Mother Stories
Pregnancy Style: The Forest Feast’s Erin Gleeson
Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano
Photography by Maria Del Rio
Sep 9, 2014
What happens when a New York food photographer moves to the California woods? That would be The Forest Feast, a lush and easy-to-follow blog by Erin Gleeson. This year has been a big one for the photographer, writer, artist, and teacher, with the release of her first cookbook in April and her first baby due in late August. Here, the mama-to-be (who gave birth to her son Ezra shortly after our shoot!) shows us around her dreamy home and talks pregnancy, style, work-life balance, and…drumroll…book number two!
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- "When moving from New York City to Silicon Valley for my husband’s job, I was hesitant to move to a very suburban area, so I started looking at ads for houses to rent in the surrounding mountains within a half hour from his office. We just stumbled upon a Craigslist ad for a cabin in Woodside and thought it could be an adventure. I grew up in rural Sonoma County, so the place feels familiar to me." Erin, on her front porch, wears a vintage dress, a tassel necklace (originally a belt) purchased from a trip to India, and Nine West sandals.
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- "Rustic mountain cabin sprinkled with antiques. It hasn’t changed too much, yet! And yes, I do find myself trying to avoid all the colorful plastic baby stuff, although it seems to keep appearing."
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- "For The Forest Feast blog and books, I spend a lot of time cooking and then shooting outdoors at home, in the woods, and on the property near the cabin. Then much of my time is spent in the studio processing the photos and painting. I compile the illustrations and photos together in Photoshop for my layouts."
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- "Not yet, but I imagine once the baby arrives my priorities will be rearranged quite a bit! I am excited to get working on my second cookbook right after I finish maternity leave. It will be a similar cookbook to The Forest Feast, but with a more entertaining angle likely full of occasion-specific menus. I am also talking with my publisher about doing a cookbook for kids with a similar visual layout and easy, healthy, colorful recipes. And I'm just wrapping up designing a line of Forest Feast stationery and paper products that feature my watercolors and photos that comes out next year."
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- "I have a little studio that is in a separate building on our property. I think it will work well once the baby comes, since I’ll be able to work from home at the studio, but still feel like I am going to work. I plan to have a babysitter come a few days a week to the house, that way I can walk over for feedings and visits."
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- "Colorful, bohemian, eclectic, vintage, with a bit of early 1950’s glam thrown in once in a while. I love a good pencil skirt!" Erin, on her back porch, wears an Old Navy dress, Tabii Just jacket (with fabric of her own design), and Anne Klein heels.
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- "Patterned tunics, shirt dresses, long cardigans, a black pencil skirt, leopard heels, and a floral blazer."
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- "I am really interested in fabric and textile design and have been experimenting lately by printing my artwork on fabric at Spoonflower and having things made. I’d love to produce a line of clothing and furniture someday! For my book tour, I thought it would be fun to wear artwork from the book to the signings. I did a collaboration with Tabii Just, a Brooklyn designer who focuses on zero waste, and all her clothes are made in NYC. I designed the fabric for this persimmon jacket using a photo I took of a persimmon tree, plus some watercolor elements. I sent her the fabric and she turned it into one of her designs. I love that it’s such a unique piece that is perfect as a maternity jacket, but will also be great post-baby. For another dress to wear to book signing events, I had my illustrations from the endpages of my book made into a tunic using the website Print All Over Me. You upload an image, they print it on a piece of clothing, and mail it to you. It’s so fun."
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- "A Tabii Just infinity nursing scarf. I’d love these Daniel Green slippers for hanging out around the house, along with a cashmere kaftan. Etsy has so many adorable baby booties. And artwork for the baby room by Jenny Vorwaller."
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- "I love that crazy pregnancy pillow. I didn’t think I needed one until I got deep into the third trimester and now I don’t know how I’d sleep without it! The one dress I have worn the most is a long navy stretchy number from Gap Maternity. And I like ordering nonalcoholic beer when we are out, which makes me feel like I am participating in cocktail hour and the taste is not so bad!"
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- "We don’t really have a theme apart from the inevitable woodsy feel, and we are mostly using items we already had to decorate, like an old globe and a map print. Since the walls are knotty pine, we don’t need to hang as much. I plan to use Spoonflower to make some fabric curtains from my illustrations (perhaps a pattern of little maps or woodland creatures)."
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- "I love the moses basket, a gift from a friend, and the Brooklyn map quilt we received as a wedding gift. His room has the best view of the redwood canyon, too!"
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- "When I see a piece I like, I buy it and try not to worry about how it will fit with the other items back home. I am usually drawn to older, wooden antiques (like Art Nouveau/Art Deco/Victorian), with some mid-century modern pieces thrown in. And now that I live in a cabin, I find myself liking newer salvaged wooden pieces and jute rugs."
