Michael Harlan Turkell interviewed me for The Food Seen on Heritage Radio Network. We spend a fantastic hour talking about the art gallery, Wok the Dog, travel and all the culineary delights I discovered around the world as I progress w/ the long term documentary project of food markets around the world. Listen to the full interview here.

Michael Harlan Turkell, once an aspiring chef and now freelance photographer and a photo editor of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan magazines, captures the inner workings of kitchens and documents the lives of chefs in their restaurant world. On The Food Seen, he’ll further explore the amalgamation of food and art by talking to artists from a multitude of media. Guest will range from photographers, food stylists, interior architects for restaurants, industrial designers — all the players that make you want to eat with your eyes. Get ready to feast your ears!

Heritage Radio Network was started in March of 2009 by Patrick Martins and Heritage Foods USA. Built into two re-purposed shipping containers, the station is located in the back garden of Roberta’s Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Our shows are broadcast live, and subsequently archived on our website where they can be downloaded as podcasts or RSS feeds.

The content on Heritage Radio Network is absolutely unique, no other broadcast medium is offering the range of subject matter, or the depth of interest in matters of vital importance to every day living.

T-arte Tatin is a curatorial project as well. One image from everyday from the emerging artists in contemporary photography. In collaboration with private galleries and public institutions we organize contemporary exhibitions and act in the field of communication to promote visual artists’ works.

I was honored to be included in T-arte Tatin’s curatorial project.

Get Additcted To, is a fantastic  … DAILY MIX OF CREATIVE CULTURE is an digital inspirational review network from the worlds of snow and street culture, graphic design, web design, illustration, photography, fashion, film and art, as a consistent source of inspiration for all involved – briefly speaking INTERNATIONAL STYLES.

Peter Nitsch featured Wok the Dog in a thoughtful, in-depth spread in Get Addicted To. So honored to be featured again in Get Addicted To. A shot of mine, Sinatra House, Los Angeles was in Get Addicted To a few months back.

Florence Fabricant from The New York Times Dining sections lists Flesh + Bone.

Sheep Seller in Yellow, Kamil, Morocco, 2010

NYC Chef Marcus Samuelsson featured images from Kamil, Morocco portion of Wok the Dog on his blog, Food and People. Check it out here.

Food and People By Charlie Grosso

A friend took me out to a small town called Kamil, Morocco just before Eid Al-Adha, Feast of Abraham. It was market day and there were sheep everywhere.

Every family buys a sheep and sacrifices it for God during Eid and sheep is nearly all you see. They put strap the sheep down on top of buses, in the trucks of cars, push it home in wheel barrels or simply throw it over their shoulder and haul it out. Not only were there live sheep everywhere, the butchers were selling lamb and mutton as well. The one chicken vendor was almost a novelty in amidst the frenzy of sheep-centric Eid.

President Obama was recently in NYC and dined at Red Rooster, Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s latest venture in Harlem.

Images from Wok The Dog series is regularly featured in Marcus Samuelsson’s Blog, Food and People.

In a silly game of 6 Degrees of Separation, Ms Grosso is now only 2 degrees away from President Obama!

Fez, Morocco – City of Fairy Tales is the most recent entry.  To see more here:

A brief Except from the Blog Entry:

The sand colored city of Fez, Morocco appears to be a city out of fairy tales. The city seems like it never quiet entered the modern century much less the 21st. There are still vendors selling coal. And one butcher shop in the medina that sold Camel.

I’ve always thought that Camels were expensive and highly prized by the Arabs and seeing the camel head outside the butcher shop with the camel hoofs on the ground was certainly a shock.

I wish I spoke French or Arabic better to ask about the taste, cost and selling of camels in Arab culture.

March 18, 2011

A feature article for Le Soir, a French Moroccan Publication.

Here is a rough translation, or you can download a pdf and read the original French here:

In line with Sebastiao Salgado and other great documentary photographers, Charlie Grosso presents “Wok the Dog” (pun between dog walking and cooking) worldwide.

You may cross without paying attention, confusing it with an off the beaten tourist classics. You may have noticed that it uses strange devices that look more like those found in the window of every shop in the world.

