Michael Shay's Bounty of Oregon Series

Figuring out what's healthy to eat is continually challenging particularly if you are a meat eater. Pork has become a go-to choice for it's price, leanness and flavor. The question is what kind of pork? 

Organic, natural, grass fed or grazed - all these terms can be really confusing. So when Cory Nickels and I began working on another image for the Bounty of Oregon series we chose a couple of beautiful pork chops to showcase Oregon's pork.

The package simply read,
"...pigs raised humanely on family farms, and fed an all-vegetarian diet as nature intended. This results in pork that is tender and flavorful — the way pork should taste.
No antibiotics — ever.
No added hormones — ever.
No preservatives.
No artificial colors or flavors — ever.
Always 100% vegetarian-fed."

That all sounded pretty good!

As my German ancestors would say, who always loved pork, “Mahlzeit!” 

Rhubarb, is it a fruit or a vegetable?

With large irregular leaves and hefty stalks, rhubarb looks like so many leafy vegetables that grow in your garden. An obscure New York court decision in 1947 counted it as a fruit for the mere purpose of regulations and duties. Whether this decision was reached at the behest of some large rhubarb importer who wanted his duties reduced or the judge fondly remembering his grandmother's recipe for rhubarb pie, rhubarb remains the harbinger of spring.

It is one of the first plants that are ready to eat in April and May. Richard Pie, Chef and Food Stylist, decided to pick rhubarb to illustrate another chapter in my series of photographs entitled “The Bounty of Oregon”.

We've enjoyed the amazing agricultural production of Oregon. Beautiful stalks of rhubarb along with Richards' grandmother's recipe for rhubarb jam made for such a wonderful composition that for the first time in this series there are both raw and prepared in the same photograph. 

The crew here at Polara can attest to the fact that jam tasted as good as it looks.