Down Home Downtown Cookbook

Just thought I would throw this on the new blog. It's Holiday time and you know what that means. Long lines at the store, bitchy checkout clerks and smelly patrons ruining your afternoons and evenings. Why go to the store when you can go to the restaurant or the winery or online.
Yes you can have this wonderful cookbook featuring 2 Chefs, yes I said 2 Chefs, (Down Home: Jeff Mall from Zin restaurant, Healdsburg Ca. and Downtown: Josh Silvers from Syrah restaurant Santa Rosa, Ca.), pairing seasonal ingredients over all 4 seasons. Try some of the recipes on your friends and taste yummy Rodney Strong Wines paired with each dish. Your friends will go gaga over this amazingly illustrated book, by "ME" at Alan Campbell Photography, images covering the bounty and beauty of our own Sonoma County. Quickly run out and get one! That crazy gift giving day is just around the corner!
Sounds like an infomercial. All we need is the Lady with the really long super manicured fingernails to wave her magic hand over the image of the book. Try it out, you like it, the book, not the waving of the hand. I know, don't say it, selfless promotion. Gotta do it!

I like to fish. The morning light as we crossed over to Isla Cerralvo was incredible. So was the day of fishing.

It's raining today.

I was listening to the rain and watching it bead on the window. I thought it looked like mercury. I remember when I was a kid in science class, back then we would get to play with the deadly chemicals, the teacher brought it around for everyone to touch. It rolled around in your hand like small droplets of water. It was covered with a giant highlight except where your hand and face where. I think this rain beading on the window looks just like it. Off to work now.

The First Post.

Into the blogging arena I go! I want to let all you folks know about me and the way I look at the world. You may suddenly find yourself heading to the store to buy ingredients for the tasty treats I post or wanting to spend time in a vineyard wandering among the vines as they soak up the last of the fall sunshine. Perhaps taste a ripe grape fresh from a cluster or scoop a handful of the soil that nurtures the vine, touch the rough trunk and ponder how the wine can reflect the terrior of that particular location. I want you to feel my images, for them to touch you on a emotional level, eat and drink them up. This is why I create. I want to reach you with these images. They are the conduit from my creative soul to the outside world. I can't help myself, I find light fascinating. The way it gently wraps around a face, how it bounces up from the chalk colored dirt to cast a golden hue on a cluster. It shapes the world for me. I see it's influence on everything from the spectacular to the mundane. I like to bend and coerce it, ultimately gently convince it into setting the stage. If I look at objects long enough I can touch them with my eyes. I want to feel the shadow, smell the grape in the glass, smell the aroma and hear the sizzling fish as the hot oil is ladled on it right in front of me. The link between your eyes and your appetite is where I live, not just your appetite for food, but your appetite for creativity. I hope the images you see in this blog and on my site give you a taste of what I am about. I want you to experience it. I look forward to sharing with you the way I look through the window of life.