Saturday III

Merry Christmas

St.Louis

Sunday

After a record snowfall this weekend we spent a couple hours on Sunday trekking around the District. I really love how the first big snow of the year infects everyone with this giddy youthfulness. It's a shame it happens here only once every 80 years!

Saturday II

Saturday

Lavender Salt Bread

I've been kicking around the idea of making this no knead bread recipe for about two weeks now. I finally had enough incentive after I returned from visiting Jess in San Francisco with a jar of Lavender Salt I bought at the Ferry Building farmer's market. A loaf of coarse sea salt bread was always on the menu of our too infrequent dinners when Jess still lived in DC so this one's for you bestest.

I messed up a ton of steps in this process. My house is too cold, I left the dough too long, wrapped it in plastic wrap for 2hrs instead of 15 mins, didn't have the right pot, was convinced the Pyrex with "NO BROILER" stamped on the bottom would shatter everywhere... but here I am two days of my life later and I've got this great crusty hunk of bread that I can't wait to break into tonight.

Scott Spencer of Spencer's Pantry came over and cooked an elaborate, absolutely delicious 5 course meal. Spencer loves to cook but not on the line so he's taken his passion on the road. He charges only for the cost of produce (for now) and spends the evening answering your cooking questions, partaking in the wine, and hanging out. He also does all the dishes. Did I mention, he's totally rad?

On our menu:
Parmigiano Reggiano Butter

Porcini Mushroom Soup with Truffle Shitake Foam

Baby Beet Shoots, Pickled Carrots and Beets, Grits with Truffle Oil, and Pork Belly topped with a Sherry Vinaigrette and Pickled Mustard Seeds

Hamachi stuffed with Israeli Cous Cous topped with White Miso Sauce and baby Wasabi Greens

Homemade Pasta with Duck Confit, Fois Gras butter, Fresh Garbanzo Beans, and Arugula, topped with a Slow Poached Egg

Homemade Corn Ice Cream (no added sugar), Grated Corn, Fudge Cake with a Molten Salted Caramel middle, and Madeleine


Check him out if you're in the San Fran/Oakland area!

Fall Magic

Fall Magic from becky lettenberger on Vimeo.

Knights: A Love Story

Knights: A Love Story from becky lettenberger on Vimeo.

Fun with gum wrappers and my 7D

Brunch

Celebratory brunch at Meze for Yanda's Washington Post COVER STORY!

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Check out the video I edited for the ES&MZ Tiny Desk at NPR. The Tiny Desk Concerts are seriously one of the greatest perks about working here and editing them, well now that's just heaven.

Spontaneous Top Ten List

Doodedoodedoodedo

Doubles

I went to NYC one weekend this past summer with a roll of black and white film loaded in my camera. A couple hours into my trip I was restless to shoot in color so I wound the film back up put it in a canister and forgot about it. Over time I got over the idea of shooting over my pictures and decided to take the roll with me back to NJ for my grandfather's 89th birthday. Here are six of the most interesting doubles.

Thailand ii

Thailand

Recession's Over

South Brunswick, NJ

A Roy G Biv Potluck

We held our first Roy G Biv Potluck this past weekend. Each guest chose a color and came up with these culinary delights: vegan spanakopita, pulled pork wrapped in red onion, flan, beet and goat cheese salad, spinach and (homegrown) basil pesto with ricotta gnocchi, buffalo cheese dip (with homemade hot sauce) and some green marshmallow thing with pineapple and pecans straight out of your grandmother's kitchen. Paired with some red wine and my new favorite bourbon, Basil Hayden, the night was quite a treat.

I'm quite fortunate to have awesome friends who willingly spend a Saturday night at a potluck and really, really, really love food. Check out some of their musings.
For the wonderfully worldly http://thegrandinternational.com/
And for the breakfast lover in all of us http://breakfasts.tumblr.com/

VA: Remote Area Medical 5

Eddie Sturgill, Pound, Va.

Will Mays and Eddie Sturgill hang around their car late in the evening. Danny Sturgill was sleeping "like a chainsaw" making it tough for Eddie to sleep in the reclined passenger seat. Early this year Eddie had a triple bypass. With no insurance it cost him more than $300,000. Will quipped "he'll be dead before he pays that off." Eddie said his only option is to declare total bankruptcy.

VA: Remote Area Medical 4

Sheri Wittaker (standing)
"Look at these people," Sherri said as a woman drove by with curlers in her hair, "they are so desperate, somethings got to be done, they come from all over, do you see these people? I can't begin to tell you, you just gotta sit and watch them." Sherri and her extended family set up camp near the National Guardsmen ushering potential patients to parking spots late into the night.

VA: Remote Area Medical 3

Jacob Reese, 5
Jacob came to RAM with his sister Emily, his grandparents, aunt, uncle and infant cousin. The goose egg above his right eye is the result of a head on collision with a parked car while playing in the fairground campground/parking lot. "Will you take a picture of me and my Nana," he asked, "I love my Nana so much." The next day he would cry in his Nana's lap while getting his oozing ear checked by a volunteer physician.

VA: Remote Area Medical 2

Stella Barr & Montana Mccall, 21, Gladsprings, Va.
Last year, Stella's daughter, and Montana's girlfriend, Andrea had both her wisdom teeth pulled, this year it's Stella's son Tommy's turn. The Barrs and company arrived the day before the clinic began and all received numbers in the single digits and teens. Tommy arrived after his shift that night and received a number in the 700's. The following day he decided not to wait in line for hours on end, despite the pleas of his mother and girlfriend.

