Guest 'Grammer of the Week: @Eatinmykitchen

Are you as obsessed with Instagram #foodporn as we are? Love to document all of your #eeeeeats? Every week we’re teaming up with a popular food-stagrammer who will be taking over our feed to fill it with some of their own delicious pics. Head over to @YahooFood, give us a follow, and check out the #TastyTakeovers tag to watch their foodie adventures unfold all weekend long.

This weekend on #TastyTakeovers we turn to Berlin writer, photographer, and home cook Meike Peters of the blog Eat In My Kitchen. On her Instagram, you get a peek of all the beautiful produce-inspired recipes she creates. The blogger is currently in the works of a new cookbook that’s set to be released in 2016 with Prestel. Check out the Q&A below!

Name/Instagram handle: Meike Peters, @eatinmykitchen

Yahoo Food: Tell us a bit about yourself!

Meike Peters: I live in Berlin together with my Maltese/American boyfriend but we spend the summers on his home island in the Mediterranean together with his family. Our life is very much influenced by these two worlds, Berlin with its constant changes, so many creative people from all over the world come here to make their visions and dreams come true. Then there’s Malta which is very much family, friends, food, and lots of fun. Our life there follows a much slower pace, which I enjoy more and more. In Berlin, we both work in the music industry although I took a little break to focus on my blog eat in my kitchen and my upcoming cookbook which I’m writing at the moment. Originally, I studied architecture but I changed over to music right after I left university. Now, I’m completely in the hands of food and couldn’t be happier about it.

(All photos courtesy of Meike Peters)

What first got you interested in food and photography? Where do you draw inspiration from?

Food has been my biggest passion since the day I was born, that’s what I’ve been told by my family. There are endless stories going around about my obsessed relationship with everyday meals. I simply love it and I grew up in a family that feels the same, for us it’s always about food! It inspires me, it caresses my soul and it creates so much pleasure. I call it my daily feast. My interest in photography started a few years later. I bought my first proper camera almost 10 years ago and since then it’s been with me during my discoveries in various countries and to portray artists and friends. The connection of food and photography started with the blog in November 2013, before then I wasn’t too interested in taking pictures of our dinners, but now I’m hooked on it, especially sandwiches! It’s such a simple treat but it can turn into a diva in a picture, it’s lots of fun to capture this side of this snack. I find a lot of my inspiration for my recipes in long phone calls with my mother who is an excellent cook. And I just have to go the market, the butcher or fishmonger, and I immediately have new ideas in my head. I just have to look at all the fruits and vegetables, the roasts and sausages, ripe cheese spread out on wooden boards, and my mind starts spinning.

How do you take your photos (with a camera or phone)? What are your favorite photo editing tools and/or tips for taking exceptional food photos? Give us the scoop!

On Instagram I often edit in VSCO or directly in Instagram. For the blog I use a Nikon camera and only work with natural light. I don’t use a tripod as I move around a lot to find the perfect angle to catch the magic moment that lets the most simple dish sparkle. If I’m not satisfied with the result, the setting isn’t right and I have to move and change until it fits. I’ve been using Photoshop for years and it’s only been recently that I started working with Lightroom.

Who are three of your favorite Instagrammers? What do you like about them?

@jo_rodgers takes pictures of the latest book she’s been reading at the table next to her meals (often breakfast). Her settings feel so dreamy and peaceful, it truly relaxes me.

@sami_tamimi is a great chef, he makes bold and colorful dishes, also at @ottolenghi.

@mollyyeh is the most wonderful person (I interviewed her for one of the features on my blog) and her Instagram is like a visual candy store.

What do you enjoy about Instagram compared to other online communities?

Instagram is very quick and immediate, it’s just visual, within a few seconds you can see what the world’s been up to (or at least the part you decided to follow). It’s a fast medium, which I like and dislike at times, it can make you breathless.

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten recently?

A few days ago, I visited a friend of mine, the Berlin cake baker Laura from @Tausendsuend, we met in her kitchen for a feature on my blog (for my ’meet in your kitchen’ series). Her sweet creations are not from this world, it’s such a treat for the senses. Her cakes taste amazing and look utterly gorgeous, there are no words to describe what she does with a four layer cream cake topped with huge flowers, it’s magic for the eyes and the taste buds!

If you could throw a dream dinner party for any three people—living or dead—who would they be and what would you cook for them?

Nick Drake, Marcello Mastroianni and Nigella Lawson, I would prepare everything in advance so that I wouldn’t miss a split second at the table:
I would fill the table with plates full of antipasti, grilled vegetables, various cheeses and fruit, Italian fennel salami and prosciutto, Bigilla (a Maltese fava bean spread), sliced ciabatta bread to dip in olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar and crushed peppercorns. And I would make my Mediterranean meatloaf, a leek and tomato quiche and bake a rustic rhubarb crumble cake for dessert. We’d enjoy some good Chianti and my old record player would be running all night playing old Jazz records and some of Nick Drake’s melancholic songs as the night progresses.

What’s the best dish you’ve ever made or the dish that you’re known for?

There are a few actually, my roasts are pretty popular, our traditional pizza which we make every Sunday evening from scratch (with different toppings though), my quiche in endless variations and my crumble cake.

What does the new food revolution mean to you?

It’s fantastic that more and more people actually think about the food we eat every day, where it comes from, if or how it’s processed, how it grew. Many consumers stopped trusting the big industrial food companies, we want to go back to the roots, to natural, or naturally treated food. There’s a growing awareness of what our consumption does to the world and how it affects the environment. I know more and more people who buy and eat meat and seafood just once or twice a week, who support small local farmers and producers, who buy organic as they’re fed up with (or physically suffering from) pesticides and GMOs. I think that for a long time … we believed that [the food industry] would make the right decisions for us and our health, that we could buy their products and everything would be fine, which is not the case at all. We are slowly taking over control again and deciding for ourselves what comes into our kitchen (and bodies) which is a big revolution in itself.

More on #TastyTakeovers:

Meet Diana Yen behind @jewelsofny and her fuzzy bunny Cleo

Learn how to nail the perfect #foodporn shot with @gilliehouston