Beer Can Chicken

Who likes deep fried chicken? I'm not really a fan because I don't like all the grease and oil - so I have a fantastic solution to fried chicken - BBQ Beer Can Chicken.

If you have been following some of my older post this spring you know I'm a huge fan of Bar-B-Q food. Last night my wife and I tried Beer Can Chicken - the result is BBQ chicken that is so moist and tender with a crispy skin, it compares to deep fried with out all the sinful oil and fat. It tastes better and is better for you, how can you lose?

Get beer, a beer can stand (Canadian Tire, makes life a lot easier) drink half of it and fill up the remainder with spices and garlic. (rosemary, thyme, pepper, salt - what ever suits you) Here we used an apricot micro-beer from Peels. The chicken needs to have a good 'rub' as well - again this is the secret to great taste! When making rubs or marinades I never use table salt - it's too salty and high in iodine. Use coarse sea salt instead - much better flavor!


The time, temperature and indirect cooking method is similar to the ribs mentioned below, 350F for 1.25 - 1.5 hrs. I ended up doing this one at 420F for 1.1 hrs - could have been done 'lower and slower'. Notice how I stand the chicken over the unlit side and on a piece of tinfoil. Keeps the fat from flaring up.

Remember the saying, "if you're lookin', it ain't cookin'". Keep the lid closed! You'll have shorter cooking times, less flare ups and better tasting food.

Back to photos tomorrow. Cheers!

Happy Mother's Day!

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Fargo - but not the movie

Looks like my wife and I and the in-laws are off to Fargo for Mother's Day. We thought we'd take a quick little trip and treat them to some Texas Roadhouse steak. I can hardly wait!

Maybe we'll find more Googie design. Here's hoping!

I'll be back in the studio on Monday.

Cheers!

Meredith + Kevin (e)session

Met with Meredith and Kevin to do a quick engagement session on the weekend. Despite the cold wind we had a blast! Headed out to Partners Cafe at Kildonan Park only to find out is was closed when we got there. No matter, we found some cool spots to shoot and warm up.

All we needed was our skates! Then it would have been a true Spring day in the North End.

"The Tourists are Coming"

Jake + Jess from Kamp Photography have been posting videos in anticipation for their Caribbean wedding. This one I thought was great, check it out:

Friday Funnies

Have a fantastic Friday! And a great weekend.

Cheers - From Winnipeg Wedding Photographer Jeremy Dueck.

ArtBook again

And we have another ArtBook show up on the door step today. I made a studio sample as well, only with Metallic paper - come by and check them out.

Smoking Ribs!

We're going to deviate from photography for a moment and talk about food. Yeah! I love BBQ and tonight my wife and I are having ribs.

The secret to award winning ribs is thinking like Low-Riders. "Low and slow" is their motto. We need to do the same. Ribs need a low temperature (~300F) for 2 hours. It makes the meat so tender, it falls off the bone.

We take it a step further and do them on the BBQ instead of the oven. Now you can add the second secret - wood smoke. I prefer using apple or maple wood. It tends to add a nice "sweetness" to the ribs. The tough part is keeping a modern BBQ at such a low temperature. They tend to want to creep up to +400F. Here's what you do: light only one side of the burner and put the ribs over the unlit side. You might need to prop open the lid a centimeter or two. With the burner on low it should work and stay around 323-350F.



You'll notice my ribs are loosely wrapped in tinfoil. Inside they are coated in BBQ sauce (pick you favorite). The sauce (and water) tends to steam the ribs and keep them so moist and juicy. Why waste that sauce dripping all over the grill either? It just makes a huge mess! Use it to help cook the ribs. At the end of the cooking you can put them on a hot grill just to get some grill marks on the meat, adds a bit of depth.

Lastly, ribs need a good dry rub. The spices and ingredients you use make or break a good rib. Before you soak them in sauce and wrap them up in tinfoil, you need to rub the spices into the meat. Get it right in there - don't just shake the spices on - push and rub it into meat.

Tonight our ribs are a take off inspired by our trips to the Caribbean, Jamaican Jerk Ribs.

Oh and never boil your ribs - it just sucks the juices and flavor right out of them. The slow and low cooking will keep them tender.

Following these 3-4 secrets will reward you with ribs that have a depth and complexity of flavor that no restaurant can match. If they can - you know they're doing it this way.

Cheers!

Jeremy

Books and More Books

Got another shipment of client's books today. As mentioned below, I love it when they come in. I get to see the completion of all the hard work that went into photographing the wedding and designing our client's books.

These are without the Metal Cover.

LOST

Just been catching up on LOST. Man I love that show - one of the best shows ever. (Although the scheduling of the shows suck. The rhythm of the show gets lost too many times with the episodes so spread out.) Other than that it's great.

I was going to talk a bit about it but just thought Trev and Lois might not have started season 4 yet and I would just ruin it for them. (he does the same thing as me, download them off torrents. - no commercials and HD to boot!) Trev, if you are reading this - get on watching! Let's just say the plot just gets bigger.

I'm still waiting for more answers. It might too hard to wait till season 6 to get them all.

