide into balls and add food coloring. Playdough remains pliable for about a day in open air. After a day, it begins to harden and will be completely hardened in 2-3 days.

Preparation Note: Do NOT make playdough shortly before a job interview, fancy dinner party, or anywhere else you might be embarrassed by technicolor rainbow hands. The more deeply you work the dye into the dough, the more deeply it gets worked into your skin.

TEDx events follow the TED format but are independently and locally organized. They are largely a volunteer effort – the speakers are unpaid and many of the organizers and supporters (myself included) are unpaid as well.

Last Thursday, I photographed the very first TEDx event in this area – TEDxMidAtlantic, which was held at the MICA’s Brown Center in Baltimore.

I encourage you to have a look at the entire set of all 429 photographs on Flickr here. If 429 seems like a lot of photographs, scroll down for my favorites below of each presenter below.

e3bank Chairman Sandy Wiggins

Security researcher Marcus J. Ramun

NPR reporter Scott Simon

Polyface Farms’ Owner and Sustainable Agriculture Advocate Joel Salatin

2003 Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre

Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra

Artist & activist Naomi Natale

Multimedia sculptor Ico Bukvic

Director of Food & Nutrition for Baltimore City Public Schools Tony Geraci

ReWIRED for Change founder & performer Sonja Sohn

Walters Art Museum Manuscript & Rare Book Curator Will Noel

Entreprenuer Mark Walsh

Director of the American Visionary Art Museum Rebecca Hoffberger

Harris Chair of economics and NYTimes columnist Tyler Cowen

Singer & songwriter John Forté

Photojournalist, teacher & author Karen Kasmauski

JHU Senior Advisor Aris Melissaratos

Tai Sophia Institute President Bob Duggan

JHU professor, researcher & author Roland Griffiths

Classical guitarist Ana Vidovic

The human eye can see a much wider gamut of light than even the most expensive camera. Caught up in the passion of “OMG! That’s so cool! I gotta get a picture of it!”, it’s easy to forget that the camera doesn’t quite see it the same way as I do. Exposing for the super-bright moon renders everything else black and exposing for the ambient scene around it loses the moon in a haze of brilliant light.

This picture is the most satisfying of the bunch but clearly the challenge deserves more consideration.