» Tasting Colorado: Favorite Recipes from the Centennial State – Now Available! As Seen by Janine's Photo Blog by Janine Fugere

Tasting Colorado: Favorite Recipes from the Centennial State – Now Available!

Imagine my excitement when I finally saw this full dustjacket for the new Tasting Colorado: Favorite Recipes from the Centennial State cookbook, including my photograph of the snow-blown mountaintop in Rocky Mountain National Park on the back cover!

I couldn’t be more proud to have been part of this exciting collaborative project with my sister, Michele Morris, of Cooking with Michele. The book is now available; read on to learn how you can get a discount on your own signed copy.

Tasting Colorado has 120 recipes, which Michele gathered from popular chefs at restaurants, inns, bed and breakfasts, and ranches throughout Colorado. Michele tested all the recipes, adapted them for home chefs, and photographed all the finished dishes, bringing it all together beautifully with her eloquent writing of this book, which really is a sampling of life in Colorado. To help add regional color to the project, As Seen by Janine was lucky to have ten Colorado scenic photographs included in the book, which is published by Farcountry Press.

As Seen by Janine is excited to be able to offer a limited supply of discounted copies of the book signed by both Michele and me. Your purchase will help support As Seen by Janine, making it possible for me to continue supporting projects like this wonderful cookbook. The book is a beautifully published 8×10-inch hardcover book with exquisite color. My discounted price for these signed copies is $25 (USD), over 15% off list price. If you’re not local to the Louisville / Boulder / Denver, Colorado area, the discounted price including US Priority Mail shipping is $32. CONTACT JANINE HERE to order these discounted signed copies. Order lots – they will make great gifts!

I was honored and warmed when a good friend of mine, Tom Wilson, had the following eloquent praise of the book, because it so well expresses my own hopes for what the book will become:

“The book is going to be The Classic Colorado Gift. Coffee table books are just, well, coffee table books. Tasting Colorado is really going to be read and used AND has incredible Colorado pix.”

Tom is quite a Colorado culinary enthusiast himself, having completed the home chef culinary school at Escoffier in Boulder, Colorado, the same school at which Michele’s daughter, Jenny, just completed the professional chef program. Jenny’s outstanding training there landed her an externship at The Modern in New York City. Tom, likewise, gained great home chef skills through his training and he has been helping me try out recipes from the book, including the Alamosa Striped Bass which was soooooo delicious! See the photo at the end of this post to inspire you.

I’ll share today some previews of my Colorado scenic photography that you’ll find in the book. Here’s a closer view of my Rocky Mountain National Park photo showcasing the endorsements on the back cover of the book, alongside the title on the spine to give context:

Tasting Colorado Back Cover & Title Spine

Notice Michele’s endorsements came from Colorado Homes and Lifestyles magazine and 5280 magazine, only the top two lifestyle magazines in the area! See the March 2013 issue of Colorado Homes and Lifestyles for a full feature article on Michele and the cookbook. You go Michele!

[Insert sheepish mention that I also got a nice plug in the article for my scenic photography in the book!]

I am thrilled to have image, below, of Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs included as a two-page spread right at the front of the book, for the copyright page and facing page:

Tasting Colorado Two-Page Spread for Copyright Page

The following image of an Aspen grove at the 10th Mountain Division’s Camp Hale near Leadville appears on the next page, alongside the first page of the Table of Contents. I love this particular Aspen photo, because it was a rare autumn in Colorado when the leaves stayed on the Aspen long enough in the season that they had a chance to progress to full color.

Tasting Colorado Aspen Full Page Opposite Table of Contents

There are seven additional small size Colorado scenics of mine, featuring alpine lakes, rivers, and wildflowers scattered throughout the introduction of the book, and one more included with the sources for specialty ingredients at the end. The layout editor, Shirley, ended up including this last photo at my special request, because it was one of Michele’s favorites. It features free range Black Angus cattle; this one was poignant for me to include because, all of our lives, Michele has been a true beef lover. It is also very appropriate because Michele has become such a strong advocate of supporting local organic and free range farms and ranches. I love seeing this sort of “Home, Home on the Colorado Free Range” photo featured as a place to get specialty ingredients!

Free Range Black Angus Cattle for my Beef-Loving Sister!

Here’s the back-story behind the creation of this book…

Anyone who has ever eaten any of my sister’s cooking knows what an amazing chef she is. She is also an accomplished cooking instructor as well as a food writer and food photographer. Michele and I have been close our whole lives and we have that lucky sort of relationship, the kind where we just keep getting even closer as years go on. Since I’m a photographer, several years back when Michele first started thinking about publishing a cookbook, we toyed around with the idea that I would do her food photography for her. However, we both very quickly learned that getting our far-too-busy lives and schedules to match up made that impractical. Thus, let me stress right here that the food photography in Tasting Colorado is not mine; all the food photography is Michele’s.

Timely and immediate food photo shoots were especially important since Michele is truly a purist when it comes to food photography; no lacquered, painted, and or otherwise preserved, altered, or faked food would appear in any food photos she published! This meant any food Michele prepared had to be photographed as soon as the dish was finished. No obstacle for Michele. She very quickly trained herself and got additional training to do all her own food photography and she’s become very accomplished at beautifully capturing images of her culinary creations.

However, lucky for me, when Michele got a publishing contract with Farcountry Press to write the Tasting Colorado cookbook, she learned that the editors intended to also include stock photos of Colorado landscapes and nature shots. She immediately informed them that her sister is a Colorado photographer and asked them to consider allowing me to be a part the book as a collaborative project. After submitting an initial portfolio of sample work, it was clear that I’d likely be chosen for the project. Eventually, ten of my scenic photos were selected for inclusion in the book.

The added bonus was that when I did research on Farcountry Press, I learned this project was an even more fortuitous serendipity than I’d realized. This publishing company out of Montana also happens to publish state and national park guidebooks, regional travel books, and children’s educational books, all areas of great photographic and writing interest for me. But the best discovery of all is that they also publish photography calendars and photography coffee table books. Joy! Since I learned how well their specialties match my talents and interests, it has been my hope to establish an ongoing relationship with Farcountry Press. I am happy that this now seems very possible. Once the books arrived in print, Farcountry’s sales and marketing rep for the book took some time to browse my As Seen by Janine: Eyes of the World Images website galleries and quickly asked if I’d mind her sharing my contact information with their photo editor so they can contact me for future projects. I had to smile as she asked if I would mind; thinking to myself “Hmmmm, do I mind? Nope, I don’t mind at all. In fact that’s been my hope all along!”

As promised, here is a photo of Tom’s preparation of the Alamosa Striped Bass. This dish was YUM-A-LICIOUS!!! This recipe features striped bass with mussels, chorizo, fennel, asparagus, grape tomatoes, pearl onions, and a carrot juice based creamy sauce. See the sneak preview photo below and be sure to buy the book to get the recipe!