Categories
Food and wine Landscape Portrait Street Travel

Sunday August 29, 2010

NAIROBI, KENYA – Here we are – out last day in Kenya. We went on a “food safari” in local markets with Hubert des Marais (an American from the Carolinas), a prominent chef who has become Fairmont’s executive chef in Kenya (or maybe East Africa). Our first stop was a large covered farmers’ market where local residents bring vegetables grown on plots in Nairobi.

Food Market

Cell phones are the primary means of communications; many residents lack electric power so business that offer the charge cell phones, like this one in the market, are common.

A cell phone charging service in the market

There’s a food court in the food market where it possible to buy lunch. The word “hotel” on the sign means “restaurant” in this context.

The largest foreign food influence is Indian. The Indians were brought in by the English to build the railroad from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. Indians also came to the region as traders, merchants and professionals. Here we see an Indian pastry shop.

An indian pastry shop

This is a former aircraft hanger, from the era when the airstrip was in the middle of Nairobi, converted to a mall for small merchants.

Shops

Hubert des Marais at lunch at Chowpaty, a terrific Indian dive. In terms of Indian regional cuisines, what we appeared to see was everything pretty much mixed together.

Hubert des Marais

Finally before packing for our flight back to New York we managed a few hours in the Nairobi National Museum. It focuses on primarily on natural history, ethnography and geology, geared roughly to a high school student. Here is a group of high school students lined up for admission:

Nairobi National Museum
Categories
Food and wine Portrait

Monday August 9, 2010

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – I spent the morning exploring São Paulo on foot, and then made a pilgrimage to Vila Medeiros, a working class neighborhood in São Paulo that was about an hour’s drive from our hotel, to visit Mocotó, a restaurant and bar specializing in food from the far north east of Brazil, and Cachaça, the potent Brazilian sugarcane drink. Here’s a review – be sure to read all six pages: Mocotó The only English-speaker is the chef, Rodrigo Oliveira, a charismatic young man who is viewed as one of the most creative rising chefs in the country. He ended up joining me for lunch and providing a large sampling of items on the menu. Rodrigo is doing serious research on indigenous ingredients. Here he is showing me his collection of beans:

Rodrigo

Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron v. IV.

Categories
Family and friends Portrait

Saturday July 31, 2010 (click to comment)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We’re in New York today (unusual for us for a summer weekend), getting ready to fly to Brazil tonight. My wife, Maria Campbell, needed an up-to-date photo for an interview so that’s my photo for the day. Here are a couple of links with information about Maria:
NY Times article and Interview. Here’s a link the a Huffington Post article about her that used the photograph: Maria Campbell in Huffington Post

Maria Campbell

Nikon D700 with 85mm f1.4 lens.

Categories
Portrait

Saturday July 24, 2010

WASHINGTON, CONNECTICUT – Some old friends gave a dinner and square dance in Connecticut – I don’t square dance but I did manage to photograph. This image seemed to me to be the most interesting from the evening.

Jim

Nikon D700 and Nikkor 85mm f1.4 lens.

Categories
Family and friends Portrait

Friday, June 11, 2010

MUSTIQUE, ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES – Day four in Mustique. The celebration continues at Basil’s Bar.

Basil's Bar, Mustique

Nikon D700 and 85mm Nikkor f1.4 lens.

Categories
Events and holidays Family and friends Portrait

Tuesday June 8, 2010

MUSTIQUE, ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES – We traveled today to Mustique to attend the celebrations surrounding the wedding of friends. We arrived in time for dinner and a kick off party. We were last in Mustique in January of this year. My last trip to Mustique As I’ve noted before this is a private island in the Grenadines populated primarily by the rich and famous.  Here’s a link to it’s Wikipedia entry: Mustique’s Wikipedia entry. Anyway, from evening one. Taken with a Nikon D700 with an 85mm f1.4 Nikkor.

Party at Yamanjá
Categories
Events and holidays Family and friends Portrait

Thursday June 3, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We went to a party for Martha McPhee’s new book Dear Money.  Here’s a link to the book on Amazon:  Dear Money

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