by Sam Tackeff | Nov 3, 2013 | Photography, Travel
Here’s a photo essay of sorts – I’ve finally managed to organize and edit my photos from our trip to Mount Washington a few weeks back. Devon and his coworkers were on a random work assignment, and I was happy enough to tag along. It was the last weekend to drive up the Mount Washington Auto Road before it closed for the season, and even though I like to think of myself as an active and outdoorsy person, driving up Mount Washington seemed a lot more appealing than hiking it this time around. (To get to the summit you can hike, drive, or take the cog railway. For some reason, the idea of a train climbing up a mountain is even more terrifying that us driving it.) So what, exactly, does driving up the auto road entail? For about $27, and an additional $8 per extra passenger, you get admission to the auto road, a compact disc audio tour, and the infamous “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington” sticker. The drive to the summit is a twenty to thirty minute loop around the mountain. The road is narrow, there are no guard rails, and if you are nervous, I highly recommend that you don’t read Yelp reviews of the road before summiting. Of course I did, so I’ll share my favorite two here:
“Unless you like scuba diving to see great white sharks or bull fighting or have nerves of steel, trust me this is to be avoided at all costs!! This is a white knuckle ride to put it mildly!!”
“I’m not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of plummeting 7 miles to the earth below.”
Despite the warnings, the drive is actually quite safe. Best explained in the auto road website FAQ: “Be honest, how many people have died riding on the Auto Road? Over 150 years, there have been three fatalities on the Auto Road. In 1880, a stage overturned (in the hands of a drunk driver), and a passenger was killed. In 1984, a vehicle experienced brake failure about a mile up the road and was unable to make it down safely. Most recently, a motorcyclist suffered a fatal crash in 2009.”
So up we drove, through the auburn foliage, up past the tree line to the lunar-like tundra zone, and finally up to the icy cold summit. At the top, we got to say hello to the scientists working in the Mt. Washington Observatory, and say hi to Marty, who, I could have sworn was an animatronic cat, despite assurances from several people that he is in fact, alive.
While the drive up was fine, the drive down was slightly more disconcerting, and I spent much of it trying to avoid looking out of the window or nervously fidgeting.
This is what happens when you neglect the advice to shift into a lower gear and use the turnouts several times on the way down and not ride your brakes. (My assumption – that isn’t actually our car.)
The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around North Conway. I stopped multiple times at my favorite North Conway coffee shop Frontside Grind. I had my regular cortado (very good), and the Fog Lifter (espresso in coffee), and sadly forgot to refill my cold brew growler, which was forgotten not once, but twice in the car. We acquired lobsters at Hannaford (for 5.99/pound, you pick a live lobster and they’ll boil it for you in minutes), and got real fancy with lobster mac & cheese, and enough Trader Joe’s appetizers for eight people.
We watched hours of movies, ranging from great to terrible – starting with Toy Story 2, then Spaced Invaders, then The Ruins, which only served to make me feel terrible for both Jena Malone and Jonathan Tucker. Before heading back to reality, we took a drive up Cathedral Ledge, and reveled in the fall foliage. New Hampshire is a truly special place to be this time of year.
And because we are friends, here’s one last gem from the camera roll – in which I follow through with my resolution to spend more time in front of the camera. Vogue, my dears, vogue.
by Sam Tackeff | Jul 26, 2013 | Holidays, Ice Cream, Photography, Travel
I’ve been thinking about what to post all week, and finally decided to pull together some photos from the fourth of July weekend. “Thinking about” is not “doing”, and lately I’ve tried to re-commit to “doing” in all aspects of my life.
This week my focus has been on photography. It was one of my summer to-do’s, and just the act of writing out that I wanted to improve launched me into doing something about it. I upgraded to the new Lightroom (I was working on version 3, and it was slow loading), and invested in two Creative Live courses (50% off sale!) Food Photography with Andrew Scrivani, and Food Photography with Penny De Los Santos. I watched the majority of these courses when they were free (Creative Live airs all of their courses free while live), and the amount I learned in less than a few days of class time was priceless. A few years ago I also had the incredible privilege of taking a real live in person class with Penny, and it was thrilling. I wish I had been even a tiny bit more knowledgable about manual shooting at the time – I would have gotten so much more out of it on top of the massive amount that I learned.
