I am proud to introduce Robyn, the newest addition to Jackie Connelly Photography! Coming from UBC she is keen, enthusiastic and I only hope I can inspire and teach her what she’s craving to learn. Beginning in January Robyn will be giving me a hand with some hefty sales & marketing tasks over the coming months, all of which I’m excited to be sharing here soon.

Quick intro before her foodie responses:

“I am working with JCP as a marketing intern this year, and I have a fascination with food & lifestyle photography - I cannot wait to learn more from Jackie in the coming months! I am currently taking my final courses for an English Literature Honours degree at UBC, where I am also teaching English writing, taking a course on food & travel writing and doing some freelance photography. I write about lifestyle & inspiration on a lifestyle & inspiration blog and will be a weekly guest writer for a yoga lifestyle blog. I am in the process of designing a website with my photography portfolio and hope to complete it soon. Last year, my husband and I lived and traveled in Europe for twelve months and are eager to return for more travel quite soon!”

Is there a certain food or dish that reminds you of home? My mom’s perfect chocolate chip cookies.

What is the ideal Robyn meal? I adore crab cakes.

Are you a ‘cook at home’ or ‘find the newest hotspot in town’ type person? Both. My husband and I love to cook together and it’s one of our favourite ways to spend time together. Our little kitchen is the most loved room in our apartment. We also love to experience the tastes of the city - whether casual Asian food in take-out boxes, the perfect latte from an eclectic little cafe or an elegant many-course meal at one of the finest restaurants - we love it.

What are you having for dinner tonight? A meal inspired by a documentary on casual Vietnamese food: rice noodles and white fish cooked in tumeric and coconut milk, then topped with fresh dill, spring onions, bean sprouts, red chili, peanuts, lime, fish sauce and tamari, eaten with chopsticks.

Is there one food that gives you the heebie jeebies? Lentils - the texture!

I would like you all to meet Naz Ilcin, my trusted, fearless, hard-working assistant.  And my dog loves her too, which is a nice perk. I like to think of Naz as my ‘mini-me’; we’ve both broken our elbows doing stupid things (me-tripping in the snow; her-slipping on hardwood floor), we both have food sensitivities (me-dairy, wheat; her-spicy foods), and we both love to shoot food.

A bit about Naz:
At work I try to be professional, attentive and as hard working as I can be. When I first start working with a photographer I like to study their every move, I learn their likes and dislikes, how they work and especially, what they expect of me. I believe it’s important to know these things about each other to really make the partnership work. Outside of work I’m a pretty silly person, I like to spend lots of time with friends, go out for dinner or a movie, or just hang out at a pub and shoot some pool.

Is there a certain food or dish that reminds you of home?
Crepes. When I go back home to Turkey to visit family, my cousins and I would get up early and make crepes for the whole family, we would eat it with feta cheese and my grandmother’s home made strawberry or sour cherry jam.

What is the ideal Naz meal?
A big bowl of spaghetti with light tomato sauce, few herbs and diced tomato. Spaghetti is my comfort food!

What are you having for dinner tonight?
Chicken cooked in honey garlic sauce with a side of pasta.

Is there one food that you can’t stand to eat?
Other than shrimp/prawns and fish I’m not a very big fan of seafood, mussels being my least favorite.

Do you have a preference: dining out or eating in?
I really like to cook, so most of the time I prefer eating in.

If you like reading about holiday ham, first hand accounts of cooking in a Vancouver restaurant kitchen, and current events with a smidgen of restaurant chit chat - all of which are accompanied by telling photographs - you will enjoy Owen Lightly’s blog Butter On The Endive. You’ll be able to catch him in action as well as some fabulous cheese, wine and home made terrine at the soon-to-open Au Petite Chavignol, second establishment from owners of Les Amis du Fromage. Owen kindly agreed to be interviewed here for our Chewing The Fat series, for which I definitely owe him a beer.

Jackie Connelly: Is there a certain dish that reminds you of home?
Owen Lightly: To me home is all about seafood. I grew up on a small Gulf Island and my dad always had a prawn trap soaking, or was out on the water trying to land a big salmon. One of the simplest and best dishes we would make was a spot prawn stir-fry. Take one hot wok, a little garlic, throw in a big pile of prawns (head and all), salt, pepper, stir, stir, stir and finish with lemon juice. Pour out onto a table lined with newspaper and dig in – no cutlery allowed.

JC: What is your ideal meal?
OL: Well, besides the dish in the preceding question, nothing satisfies me like a plate of the classic Italian pasta Bucatini all’Amatriciana. Check out my recipe for it on Butter On The Endive.

JC: What are you having for dinner tonight?
OL: I just returned from a five day eating spree in San Francisco, and I feel pretty grotesque (you can’t live on restaurant food alone), so I wanted to keep it simple tonight: roast loin of pork with roasted root vegetables and a sauce made with beer, apples and grainy mustard.