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- "Picking out cute little clothes! And I'm nervous about discipline! I tend to be a bit of a softie."
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- "I wanted to find out the sex right away I figure it’s a surprise then or when the baby arrives, and I felt like knowing would help the bond start even earlier for my husband and I."
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- "My mom is amazing. She really allowed us to be free and creative and I hope I can do the same as a parent."
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- "My grandmothers had 6 and 8 kids, respectively, which I think is wildly impressive." Erin, in her dreamy mountainside garden, wears a dress featuring her own illustrations (from Print All Over Me) and a skirt from Anthropologie.
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- "I didn’t realize I’d feel the baby moving so much (hourly)! I’ve been lucky in that my pregnancy has been pretty easy! I have been able to work and travel the whole time. I was in full swing on my book tour in the spring during my second trimester with no issues."
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- "We went to Montreal for JazzFest for our babymoon over the summer, which was awesome free live concerts outdoors every night after dinner! We had co-ed “friend showers” in New York and California, plus my mom, aunts, and cousins threw me an all-ladies family shower at my cousin’s house in Sonoma. Everyone made dishes from my book and we sat outdoors. While the ladies sipped watermelon juice and bubbly, the guys went on a brewery tour!"
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- "Three years. I love the fresh mountain air, the view, and the light. We get dramatic fog banks in the morning, making it ideal to shoot outside."
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- "Sure! There are tons of places I think I could live, both in the U.S. and abroad. I love rural living, but I also love big cities. I think there’s a chance we could end up back in New York City at some point (my husband is from there), but I’d also be happy moving to a farm. I dream of having a farm on the ocean in Red Hook, Brooklyn that would be the best of all worlds! But it's a little far from my family in Sonoma..."
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- "Upon arriving back in California three years ago, I loved noticing citrus trees everywhere and kept thinking what a great print one would make. I looked for about a year for the right orange tree and took photos of many. I finally found one big enough and dense enough with oranges on a day trip to Sacramento and happened to have my camera with me. The settee is essentially upholstered in one big photo (the photo appears once on the seat, and once on the back). I used Spoonflower to make the fabric and upholstered it myself. The pillows in the baby room are one of the watercolor wash pages from my cookbook. I made them using Shutterfly."
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- "I have been thinking about this a lot lately! I think our son will grow up with scents of jasmine (I planted a couple this year), bread baking in the oven (I bake challah on Fridays), and the cozy smell of the fireplace, which heats our cabin all winter. Also, in becoming a mother, I felt like I needed to solidify my own scent. I associate my mother with gardenia, which she has always worn. I have experimented with several perfumes over the years and never landed on one until now. I've settled on Jo Malone's Orange Blossom and am loving it. This will be my 'mom scent' I think. In general, I love citrus-y, floral scents. Apple blossoms and honey suckle remind me of childhood (I grew up in an apple orchard). I also fall head over heels for the scent of fresh jasmine flowers." Need a new signature scent of your own? Check out Method's new air refresher line, including Sweet Tangerine, here.
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- "I have an MFA in Photography from SVA in New York. I worked at a magazine and for several different photographers in New York before going freelance after grad school. I taught in the Photo Department at FIT in New York while freelancing as a food photographer. I worked for several years as a food photographer in New York and have now transitioned into food blogging, creating cookbooks, watercolor illustration, and teaching digital photography and Photoshop at the college level."
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- "It took a lot of years of hustling to come up with a stable career as an artist. I feel very grateful that I’ve gotten to a point where I can take the assignments I love most. I also love working from home and my flexible schedule in the cabin surroundings have completely inspired a new direction for my work." Erin, in her living room, wears a vintage dress.
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- "We spend a lot of time outdoors on the deck. Since the baby is due late summer, I hope that we’ll be able to be outside a lot with him in the beginning when the weather is nice."
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- "Most of what’s in the cabin came from our apartment in New York and is an accumulation of antique store/flea market findings and handmedowns. Our dining room table came from my first apartment in New York on the Upper West Side. I lived there for 5 years with 3 roommates. The table had been left in the apartment by someone before our time and when we all moved I got to take it with me. I keep a big silver platter on the table most of the time, it has a big “G” in the middle and my grandmother received it as a wedding gift in the 1940s. She gave it to me after I got married. (She’s horrified that I don’t polish it, but I love the tarnished look!) My parents are into collecting antiques and often bring me vintage kitchen items for my photo shoots. My dad had a ton of wooden boxes saved from the 1970s that I use all over the house for storage. We also attached a couple of them to the wall in the baby room to use as book shelves."
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Beautiful mom to be walking around in high heels again? Come now, this is Mother Mag! Bare feet are basically a requirement!