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A few weekends ago, Devon and I drove up to Byfield to spend the weekend with our friend Alison for the 4th of July. It was just the three of us – her family was in North Conway, mine was at a very crowded house in Maine, and we decided that we’d make a go at a bit of a quieter 4th. On Wednesday we drove up late, after getting in my mile run at 8:45 at night, the earliest that I found it bearable in the heat wave. We arrived to air conditioning, and promptly passed out. We spent the next two days eating, sitting, talking, laughing, and trying not to pass out from the heat. We went to Newburyport to the record store, and to Jabberwocky, and T.J.Maxx. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the weekend.
:: Stephanie’s Village Pancake House, in Rowley, for some down home comfort. I’m not quite what happened with the focus or the white balance in this photo. I’m evolving, but still trying to get a hang of my camera.
:: The Farm: after breakfast we headed over to Tendercrop Farm, to pick up some staples for dinner – hot dogs, potatoes, corn, green beans, tomato – and say hello to some farm friends. 
:: And then there was ice cream. As a teenager, Alison worked at Bensons, hulling buckets of strawberries every day for their famous native strawberry ice cream. We picked up a half gallon of strawberry, another of mint chip, and would have called it a day, but after stuffing ourselves to the gill at breakfast, we couldn’t help eating just a little bit more. I think it’s how it ends up going on vacation. I went with a New England classic – Grapenut ice cream. It’s what you think it is – cream infused with the classic cereal, and then studded with it. (The New England version of Momofuku’s cereal milk soft serve…)
:: Dinner. I wish I had a picture of dinner – but we ate it in the dark, on the porch, with the mosquitos, until the mosquitos drove us inside to sit around the table off the kitchen. After dinner we watched hours of Boston’s Finest, and followed it up with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
:: Breakfast. Alison is a delightful hostess. Freshly baked beer bread muffins… and cornbread. Clearly I need to be on top of my breakfast game.
:: And sunset. I could deal with this view every day of my life.
Here’s to setting intentions, and doing more “doing” than “thinking”. What are you going to be doing the rest of this summer?
by Sam Tackeff | Jul 21, 2013 | Photography, Travel
Some very sad news sent us driving down the coast today in the afternoon, just any direction that the car would take us. Four hours later we ended up at the tip of the Cape, at Race Point Beach, right after the parks service had finished taking fees for the day, so parking was free. The ocean was so very blue I could barely believe it. I promised myself that I’d shoot something beautiful today, and I think this counts.
We fortified ourselves with Ben and Jerry’s in North Eastham (I had White Russian and Coconut Seven Layer Bar in a waffle cone), headed back north, and now we are home.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 21, 2012 | Challenge, Photography
Today’s Happiness Booster: Evening Walks. I remember when I was a teenager spending the summer in France, we used to go for evening walks. Usually before dinner, or in between dinner and dessert, we’d head out as a group, sometimes just the kids, sometimes the whole lot of us, and stroll through the neighborhood. There was always a lot of smiling, laughing, waving to people eating in their gardens or doing the same as us.
This is a practice that I’ve been longing to make a habit of, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve been doing it. You get rewarded at that time of day, the blue hour*, when twilight hits and the sun has set and things all of a sudden become magical. (*Also, love this blue hour.)
I took these tonight, on my phone, as the light was fading on my evening walk.
Today was an odd sort of day, trying to fit a few different things into my schedule that I hadn’t planned for. I decided at the last minute to go to the gym because I’m committed twice a week, and although I usually go on Friday or Sunday, I wanted to give myself enough rest for my little road race this weekend.
I had half a cup of coffee, and headed to the gym on an empty stomach, because of my last minute judgement. Although having some food is better than none, if I don’t leave several hours between eating and my workout, it becomes uncomfortable and “an issue”. I’ll leave it at that.
Today’s workout was called “Tarpit“.
AMRAP 20 (As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes):
200m Run
16 Lunges
8 Push-ups
4 Pull-ups (Jumping pullups for me!)
If this looks painful, well, it was. I got in an honorable 5 rounds plus a run. (Three rock stars in my class got 9 + change. Crazy!) To reward ourselves, we did 8 sets of 20 seconds of situps + 10 seconds of rest in between. I did a less than honorable 52 situps. Eek!
Before heading home, I stretched for a good 15 minutes, and swung by the Needham library to flip through a cookbook of mine that is stuck in a box. They have this fantastic statue outside that I just love.