Charlie Grosso also uses a digital camera, but almost apologetically, preferring the accompanying film cameras for years. And especially if you cross, do not ask him to explain this choice, nor the color or black and white. It is a matter of instinct. In a world where everything moves very quickly, this silver household surprise that the immediacy of electronic killed. It was not until the return to base to find the images that were taken, with the risk they are veiled, or rather disappointing that they revive the magic of the moment of their catch.

For twelve years, Charlie Grosso, American of Taiwanese origin moves from country to country, according to her finances and desires with a special quest: capturing the soul of the sites visited through a universal institution: the market.

This world tour has a little special effort to date in 20 countries and 74 cities.

March 4, after resuming its headquarters in New York, developed and selected photos from her last journey that has led Taiwan from Morocco through Egypt and Jordan, Charlie has opened an exhibit colorful the “House Project” is expected to last six weeks before sailing to Barcelona, ​​Cairo, Amman, Kuala Lumpur and other cities whose name is as much a dream.

In Morocco, despite unfavorable weather and the proximity of Eid Al Adha she made several calls at the markets in town or in open country.

The pictures placed side by side, show a world, after all, fairly homogeneous. Whether in Asia, Europe or the Mediterranean, the actions are similar and since they are not supposed to be a representation of anything, they provide an interesting natural.

The accident of geography has meant that most of her last trip led our “globe-trotter” in a whole country of Muslim culture. Among them, she said, Morocco was the place most remarkable and attractive, highlighting his surprise to see sheep everywhere, Eid Al Adha oblige.A straddles documentary work and artistic research work is, above all, a look at the life and death and the efforts of all people to feed and continue to live.

NYC Chef Marcus Samuelsson featured images from Casablanca, Morocco portion of Wok the Dog on his blog, Food and People. Check it out here.

Food and People By Charlie Grosso

“Wok the Dog” is a long term photographic series that examines the commerce of meat, the market place around the world. Since 2004, I have photographed markets in 20 countries and 74 cities. For more international adventures, read my past Food and People posts about Luxor and Masaya.

Humphrey Bogart might be the only association you have with Casablanca, Morocco. Yet Bogart is absent from the markets of Casablanca. What is abundant is the a sense of poetry.

The French influence is unmistakable. It telegraphs itself throughout the market and I am surprised by its appearance. Take stall number 14 for example. I feel like I am looking a rendering of Paris in early 1900s, yet it is Casablanca in modern day. A little bit of the old along with a little bit of the new comes together in the markets of Casablanca.

For more images from Wok the Dog and information, visit: www.charliegrosso.com

March 10, 2011
NYC

NYC Chef Marcus Samuelsson featured images from Luxor, Egypt portion of Wok the Dog on his blog, Food and People. Check it out here.

Food and People By Charlie Grosso

“Wok the Dog” is a long term photographic series that examines the  commerce of meat, the market place around the world. Since 2004, I have photographed markets in 20 countries and 74 cities. For another international adventures, read my past Food and People post about Masaya.

I arrived in Luxor, Egypt just after Eid Al-Adha, Feast of Abraham. Markets were closed during the high holidays and the markets in Luxor were gradually awaking itself and reassembling. There were butcher shops in the most uncommon places, down a strange alley way on your way to the main drag, for example.

Complete sides of cow hang down from hooks just outside the shop while butchers break down the carcass right there on the street. The masculine nature of Islamic culture is on view here as men out numbers women in the markets.  Friendly vendors smile at me as I seem to the be only traveler who is willing to stay a minute and not hurry through in disgust like the other tourists. The markets are not a novelty to me. The market is the authentic view on any culture one can have.

March 3, 2011
NYC

NYC Chef Marcus Samuelsson featured images from Masaya, Nicaragua portion of Wok the Dog on his blog, Food and People. Check it out here.

Food and People By Charlie Grosso

“Wok the Dog” is a long term photographic series that examines the  commerce of meat, the market place around the world. Since 2004, I have photographed markets in 20 countries and 74 cities.

Masaya, Nicaragua, is the city of Flowers. I explored the markets on an early morning bus as I was staying in a nearby town. Your first impression of the markets is the giant parking lot filled with colorful chicken buses Central America is known for.

As you wander deeper and deeper into the market, it gradually unfolds and reveals itself to you. The men are friendly and the women are warm. A chicken vendor pick up a chicken that was attempting escape and put it back in the basket. His wife turns around, has one look and tells him that the chicken is not theirs but belongs to the seller next to them.