Lately I’ve been interested about the impact quality of light has on quality of life. I’ve been dreaming about kitchens. A beautiful, soft and naturally lit kitchen is… well, a dream for me until I no longer live in a major city. Light not only gives life, it restores the living quality of food when we present it chopped, boiled, seasoned, and cooked down. When photographing food in a real kitchen the right quality of light is an ongoing mystery. Our lighting options appear simple enough: natural, artificial, or a combination. We aim to capture the kitchen’s “best side,” when the indirect sunlight is in its full glory. But few of us are probably even home then. Of course there’s artificial lighting to hopefully soften, warm, and make something that tastes delicious look delicious. Artistically, I am capturing light as I wish it to be.

For a while I’ve been taking what I can. I would rather capture what is then create what isn’t, but sometimes there just isn’t enough light to give you an idea of what this wheat berry salad looks like. Then again, a pre-eaten artificially lit shot also doesn’t give a sense of how much I loved eating it. These are all elaborately documented and opined conundrums for the food blogger and amateur cook.

But what about light and cooking? I honestly don’t know how I would fare in a kitchen with no windows and little light, cooking an elaborate meal to the hum of a fluorescent. My respect goes out to those who do. Cooking needs to be a sensual, creative act, something that connects us to our food and our bodies. Without light, there’s no life. And there would be no cooking.

My apartment faces the center of my building, and there’s a lush courtyard beneath (which I unfortunately don’t have access to). My kitchen faces NW and if it weren’t for the two avenues of buildings to my west I’d be able to see the Hudson River. My apartment isn’t particularly long, but because it’s in the core of the building only one side is flooded with direct light. All this light meets in the kitchen. When I first visited the place seven years ago on a September afternoon, light was leaking through the large kitchen windows, softly illuminating the counter tops, and streaming on through the stained glass into the church at my back. It was incredibly peaceful, friendly, and well, light.

Seated at a stool in my kitchen in the midst of a hot August morning, I wonder, as I often do, WTF anyone designed the apartment in such a back(*ss)wards way. While I was so taken by its fall light, in summer the kitchen cooks the food regardless of whether I’m there. When I am there it’s only moments before my top lip beads with sweat, and I generally want to strip down and cook naked. (When I’m not in danger of spattering my limbs in hot oil, I sometimes do.) But still I wouldn’t trade my situation for anything tinier or anything more windowless, so I count myself as an incredibly lucky New Yorker.

But what of the light outside of New York? In an interesting turn of events I’ve spent only a week home in the last couple of months. On a series of whirlwind road trips and travel weekends I was blessed to have seen clouds rolling by in the Shenandoah pastures of Virginia, the Great forests of North Carolina, the beaches of South Carolina, the Spanish moss and rain streaked streets of Savannah, the first flush of fall in Tennessee, a flash of Mississippi, the blur of neon and white sun in Nevada, and a vibrant garden deep in the woods of Connecticut. Sometimes, during great fits of rain, I thought for sure we were going to run right into autumn without any sunshine. Returning back to New York this week I was relieved to find the softened fall glow filling my kitchen. It was empty and fresh, ready to receive me.

I leave you with this mélange from our trips and this question: when did you last see food, or life, in a new light?

Polyface Farms, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Sun peaking through rain in Savannah, Georgia

Driving over the bridge to dinner in Charleston, SC

Middleton Place in Charleston, SC

Tail of the Dragon, Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carlina

Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Sunset at Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada

Anadama loaves ready for the oven, Simsbury, Connecticut

Basil, mom’s garden, Simsbury, Connecticut

Nasturtiums, mom’s garden, Simsbury, Connecticut