Capturing the moment

and a recipe for a tomato, cantaloupe and hot chili salad with burrata that is picture-worthy

How many photos do you suppose you have on your phone?

At last count, my number is far too embarrassingly large to say aloud. All those shots of food from every angle number in the hundreds, with barely a perceptible difference between them. Family gatherings result in dozens of photos of the littles, vacations with every vista explored, long lost friends and distant relatives whose names are all but forgotten.

The problem is exacerbated by the absolute ease of snapping a pic. Nothing more is required of us than whipping out said phone, pointing and shooting, with limitless space in the cloud, where photos fly away to join their legion of cousins.

To tame the monster is a Herculean task, requiring time, discipline, a very long plane ride or the use of one of those nifty apps that get rid of duplicates. The problem with the apps, of course, is that I still want to compare and contrast, keeping the absolute best of every photo. The gold standard is then to place those photos in their own digital albums, the better to go through them at some point in the future. Best of all is to either delete as you go or stop taking photos altogether.

The struggle is real.

It almost makes me miss the low tech, unwieldy wonderfully old school photo album.

Every picture tells a story

When you downsize, you have to make tough choices about what stays and what goes. What remains in the purgatory of our belongings are those items that require too much emotional commitment to decide one way or another. They wallow there, in wait for our judgement.

Our photo albums were relegated to that nether place. It was time to release them from their misery.

If you happen to have a photo album or two kicking around the house, I highly recommend that you dust them off and go for a journey down memory lane. These are not those rapid fire photos by the hundreds, taken in an instant. The photo album allowed us to edit as we went, discarding the blurry, the out of focus, the bland. What was left behind were the “best of the best,“ the mementos we thought we would treasure long after the moment had passed.

There is something soothing and wonderful about the tactile experience of turning the big plastic-bound pages, each one revealing a glimpse of the past. Unlike the teeny tiny squares of a digital photo grid, the photos invite you to handle them, slipping them out of their protective sleeve to reveal a handwritten notation on the back. Dad’s 85th birthday. Our first Christmas tree. Damascus, 2006.

Whole journeys are contained between two cardboard covers. I went to Turkey again, reliving the spice markets and magnificent mosques of Istanbul; the pristine ruins of Ephesus; the cerulean waters of the Aegean Sea from the deck of a gulet in Bodrum; the lunar landscape of Cappadocia. I marvelled at how the babies have grown, old enough now to have babes of their own. I went to weddings when the marriage no longer exists, and celebrated rites of passage anew.

What I realized is that there’s so much worth in keeping some of these treasures. While the contents of a dozen albums was greatly whittled down, still, I have kept the greatest hits, and in a couple of instances, whole albums that tell a beautiful story. These experiences moved me and shaped me, and their physicality is a tangible reminder of moments lived joyfully.

The next step will be to create storybooks from these gems. A modern take on an analog moment in time. And the next time I reach for my phone, I’ll be more considered in my approach, remembering that this moment, that photo, should be worthy of savouring again and again.

Tomato, cantaloupe, and hot chili salad with burrata

Serves 2 generously as a main, 4 as a starter

Six Seasons, Joshua McFadden

I take way too many photos of food. This angle and that. Natural light, overhead light, with flash, without. But no matter how many photos I take, I can’t change the taste of the food itself. And although we eat with our eyes first, putting the phone down and digging in may be the most memorable way to enjoy anything delicious.

This lovely and hyper-seasonal salad from Joshua McFadden is the best way to eat the season’s finest things. I admit that I took nearly a dozen photos of the finished dish but I promise deleted all but two! One step at a time…

Ingredients

1 pound tomatoes, a mix of larger and cherry tomatoes, cut into wedges (cut the cherry tomatoes in half)

1 pound cantaloupe, halved, seeded, skin discarded, and cut into chunks

2 tablespoons chopped oil-packed Calabrian peppers (or piquillo peppers, or pepperoncini for less heat); more to taste

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

large handful basil leaves, roughly torn

2 balls of burrata

¼ cup olive oil

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the tomatoes and melon into a large bowl, season generously with salt and black pepper. Toss gently.

2. Add the peppers and vinegar and toss again. Taste and adjust the salt, black pepper, pickled peppers, and vinegar to make your preferred sweet-tart-heat balance.

3. Add the basil and olive oil and toss again.

4. Right before serving, pull apart the burrata and distribute it over the salad. Toss gently with clean hands and serve.