Chef Robin Goldstein adds sauce to a dish before it gets photographed for her upcoming cookbook, A Taste of the Santa Ynez Valley. Food for the book, and its photography, were all prepared at enchanting locations around the Valley. 
One of the recipes destined for chef Robin Goldstein’s new cookbook, A Taste of the Santa Ynez Valley, is a rustic tart made with grapes. 
Halved carmelized onions and roasted grapes top pan-seared meat in another dish Robin Goldstein plans for her Santa Ynez Valley cookbook, her third in a series that includes Santa Barbara and Ojai. 
Solvang-based photographer Tenley Fohl shoots chef Robin Goldstein’s roasted tomato and cheese tart at Beckmen Vineyards’ outdoor kitchen, one of Goldstein’s locales for her upcoming cookbook. 
Chef Robin Goldstein’s notes for the entrees to be photographed for her new cookbook, A Taste of the Santa Ynez Valley. 
Chef Robin Goldstein utilizes local vendors’ specialty plates in the photographs for her cookbooks. 
Photographer Tenley Fohl displays a box of tiny spoons that chef Robin Goldstein uses to “style” various photos for her new cookbook.
Ojai resident and private chef Robin Goldstein spent the last week of March in two Santa Ynez Valley wineries’ estate kitchens to prepare and stylize recipes for the photography for her upcoming third cookbook.
She hired Solvang-based photographer Tenley Fohl to capture the approximately 60 finished recipes that will be featured in A Taste of the Santa Ynez Valley. The book is scheduled for a fall release.
Goldstein’s weeklong effort utilized two photogenic kitchens loaned to the chef for use in her book: An outdoor kitchen, poolside at the family home of Los Olivos’ Beckmen Vineyards, and the expansive and luxurious kitchen inside vintner Jim Clendenen’s hilltop Los Alamos Valley retreat.
Goldstein’s team included another chef, Carrie Clough, a Santa Barbara resident who assisted with recipes and prep, and Viktoriya Filippova, also of Santa Barbara and the owner of Fold Santa Barbara. Filippova specializes in linens and flatware to stylize shoots such as this one.
Goldstein, who was born near Washington, D.C., writes on her website that her culinary experience was shaped by “an early exposure to fine dining at her grandparents’ restaurant, along with her food-loving family.”
In 1984, she moved to California, and, in 2004, to Santa Barbara, and has continued to work as a private chef throughout the South and Central Coast.
After five years of living and traveling throughout Spain, she relocated to the Ojai Valley in 2009, she said. Her years in Spain helped coalesce her passion for Mediterranean food, which is showcased in many of her menus.
With her daughter, Chiya, 13, Goldstein resides in Ojai, a community she likes for its “rural-ness.”
When I arrived at Beckmen Vineyards on March 29, the team had just finished cooking, styling and shooting photos of crab beignets, cornbread with carmelized onions and jalapeños, and a tart packed with butternut squash, mushrooms and leeks.
Fohl and Goldstein worked side by side, adding or removing a sprig of rosemary or another herb, or adjusting the lighting so Fohl could get the best side of each dish.
“Cooking for a book is different than just ‘cooking a meal,’ because of all the staging of the recipes” for the photographer, Goldstein said.
During her first full day photographing with Goldstein, Fohl shot 1,157 photos, she said.
Filippova swapped out linens and artsy, antique flatware to match Goldstein’s choice of plates holding each finished recipes Fohl was to photograph that day. Among the dishes were a leg of lamb, chicken sausages with roasted grapes and carmelized onions, and a roasted tomato and cheese tart packed with garlic, manchego and ricotta.
Her suggested pairing for each dish would be a “light red, something a little fruity,” such as grenache, for the tart, and “syrah for the leg of lamb,” Goldstein said.
Clough and Goldstein would prep and cook each dish, and then the two, plus Filippova, spent a few minutes styling each dish. Fohl would then shoot multiple takes. The trio worked about six hours each March 28-29, and then Goldstein and Fohl soloed at Clendenen’s ranch for another five hours on March 30.
That afternoon, Shelby Sim and Danielle Laudon of Visit SYV joined us to observe the process. Goldstein’s finished book will help the duo market food and wine in the Santa Ynez Valley.
On March 31, Fohl shot the chef’s dessert recipes in the kitchen of a third private home.
The process Goldstein uses to choose and perfect each recipe for inclusion in a book requires “three tests of each recipe” before it makes the cut, she said. It’s clear the friends on whom she tests recipes eat quite well in the weeks leading up to a shoot such as this one.
She utilizes these same recipes — and more — for her regular private clients, she said.
With those clients, as well as with recipes for her two prior books, A Taste of Ojai and A Taste of Santa Barbara, Goldstein immerses herself in local foodie culture in order to best “present (local) flavors.”
By her own admission, she doesn’t eat out much, preferring to cook at home for her daughter.
“I feel honored to cook for people,” she said.
When asked for her “trick” to crafting good food, Goldstein answered: “No fuss, good ingredients and hot pans to sear the meat.”
The Ojai-based book, her first, includes 30 recipes, mostly starters and appetizers, and the second, focusing on the flavors found in Santa Barbara, features 60 recipes, the chef noted. The upcoming Santa Ynez Valley one will also feature about 60 dishes.
Goldstein said she tries to use local vendors, such as for the plates, whenever possible, shopping farmers markets and buying other local ingredients. Fohl and I accompanied her to the Solvang Farmers Market, where she picked up a few items for the following day’s shoot at Clendenen’s.
— Laurie Jervis blogs about wine at www.centralcoastwinepress.com, tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.