VA: Remote Area Medical 1

Mitchell Boggs, Pennington Gap, Va.
Last year Mitchell had all of his teeth pulled. The first day we met he said they would be mailing his dentures to him the next week. The day after he had been entered into a lottery and wasn't sure if he would receive his dentures or not. After an entire year without teeth Bogg's friend Ralph said he had lost a lot of weight and I relied on Ralph to translate Mitchell's garbled speech.

I spent this past weekend in Wise, Va. photographing a Remote Area Medical expedition for NPR. The gallery follows one woman through her experience over the course of the weekend but along the way I encountered many touching, heart breaking, and even infuriating stories. It was such an honor and pleasure to work side by side with a reporter and producer, their sound really captured the essence of the place and people and our photo editor complemented the piece beautifully with stunning portraits of patients and doctors. It's the type of story that reminds me time and time again why NPR is such a remarkable place.

I wish I had collected some of my own tape to give these other people a voice. Next time...

DC: BBQ

"You know we're getting old when the fridge is full of good beer..." throw in some good friends, and good food, and you've got the perfect equation for a summer afternoon.

NYC: Chinatown

I spent an amazing weekend in NYC a few weeks ago and shot my first roll of color film in years. I have been tangled in a long passionate affair with film since my mom gave me my first yellow plastic point and shoot when I was 13. Now, like then, I find shooting with a set number of frames, with no idea what may end up on the reel, both terrifying and exhilarating. After roll upon roll of black and white, a friend of mine, and devout Eggleston follower, asked me why I don't shoot in color. I didn't have a good answer. Getting back this roll felt a lot like magic.

DC: WWII Memorial

Tourist drive by.

DC: Kickball

Balls to the Mall: 6-1

DC: Portrait Gallery

The Decemberists

Caught an awesome show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland last night, some highlights included four of the band members walking out into the crowd and acting out a hysterical version of Hamlet narrated by Colin Meloy. And yes, they played their entire new album.

Look: Endless Entertainment!

Need a break? Check out http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Berkeley Springs, WV

Baseball Season

Look: Blind Photographers

"My images are fragile; I've never seen them, but I know they exist, and some of them have touched me deeply." ©Evgen Bavcar

For many years I've had a reoccurring dream where I go blind. Once, this dream involved me struggling to load a roll of film, unable to see, unable to photograph. Sight Unseen, currently at the California Museum of Photography highlights work from a multitude of blind photographers who create haunting, tender, passionate images, and reminds me that the power of images can transcend all imaginable boundaries.

Check out my article on The Picture Show.

Copy Cats

The New York Times launched "Lens" today and I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity between their post about David Burnett's photos of Bob Marley and a post by NPR's Picture Show this past March.

New York Times

May 15, 2009
Lens is the photojournalism blog of The New York Times, presenting the most interesting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slide shows. A showcase for Times photographers, it also seeks to highlight the best work of other newspapers, magazines and news and picture agencies; in print, in books, in galleries, in museums and from around the Web. And it will draw on The Times's own pictorial archive, numbering in the millions of images and going back to the early 20th century.

NPR

Jan.6, 2009
Come here for a daily dose of the best news photos from around the world, as well as commentary and questions from NPR's multimedia team. You can follow us on this blog and on Twitter. You can also e-mail us directly, join our Facebook group and/or subscribe to our podcast. And, believe it or not, we have a YouTube channel.

What can I expect to find here?
Great visual journalism from NPR's photographers, video journalists, producers and reporters. Also, selected photographs, videos and stories from some of the best camera-wielding journalists in the world.

Look: Picture Show - Joanne Leonard

© Joanne Leonard
Today's Picture Show highlights the work of Joanne Leonard. I found her images so tender and timeless and was struck by an incredible sense of nostalgia, especially with this image.

Modelos in LA

Manhattan Beach

Look: Jo Ann Callis

I went to The Getty Museum while in LA this past weekend and was struck by the eerie tone of some of Jo Ann Callis' work. The pairing of these images and others found in her work from the late 70's captivated and disturbed me.

Look: Andrew Bush

© Andrew Bush

The Picture Show rarely fails to enlighten me with cool and quirky photo projects like the work of Andrew Bush.

Bar Commercial

Lew Welch: Chicago Poem (excerpt)

All things considered, it's a gentle and undemanding
planet, even here. Far gentler
Here than any of a dozen other places. The trouble is
always and only with what we build on top of it.

There's nobody else to blame. You can't fix it and you
can't make it go away. It does no good appealing
To some ill-invented Thunderer
Brooding over some unimaginable crag.

It's ours. Right down to the last small hinge it
all depends for its existence
Only and utterly upon our sufferance.

Potluck

Do You Realize

I saw the Flaming Lips on the Mall today. The show was free, the weather was chilly, and the band incredible. They closed their set with "Do You Realize." It was the perfect summation of this weekend.

Tony

http://www.southmountaincreamery.com/home.php

South Mountain Creamery

an experiment

http://beckylettenberger.wordpress.com/

Kerouac

List of Essentials:
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages for yr own joy.
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monologue
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

- Jack Kerouac, Belief and Technique for Modern Prose: List of Essentials

Workshops

and

Shocking Facts!

Check out this video