There was a little coffee shop that opened in my neighborhood, and I loved to bake, so I asked them if I could bake for them and sell them things, and that happened. A chef came in and said, “Ooh, these are good; who made these?” and I lied my way into a pastry chef job. I then went to the Cordon Bleu when I realized I needed some actual training. I came back and worked in a restaurant, and one of the investors in the restaurant was a food photographer. I ended up going on a couple of dates with him, and the first time we met at his studio. He was shooting a cookbook, and there was a woman there making the food.

There was no school. There still isn’t any school for it, so I just asked him what that was all about, and he gave me names of food stylists. I called one of them — the best one, who was nursing a bit of a coke habit at the time. I said, “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll bail you out of jail, whatever you want, as long as I can learn from you.” That’s who I assisted, and I bailed him out of jail a lot.

One time, we were shooting for a Bon Appetit magazine cover story. I showed up on set, and he called me and said, “I need you to pick me up from the Gardena jail.” The editor said, “Is that [his name]?” and I said, “Yes,” and she said, “Just leave him. You can do this.” That was my first big break.

Then, I moved to New York. Through a friend of a friend, I was introduced to the late Irving Penn, the amazing still-life photographer. I ended up working with him for ten years on the food photography for Vogue magazine, which Jeffrey Steingarten wrote.

I mean, every step of the way, it seems like the universe was on your side. 

The universe is on everybody’s side. You just have to be willing to walk through doors that don’t make sense. There hasn’t been one major shift in my career story that hasn’t been serendipitous. For the past four, five, six years, I’ve been directing food commercials. That came totally randomly as well. It was a weird fluke. They had a plan. I didn’t. I didn’t plan on doing it, but the door was opened, and I walked through it.

You live in Red Hook. Tell me about the food scene there and where you’re eating. 

Ooh, yeah! I’m waiting patiently for Cafe Gitane to open. Where do we go? Obviously, Hoek Pizza. It’s one of my favorite places on earth. Every time I have colleagues or clients fly in from someplace to visit, they’ll ask for my recommendations. Usually, they think they want to go somewhere in Manhattan. No, no, no, no. You go to Red Hook. Go to Hoek and sit on that patio, staring at the Statue of Liberty and the waterfront, and it’s the most magical place. Right there, with Valentino Park, Steve’s Key Lime Pie, Sunny’s Bar, and Hoek is magical. My favorite thing to do is an early dinner at Hoek, then get a frozen key lime pie on a stick (because you can eat those walking) and walk out on the pier. It’s just magical.

I love the Lobster Pound. Maybe once a year, I treat myself to a $40 lobster roll. And Grindhaus. That is a crazy place. Sometimes you can get the most unbelievable food there. They have a brined pork chop. Oh my god, it’s so good. They do ribs that fall off the bone. They’re constantly changing their menu, so it’s kind of a discovery when you go there. There’s a very good chance you’ll get something great to eat. 

I love hanging out at Red Hook Coffee Shop. They get their pastries from Brooklyn French Bakers on Columbia Street. If you ask them the day before, they’ll order something from the French Bakers and hold it for you. It’s not a formal thing. They just do it for people in the neighborhood. 

When you go to a restaurant, how important are aesthetics to you as opposed to food?

I was in LA directing a thing last month, and I went to Bestia. I was with five people. There was not one soft material in that whole place. The noise was deafening. I couldn’t enjoy my food. I don’t need it to be totally quiet, like a morgue, but the idea of eating as an aesthetic thing — for me, food has to look good.

This may be a little weird, but I don’t like food that looks like people have been touching it a lot to get it to look that way. I don’t believe that everybody is using tweezers. I worked in restaurants. I know that’s not happening. And they’re not washing their hands when they sneeze. They just keep weaving their little baskets of swordfish. No. So that, I cannot take.

I just like honest food. I like it to look and feel and taste like somebody really loved cooking it. You can tell that visually. If it’s too fussy, you can tell. And I can’t eat off a square plate. Not right. 

You’ve worked on so many different projects, and we simply don’t have the space to begin to touch on all of them. If you could pick a favorite or one you’re most proud of, what would that be?

I have to say my ten years working with Irving Penn on all those Vogue projects. It involved sourcing things. The very first picture I did with him, I had to find a fourteen-pound lobster. My hand was going to be holding the lobster claw, and he wanted the scale of my hand to match the lobster claw. I guess I’m proud of that. 

I also worked on Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook before he died, “Appetite.” That was really great. I also created a life-sized Marie Antoinette out of candy for Dylan’s Candy Bar at Madame Tussaud’s. Most recently, I created faux cowhides out of cream cheese and bagels for Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

You found the lobster?!

Yes! I found a couple of weird things. There was a beauty story for Harper’s Bazaar about aging necks and women who have what they call “turkey necks.” He wanted me to find an actual turkey that had that kind of neck. I went out to some live poultry place in Corona, Queens, and called before and asked if they had turkeys, but it was June. No one has turkeys in June. They said, “Yeah, we have one,” so I went out there. 

It turns out that it was a pet that they’d never been able to kill because no one had bought it, and they had kind of just started raising it. And this thing was disgusting. I called the studio and said, “I found it, but how am I supposed to get it there?” And he goes, “Just chop off the head and bring it!” I said, “I’m not chopping off the head!” It was terrible.

One of his assistants was Greek and lived in Astoria. He took it to his grandmother, who chopped the head off. Oh my god. If you look at the picture, you can intuit all of that.

You mentioned that in addition to food styling, you’re also an avid cook and baker. You’ve also written cookbooks with very niche topics, like one that’s only about chickpeas. How did you decide to write about this?

The publisher of Short Stack cookbooks had a booth at Smorgasborg, selling the books. I had met him before and walked up to him to say hello, and he said, “When are you going to do one of these?” and I said, “Well, any time you want!” He asked me what subject I would do. I had never thought about it before, and out of my mouth just came, “Chickpeas.” That’s it. There was no thought behind it. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, no thought at all.

It turned out that it was the perfect thing — it must’ve been in my subconscious somewhere. Chickpeas are one of my favorite foods. You can do so many things with them.

My second book on Sicilian pastries is being published on Oct. 24. That’s fun. Clarkson Potter and Random House have sent me these internal ideas for cookbooks with no author and asked if I wanted to develop them. So, I did one called The Ultimate College Cookbook, which was all about cooking really groovy things in your dorm with waffle irons and stuff. That was cool, except it came out the month after the COVID lockdown, so no one was going to college, but that’s picked up again. I also just developed the recipes for a Minecraft cookbook that just came out this week. That was a fun one.

Besides these cookbooks, what’s coming up next for you?

Well, I don’t know! I guess I have to wait for a door to open and see what’s on the other side.