In years past, this task has fallen to Mothering‘s circulation director, John “You Da Man”* McMahon. Since John was out of town last week (traveling with his son Ian, who is starting college at Duke this fall), Bram McMahon has kindly stepped in to help. (Bram is John’s—and Mothering Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara‘s—younger son.)

So our staff photographer, Melyssa Holik, is starting to get all a’tingle with anticipation. Despite the fact that she has to shoot what seems like hundreds of toys, I’ve noticed that she seems to enjoy this project. (I’ve also noticed how much “arranging” and “setting up” sure can look like “playing with” . . .)

Regular readers of the magazine will know that all this buzz and hubbub is in preparation for our annual natural toy review (which appears in our November–December issue each year). And it’s a team effort: the UPS guy delivers the toys; Bram assembles them; Candace looks them over, reads up on them, plays with them, and writes about them; then Mel photographs them, gets text from Candace, and lays out the reviews.

It may only just now be September—and still almost 90 degrees out—but it’s beginning to look a bit like . . . well, you know!

*Since he is, actually, da only man in the Mothering offices these days.

Photos, from top: 1) my favorite so far of the toys Bram has put together (dolls artfully arranged by Bram); 2) the UPS guy makes a delivery at Candace’s desk; 3) Candace at her desk, last week, surrounded by boxes; 4) Bram, stopping by several afternoons this week to do assembly, thereby proving that he got his dad’s toy-building genes, for sure.

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Mel (Staff Photographer Melyssa Holik) and I spent a good chunk of yesterday on the back porch of Candace’s (Feature Editor/Product Review Editor Candace Walsh) very gracious former partner, shooting raw food recipes for our May–June issue.

The food was “cooked” by Mel and Mothering’s new fulfillment manager, Sarah Patamia (who has jumped into her role here with both feet—and primo culinary skills), then styled by Mel on site—with occasional awkward and inopportune suggestions by me.

By far the tastiest raw food surprise of the day was the Raw Choco-Nana Pudding, made with cocoa powder, honey, bananas, and . . . avocados!

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Photo of Mel shooting a fresh and colorful plate of Caribbean Tacos. Notice the conveniently placed clothesline—perfect for hanging green seamless (in an attempt to “springify” an otherwise still winter-brown back yard).

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1. Realize at the almost-last minute that you can’t use the photo of a medicine cabinet you thought you could get permission for. (The one you grabbed from an online cabinet shop and Photoshopped a stock photo of a bowl of soup into a month ago and forgot you didn’t have the rights to, the one that Managing Editor Melissa Chianta has been patiently and persistently leaving message after message all week for the owners of . . . but to no avail.)

2. Put Mel (Staff Photographer and Ad Production Manager Melyssa Holik) on the hunt for white medicine cabinets that are 1) in town, 2) immediately acquirable, and 3) at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing. Oh, and 4) don’t cost the $635 the one I found does. (Being Mel, she’ll know to take 5–10 minutes first to research this online before taking the search to the streets.)

3. Dig around in the props cabinet for the the blue bowl we bought for our soup shoot back in November.

4. Send Mel out to pick up 1) the remarkably inexpensive medicine cabinet ($30!) she discovered online at a local home improvement store, and 2) some chicken broth from her house. (Here again, being Mel, she’ll remember to also grab a spoon.)

5. Ask Candace (Product Review Editor Candace Walsh) whether she might happen to have any little medicine cabinety things in or around her desk since she’s always getting product samples in the mail.

6. Marvel as Mel returns in less than 30 minutes and assembles the cabinet and heats up the broth in less than 10.

7. Hover as Mel fills medicine cabinet with freebies provided by Candace and a steaming bowl of soup.

8. Note as Mel begins shooting that medicine cabinet seems to be tilted toward camera; wonder if it’s just you showing signs of late-stage production delirium.

9. Shake your head in amazement as Mel whips out her iPhone, equipped with the Carpenter’s Tools level app, places the level atop the medicine cabinet and adjusts accordingly.

10. Watch as Mel shoots away, downloads photos, and hands them off to you to choose from and drop into Cynthia Lair‘s* article on foods that heal.

. . . and TA-DA! Sent the page off for a proof and we were done. Less than two hours—start to finish.

This kind of stuff happens all the time, of course, but rarely so seamlessly and quickly. Maybe not officially a miracle, but close enough for me.

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Image above is from the opening spread of “Your Kitchen Medicine Cabinet,” March–April 2010, on stands now.

*For fabulous tips and recipes—and especially for her delightfully wacky cooking videos, visit Cynthia’s site, Cookus Interruptus.

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Homemade ice cream

While considering how to illustrate an article on how easy it is to make your own ice cream, we felt it would be just plain wrong to hire somebody else to make the ice cream—the how-tos and recipes in the article seemed so simple. And, in an effort to tighten belts around here (figuratively, of course, especially in this case), we decided to shoot it ourselves, too.

So staff photographer Melyssa Holik, features editor Candace Walsh, and I each whipped up batches of ice cream at home, using three different kinds of ice cream makers, then gathered at Candace’s house to shoot our concoctions. Naturally, we had to have a tasting bee afterward, for which Candace’s kids, Honoree and Nathaniel, generously joined us. Surprisingly, the overall favorite was the non-dairy lavender (pictured here) which Mel made. (Twice. The first batch not being pretty.) Candace, however, was a fan of the chocolate raspberry ice cream (which she made. Also twice, though her second round was due to freezer temperature difficulties.) (The kiwi sorbet I made was both not pretty and not tasty, but that’s another story.), and Nathaniel really went for the lemon thyme sorbet.

Delicious fun, indeed. Look for the recipes—and our results—in the current issue.

Top photo: Lavender ice cream (photo by Melyssa Holik)

Bottom photo: Mel sets up a shot in Candace’s kitchen.