Hoppy Easter

Hope it was eggs-ellent :)

Roxy's Gourmet Grilled Cheese

For year's now, I've been yapping on about wanting to start a food blog, but couldn't. What better way to invite failure than to start a project? So I procrastinated and made excuses, looking for the perfect opportunity, the perfect situation, the perfect food to jump start my creative juices, thinking it would never happen. But it did. And today was that day.

Picture this: It's March 23rd, early evening. It's snowing. Why is it snowing so late in March? I'm crossing Chestnut Hill Ave at Cleveland Circle and... is that an ice cream truck? In the cold and snow?

No. It's a grilled cheese truck. This definitely warrants further investigation.

Enter, James DiSabatino.

This is the face behind the face that is Roxy's Gourmet Grilled Cheese Trucks (the main face being, of course, that of Roxy). And who is Roxy? According to James, it's a secret.

Roxy's Grilled Cheese features four varieties of the classic sandwich, from the Turkey Bomb Melt (Harvarti, turkey, scallions, cranberries and sour cream) to the Rookie Melt (Jack, tomatoes and mustard). And what about plain ol' fashioned cheese on bread? Probably. But I wouldn't recommend something so vanilla.

I, on this first of what I'm sure will be many, many visits, order the Green Muenster - muenster, guacamole and apple-wood smoked bacon. Et voilà!

Okay, so it's not the best photo of the sandwich, but I was so eager to try it that snapping a photo only occurred to me retrospectively. But it did not disappoint. The bread was toasty and crunchy, the cheese gooey and - get this - the guacamole is fresh made, by the Roxy staff, every day. I am a guacamole fanatic and snob and I have to say - that guacamole is the big cheese. This truck is parked not 3 blocks from my apartment, and it was gone before I got to the building door.

Roxy's Gourmet Grilled Cheese also offers two sides: the classic, must have with grilled cheese on a snowy New England day, tomato soup, and fried Grillo's Pickles. Extra points to Roxy's for the Grillo's, which are some of my favorites (coincidentally, also something I discovered ala street food).

So far, Roxy's only has one parking location - in the parking lot on the corner on Beacon Street and Chestnut Hill Ave, at Cleveland Circle - and you can find them there Wednesdays and Thursdays during the day, and Friday and Saturday night.

I left the truck still without the story of who Roxy is, so now of course, the allure is two fold - melted cheesy goodness, and the mystery. Who is Roxy? How did she inspire this idea? And what is that tattoo on her arm...?

Whoever she is though, I can only be glad she inspired James, who's amazing sandwich, in turn, inspired me to finally start this blog. So, James - thank you.

Roxy's Gourmet Grilled Cheese. Bread. Cheese. Rock and Roll.

Jamie: Twenty-one!

I just found out this pretty lady's birthday is tomorrow! So happy birthday Miss Sraet! You can find her here on Model Mayhem.

Maia + Zach: The Big Apple, NY

She was from the Philippines. He was from Ohio. They both signed up to be leaders for CISV (Children's International Summer Villages) who's motto is - most appropriately and ironically - "Building global friendship." Which is what they did. And then more.

It started as a long, long distance friendship. She went back to Manila. He went back to Ohio. There were Skype movie dates. And then he surprised her for Valentine's Day - by coming to the Philippines. He was supposed to stay a few weeks - he ended up staying over a month.

She moved to NYC to go to grad school. He got a job in the same city. And then one day, he proposed.

This was just a small civil wedding, with a pending church wedding set for December 2012. But still, how can you not love a love story like that? :)

Keith Todd: Musician

I spent the whole day cleaning house in preparation for the arrival of my cousin and her new hubby who are staying the weekend to attend PAX East. They don't arrive til 11pm and I'm stuck at home feeling housewifey (a feeling I truly hate), so instead, I'm choosing to feel productive by updating this blog :)

This is from late last year, but never got posted anywhere as far as I recall. This is Boston-based musician, Keith Todd, who's headshots and album cover I had the pleasure of doing.

Kristy Doll: Tangy

After futilely wrestling with WordPress, I am officially sticking to this blog! I've been playing with branding and changing websites and fighting with logos and vacillating between company names - I may as well keep one thing the same. And this is it!

So, let's see if I can actually post more regularly. This is from a few weeks ago:

Two bottles of powdered Tang, one dozen oranges, two grapefruit and a sexy lady. That's all you really need :)

Not a New Years Resolution

I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to post regularly, since I obviously am bad at it. I've more committed to being a Facebook junkie (like everyone else is), so, I have a new business page! Keep following me at Karina Picache Photography on Facebook.

I'm not saying I'm not going to post here anymore, I'm just giving a warning as to its infrequency.

But here is a great newborn session I did this January. Izzie Blu, and so adorable.

See more here! (link!)

And hopefully you here from me soon :)

Calling all nerdy girls!

So, I'm getting better - it's not TOO long between posts.

I pretty much exclusively shoot on location, which has sent me into a bit of a tizzy this fall as the days are getting shorter and it's getting colder and colder. Not only can I not pack in the volume of shooting I did over the summer, but I'm starting to panic as to how I'll keep myself occupied come January - the deadest time of year for photographers. No holiday parties, no kiddies dressed up for Christmas cards... Just long cold days and lots of darkness.

Time to brainstorm indoor shoots! and this is my newest. It's for nerdy girls. Considering that I've seemed to suddenly have fallen (very inadvertently, I assure you) into a world of table top miniatures (having descended from board games and card games with the occasional consul game thrown in there) I've decided to explore my own nerdiness with a project.

Enter lady gamers and girlie geeks. Yes, I'm projecting. And project-ing. Really, what is art without a sprinkling of introspection?

My first lady in my project - meet Ramagious!

(She's my "closet nerd," ha ha.)

Thanks Rama-G!

No way!

Two posts in two days? Unthinkable. Unimaginable. Un... something else.

This is Anissa! Formerly Minnie Pernicious (by the way, Anissa, I forgot to tell you how much I love that name). She was kind enough to meet me in Taunton, at this run down, over grown car wash I had found one day.

And a classic photo to close:

Unclogging the Workflow

Why it takes me so long to post new blog posts:

My workflow is absurd. I'm slowly streamlining it, but it's still s... l... o... w...

After a shoot:
Upload.
First cut (delete bad ones, misfires, etc.).
Second cut (loose edit of favorites).
Rename.
Burn to CD.
Back up on external.
Color edit (natural).
Color edit (funky).
Change mind. Re-color edit (funkier).
Export as JPG.
Selective cut (really choose favorites).

Somewhere in those last 3 steps, I get really lost. At this point, for models and kids, hopefully I'm at like 50-70 photos (I shoot a lot). I'd like to post 30-50 favorites online as a set, but I'm a fickle person, and I can never really commit to that last cut. Am I posting too many? Should I post just a single favorite? Should I post more?

And then I'm on to the next job and I'm probably somewhere in step 1-5 and then the JPGs never really go online.

So, here's a couple from an ancient shoot (August):