When I got home, I set about making a simple soup of leftovers that turned out better than expected. Butternut squash, roast beef, a few handfuls of baby spinach, and the last bit of homemade beef stock I made last week. I seasoned it simply with salt and pepper and a little bit of Turkish urfa biber (a deep oily red pepper flake).
Later in the afternoon, snack was an entire half pint of raspberries, and some iced tea with coconut milk. I had a heck of a time trying to photograph the milky tea, the camera just didn’t want to do it. It was good, I promise.
In the early evening I headed off to M.F. Dulock again in Somerville to pick up some pasture raised and freshly butchered meat for the next few days. Having a great source of high quality, humanely raised meat is so important to me – leaving my meat c.s.a. in the Bay was really hard, and I just can’t say enough about having access to this stuff. I picked up some beef shanks, beef stir fry meat, fresh pork sausages, lamb shoulder chops and goat! Variety is the spice of life!
After my evening walk, I set about making dinner. First I gathered vegetables to make my salad. 
I chopped up the tomato and cucumber, and tossed them in a bowl with a little bit of salt and thyme, and let them sit while I prepped everything else. This allows the juices to puddle at the bottom, and all you really need is a little bit of vinegar and a spoonful of olive oil to finish it off.
The goat meat I had picked up at the butcher had already been seasoned – salt, pepper, garlic, onions and parsley – pretty much exactly what I do to my ground meat to make Turkish köfte – convenient!
I formed the meat into little balls, and fried it in some tasty lard in my cast iron. Goat is a very lean meat, so a little bit of extra fat was welcome here.
I was surprised at how much they really crisped up in the pan. I made Devon a salad with a little bit of Caesar dressing, sliced up an avocado to share, and made up our plates. This is his, mine had just cucumber and tomato salad without leafy greens for no good reason other than the fact that I had put away the greens before making my own plate and forgot.
And wait! Dessert! Before my walk, I managed to cut up a melon and put it in the fridge. I ate several cupfuls mindlessly while watching “Breaking Amish”. And to think I had seriously contemplated giving up fall TV…
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 19, 2012 | Photography
Today’s Happiness Booster: Photography Practice. This afternoon I was talking to my good friend Sondy about my desire to improve my photography. I have this phenomenal camera that I don’t know how to use, and find myself frustrated when photos turn out better on my phone than they do on the Nikon. I know that there are a few things that I really need to do – read my manual, take a class, but most importantly, spend more time shooting. So she sent me on assignment to Fresh Pond, in Cambridge. It’s one of my absolute favorite places in the city.
Here are a few of my shots from the evening.
I have to do more of that.
As for today, I started out with a very small cup of coffee. And a few spoonfuls of unsweetened Sunbutter. I don’t think I like it very much, it’s a little bit bitter, but I’ll see how it works for cooking.
After my snack, I headed out on my run. This was my last planned run before my race on Sunday! I walked the mile down to the Charles to do this loop – it’s a nice 5k, but not my favorite in the neighborhood, because the paths aren’t as kept as other parts of the river, and you really need to watch out for tripping hazards.
After my run, I hit up Starbucks for some iced tea. I took a picture of myself sweaty, with tea, but decided I’d spare you for this blog.
I was starving by the time I returned, so I put together this big plate – leftover roast beef, roasted eggplant with parsley, a chopped orange bell pepper and a dollop of homemade mayo to dip. My lunches tend to be simple, but I try for lots of colors and textures. This was so good!
In the early evening, I went to Fresh Pond to take photos at sunset, and ate my snack – an apple and a handful of almonds.
I came back to start dinner. My plan was to roast a spaghetti squash, and serve it with a quick meat sauce – the pork I had cooked a few days ago with Italian seasoning, and some Rao’s Marinara.
And then I realized that the spaghetti squash that I was so excited about… was a butternut squash. This almost caused a meltdown, but I was determined to be positive about the mix-up. So I renamed it “butternut squash “faux-cchi”, topped with meat sauce”. And you know what? It was surprisingly good! I cooked the squash in the microwave for 10 minutes (gasp!), put together the meat and sauce and simmered it, and cooked Devon a little pot of farfalle. I then spooned out the squash in gnocchi size, and ladled on my sauce. Here was my dinner.