That would blow.

Summer Heat

Looks like Monday is suppose to get up to a high of 23C. YEAH! Looks like I'm going to the beach early this year. Anyone want to come along?



Tonight we're having some friends over for steak. This is the smell of spring; fresh warm air and the lovely whiff of red meat on the Bar-B. Man I love spring and summer!

ArtBooks - Like Christmas in April

One of my favorite things is when the UPS truck pulls up to my studio with another Bride Book from over seas. It's like Christmas all over again! Honestly I think I'm as excited to see the ArtBook as my brides are.


If you have never seen the ArtBook in real life you have got to come down and have a look. Most people are surprised at the weight of the book when they pick them up. It is heavy! Of course that's due in part to the metal covers, and the build quality is tops! Every book is hand made for our clients by select ArtBook elves.


Some great features are: photographic paper pages giving the best quality to your images - better blacks, brighter colors, smoother tones. The metallic photo paper option takes it one step further and adds a wonderful sense of 3D to the photos with amazing pop and punch!

Check out the seamless gutter, allowing full page panoramic spreads - no more parts of your photos getting lost in the gutter! and a lie flat stitched book binding that will last generations.


You can also get Parent copies and the ever popular PocketBooks.



I love to see the end result of a beautiful wedding day and craftsmanship come together like this. It makes for a fantastic heirloom for our clients! But it's tough - tough for me knowing that I have to give the book to the Bride and I will never see it again.


These are not your auntie's white paper albums with plastic sleeves over the photos.

If you want the best, this is it.

Ciao, from your 2007 Wedding Album of the Year Photographer -

Jeremy.

How do you See?

"The whole word inspires me. Photography is about the play of light on the world, capturing the deep emotions we feel and what matters to an individual. Photographs are as much about the photographer as they are about the image." Robert Cavalli

Well said Robert, well said...

Shooting film in the old days was an art, and I miss it. You know what that film is capable of doing with special processing; and how you see differently through the camera depending upon what film you used.

One of the great things about film is that when you put it in your camera, you stretch yourself to see things in the light of the commitment you made when you picked that specific roll in the first place. You force yourself to see in accordance with your decision.

Unfortunately that seems to have been lost in the digital world. That pre-visualization of what your are going to do with that image is lacking. It's too easy to fix it in Photoshop.

Go out and shoot a roll.

Dangerous Path

How many of you folks would walk this path in Caminito del ray in el Chorro, Spain? Click on this link to view the video.

This is crazy!! I think I might have a hard time walking that. Here is a bit more info on Caminito del ray.

Steak - and it's better than Bill's Gamblin' Hall

I love steak. There I said it. And truth be told I was the one to convince Trev and Lois to go to Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Casino for their $14.95 steak. As it turns out - it wasn't very great, in fact it wasn't very good at all. (okay the potato was good. You can read about our experience here on Trev's blog.) The whole lime vs. lemon thing was worth it though. Apparently our server didn't know the difference between green and yellow.

Tonight my wife and I BBQ'd our own steak. Now that is always a treat. We make one mean Rib-Eye!! Cooked over maple and apple wood, aged over 21 days - juicy and tender! It was so good! Nay - Fantastic I would even say! (I love to BBQ, one of my all time favorite ways to cook.)

I guess I owe Trevor and Lois a real steak. So come on over for the real thing.

And sorry about Bill's.

Diane Arbus

Joe Photo had a great quote on his blog today:

"I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do -- that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse." - Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus

(1923-1971) Documentary, Photojournalism

Portraits In Las Vegas

When you travel with other photographers to a cool location the cameras are bound to come out, so I thought I would post some sweet photos of Lois and Trev that I took, and then one he took of me.

Trev has the same photos on his site, I just like my crops. I'm use to shooting a square from when I shot my Hasselblad - kind of miss it.


Which of these do you like better? the BW one or the color?

Home from Vegas

Well I'm back from Vegas and the biggest WPPI event that they have ever had. Apparently 12000 photographers came to Sin City to learn, share and network. It was a blast! I'll be posting some of the good times and photos from my week in the gleaming lights of Las Vegas.

Unfortunately I had an awful flight home - left Vegas at 1:00 am with a 3 hour stop in Minneapolis that turned into +4 hours because of a big snow storm. Most of the airport was delayed and I managed to get into Winnipeg around 11:25 am. What is that? 10.5 hours of travel time? That's crazy! The direct flight that Trev and Lois were on was something like 3.5 hours.

Moral - fly direct.

Happy Easter!

Hope you had a great Easter weekend!

Sin City Baby!

Seems like half of Winnipeg's wedding photographers are heading to Viva Las Vegas in a day or two. Well I'm no exception - I'm hitting the streets of Sin City myself for the big WPPI convention.

Should be great - learning from the top shooters in the business, finding new albums and products to offer our clients. And maybe a bit of black jack magic.

I'm pretty pumped as this will be my first time in the land of Elvis, aliens and Area 51. I'll be checking emails, so best to contact me at j@jeremydueck.com, I'm back on Mar. 22.

Ciao,