JC: Is there one food that gives you the heebie-jeebies?
OL: Well, besides all the processed garbage in the world, there aren’t a whole lot of things that I can’t stomach. I believe most ingredients have potential, it’s just how you handle them. Oh, I got it, cooked cucumbers. Those are nasty.

JC: Being a food blogger, I can imagine you have spent some time browsing the blogosphere. Can you recommend a few of your favourite food blogs for readers to check out?
OL: I really enjoy Mark Bittman’s blog on the New York Times website, as well as food writer Michael Ruhlman’s. I just found a new local one called Crust In The Kitchen. It is by a young cook named Christie, who has worked at Feenie’s, Chow and Gastropod. She has a really honest take on kitchen life, which makes for good reading.
* In hindsight, another question I should have asked Owen: Where did the name ‘Butter On The Endive’ come from? But maybe that’s being too cheeky.

I still think it’s pretty awesome that through various social media and technology we can meet people that are literally on the other other side of the world that have similar likes and opinions. I know, this is nothing new and people have been doing it for a long time, but c’mon, you must admit it’s pretty nifty. Well I do, especially when you make the effort to get to know someone through their blog for example, and the effort is actually returned.

My most recent introduction of this kind came through blogs (both hers and mine) and through Twitter. I think it’s pretty textbook ’social media 101′ on how to let others know your blog exists: find another blog you like, comment on it (so that blog owner now knows your blog exists, and hopefully comments back) or write a post that includes a link to their blog (and some form of flattery doesn’t hurt). Voila, now you’ve connected with another blogger. And now, I have the pleasure of extending her introduction to my readers…

To start, a little bit about Christie:
I own an online media agency with my husband called Morning Copy. We specialize in copy writing, design, email marketing and SEO. I’m a bossy boots Project Manager
I write my food blog Fig & Cherry for fun although I’d love to work with food full time one day (writing, recipe development, styling). I also have this crazy dream of opening up a children’s cooking school! I’m a bit of an over-achiever and multitasking gives me an adrenaline rush.

How did the food you grew up eating at home inform your cooking/food choices today?
Being an Australian with Lebanese and Hungarian heritages I had access to a lot of different types of food as a child. One of my earliest memories is eating peas straight from the pod and picking cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun. Fresh and seasonal produce now plays a large part in my inspiration for cooking.

What is the ideal Christie meal?
I’m very concerned with nutrition so I try to balance every meal with fresh vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. Although that all goes out the window if I can get my hands on a large selection of cheese. I love cheese.

Is there one thing you can’t live without in your kitchen?
Sharp knives, loved ones and a glass of wine! I love putting on a show in the kitchen so I’m in my element with an audience. (Guilty secret: sometimes I pretend I’m being filmed for a cooking show and talk to the ‘camera’).

Is there one food that gives you the heebie jeebies?
The more foreign, the better, actually. On my honeymoon in Thailand I was determined to find a bagful of deep-fried insects to munch on in Bangkok. I checked every street stall and was very disappointed when I couldn’t find any. I’d love to try puffer fish for the thrill and eat the worm from a tequila bottle. Maybe one day.

What’s the most memorable meal you’ve ever had?
Steak in Toulouse, south of France, 2006. It had the most incredible complex flavour and tender texture. It was served perfectly rare and could easily be cut with a butter knife. I have never had a better steak. The other memorable thing was that all of our French friends smoked cigarettes between each course. I can’t understand how they tasted the next dish! It was very amusing.

As a food blogger, do you find social media and food a stimulating combination?
Absolutely! I love the instantaneous feedback and being able to interact with people who are as passionate about cooking and eating as I am.

Ever wonder who pre-measures the ingredients and pre-cooks the dishes you see on tv cooking shows? Well now you get to meet one of them - Darlene Tanaka. Not only is she great at making a stage kitchen look like a real one, full of food that has been magically prepared, she also styles food for commercials, and works with cookbook authors on their press rounds.

Are there certain foods that remind you of home?
I grew up in Steveston and my family had a huge vegetable garden. My mom always had lots of fresh vegetable from the garden and froze lots for the winter. My father was a fisherman so we always had fresh seafood especially salmon. I love fresh seafood.

How did the food you grew up eating at home inform your cooking/food choices today?
I try to buy local produce when in season and encourage eating lots of fruits and vegetable to my family. I have never planted a vegetable garden at my own house but am planning one for next year. My mother still has a large vegetable garden, she grows vegetables for all of us.

Is there one thing you can’t live without in your kitchen?
Not really one thing I can’t live without can always find an alternative. However, having sharp knives does make cooking and preparing food alot easier.

What are you having for dinner tonight?
A friend is coming over for dinner with her 2 kids and we are having BBQ hamburgers. My most recent memorable meal was when we were in Bamfield visiting our friends Chris, Jan and Ben. We had seafood feast, fresh salmon, halibut, prawns and crab. The best part was that all the seafood was caught when we were out fishing.