Sometimes it’s funny to me that I photograph big events every weekend.
While I love the big weddings, I have a soft spot in my heart for small offbeat weddings.
At my wedding, we had seven people attending.
I wore a red dress.
After the ceremony, we treated our guests to a fantastic meal at Evvia, a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto that Steve Jobs often goes to.
Noah’s Grandma Mary introduced my mom to the wonders of ouzo.
Everyone shared food, conversation and got a little sloshed.
We had a great time and still reminisce about it.

So you can imagine I was jazzed when Carrie and Steven asked me to be part of their wedding.
They chose a cute little B&B in Austin, the Park Lane.
They also swore me to complete secrecy. That was fun…I felt like a wedding spy!
Carrie and Steven have been together for seven years.
Their announcements (which went out the day after the wedding) listed all of their adventures together.
A fascinating list, making for a personalized announcement.
I spent all of October and November alluding to this upcoming wedding,
but I never spilled the beans.
One reason I was excited is that Carrie and Steven have a superb catering business:
Kurant Events
I know it’s good because I’ve had their food and it’s yum.
In fact, that’s their slogan, YUM!
Plus they love good food pictures and that’s exactly what they show on their website.
This is a philosophy that I, fellow foodie and photographer, can believe in.

Carrie and Steven’s surprise worked.
No one was expecting them to get married out of the blue.
Carrie asked her sister Anne to be there along with Anne’s hubby Lee and their two kids, Carolyn and Kenny.
Also in attendance: Boudreaux and Eloise, aka Boo and Weezy, their two French bulldogs.
Carrie wore a nonwhite, very awesome dress.
Anne did a reading while Lee was in charge of the music.
Carolyn was the flowergirl and Kenny was the cupcake eater.
They had monogrammed cupcakes from Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop to celebrate, plus champagne for toasting and Glenlivet’s 15 year French Oak Reserve single malt scotch.
These folks obviously have great taste!

And, not to be forgotten, Boo and Weezy had doggie cupcakes, then ran around and around.
Once everyone was done with cupcakes, Carrie, Steven, Anne and Lee went out on the town.
Guero’s for starters and live music (ah, so very Austin!), then on to the Four Seasons.
A sweet and significant celebration.

Congrats to Carrie and Steven!

Once again, I am testing the limits of my iPhone (and the patience of our very gracious waiters) while eating at Blackbird, an award-winning restaurant in Chicago. My dining companion was fellow foodie Yvette Roman, wearing her perfect sweater.

You may have to squint to see the food. Yvette and I were splitting every dish, plus the lighting was low. Poor iPhone!

To start: an amuse bouche of sturgeon belly. Also, Yvette was drinking a “Lucky Lady” (no clue as to what it was…grapefruit and liquors?) and I was having a champagne with orange water.

Followed by a salad of endives, crispy potatoes, basil, dijon, pancetta and poached egg.

here’s the before:

and after the waiter destroyed it for us to eat:

For our appetizer:

Crispy confit of Swan Creek suckling pig with matsutake mushrooms, toasted walnut consomme and pomegranate confit.

We ordered two entrees:

Grilled California sturgeon with celery root puree, anjou pears and sauerkraut gnocci

Crispy Swan Creek Farm duck breast with smoked cauliflower, salsify, fried chocolate and lovage.

This was my favorite, so I took more photos of it.

For dessert:

Avocado cremeux with grapefruitt, tarragon and charteuse granite

I could’ve eaten 4 of these!

Our other dessert was milk chocolate fritters with cured plums, soy and rice milk sorbet. It sounded good and looked good,

but this wasn’t as good as everything else. But still yummy.

While we were finishing our tea (it was 14 degrees outside and we were preparing ourselves for the cold), they brought us truffles and nougat.