Yossy Arefi for Pantry Confidential

This lady and her home = calm, beauty, and elegant order. Yossy Arefi, who is a photographer, food stylist, baker, and blogger, was a quiet pleasure to photograph.

See what else is in Yossy's kitchen (hint: beautiful Persian essentials plus more gratuitous pie shots) over at Pantry Confidential!

All images @2013 Christine Han Photography

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Old things and beautiful women

Old things and beautiful women never fail to inspire me. Our latest post for Pantry Confidential has plenty of both, which means that I had a really hard time putting my camera down at the shoot.

This is Julia V. Bainbridge, an editor at bonappetit.com.

She has incredible style, a mash-up of drool-worthy vintage and innovative boldness. Old and new, if you will.

A giant portrait of her grandmother stands watch over her Brooklyn apartment, and her family's everyday china anchors any dish she cooks up for friends, including this delicious clam and chorizo number she whipped up for us.

All images © Christine Han Photography

There is plenty more JVB style and the recipe for this dish over at Pantry Confidential. You don't want to miss it.

"Crazy things should happen in the bathroom"

...says the lady Julia Bainbridge, our next feature on Pantry Confidential.

Sassy Radish on Pantry Confidential plus a gratuitous picture of her cat Forrest

I love when cats make this face. You cat lovers understand, right?

All images © Christine Han Photography

Head over to Pantry Confidential for the full post, one more awesome pic of this cat, and the recipe for that delicious broccoli farro salad!

Chef Seamus Mullen on Pantry Confidential

I don't know why I hardly post here about my other blog baby Pantry Confidential (co-founded with my good friend Hana Choi of Stylefare), but I'm about to change that. Seamus Mullen's (of Tertulia and Iron Chef fame) home is a photographer's dream. You know I go crazy for details, and this shoot was just full of them! If I had a tail, you would have seen it wag the whole time.

Here is one of my favorite shots from the day: chef chilling in his barber chair, waiting for me to call him for his portrait.

Click here for the full post and the chance to win a signed copy of Seamus Mullen's book, Hero Food, over at Pantry Confidential!

The Best Lobster I've Ever Had

All images © 2012 Christine Han Photography


...was at Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound on Mount Desert Island in Maine.  It was a 2lb hard shell with the most succulent meat, perfectly briny but balanced by an underlying sweetness.  It was so good that for the first time, I was sucking out everything from every little part of every little leg and even the end of the tail part that you wouldn't think had any meat in it.

After trying both soft shell and hard shell lobsters, I'm in the hard shell camp.  They have more meat because they've grown fully into their shells.  Soft shells are supposed to be sweeter and more tender, but I didn't notice much of a difference and preferred the succulence and sheer meatiness of the hard shells.

Trenton Bridge was simply the best lobster pound we went to.  It's family-owned and operated and did not feel touristy.  They boil the lobsters in seawater over a wood fire in a row of pots outside.  If that weren't enough reason to go, they also happen to have amazing blueberry pie.

My kind of tools

© 2012 Christine Han Photography

Old, wooden, and loved.  Perfect, in my eyes.  This is an outtake from our next pantry feature, Tamar Adler, author of the bestselling book An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace.  Stay tuned tomorrow for her post on Pantry Confidential!