I want to cook more.

I have been blogging in one form or another for the better part of twenty years, nearly as long as “blogging” was a term. However, I took a step back from most things online (including social media) in 2016, so I’ve been mostly out of the loop for a while. These days bloggers seem to be relegated to second or third tier status behind vloggers, YouTube stars and Instagram influencers. But even though I realize that the demand for blogging has diminished significantly, blogging is a good way for me to remember things that otherwise fall off into the abyss, even if it has no interest to anyone else. I love re-discovering a blog post I wrote years ago that I’d forgotten. And frankly, that is what a lot of blogs originally were, an online extension of old fashioned journals. Mine certainly was. 

When I originally started food blogging I was new to St. Louis, my business hadn’t taken off yet, and I had a lot of time on my hands. I wanted to learn how to photograph food, and I wanted to learn how to be a better cook. I feel like I accomplished both of those goals. These days, I make a living photographing food in a commercial photography studio and I’m a pretty decent day-to-day cook. I cook my beans from dry and I make bread from scratch. I can even poach an egg most of the time.

Lately though, I have been obsessing about cooking. I mean, really obsessing. I want to cook all the time. I want to cook, and then cook even more, do more in the kitchen, make things I wouldn’t ordinarily make. I watch Netflix food specials, food YouTube channels, I read cookbooks, I browse Pinterest for ideas…but what I really want to do is to be in the kitchen cooking. The thing is though, I don’t want to go to culinary school and I don’t want to work in a restaurant. The former seems like a lot of expense considering I don’t want to do the latter, and both seem like a lot of work. 

So I got to thinking, how can I cook more? My wife and I are only two people, so there is only so much that I can cook for just the two of us as far as regular meals are concerned. So for starters I decided to resurrect my Gourmet 10/76 project from eight years ago and start blogging again. I have a commercial kitchen at my disposal in the studio, and I have a team of digital imagers, producers, and assistants that I can share food with! Not to mention the amazing food stylists that I work with on a day-to-day basis who can teach me stuff. 

After some deliberation I felt like The Insatiable Lens was the appropriate place for me to share this project from a brand perspective, and because it is a better name than my old food blog. I loved making hardcopy magazines for The Insatiable Lens, and perhaps there will be more issues ahead. Maybe this Gourmet project will morph into Issue Three. But for the time being, I’m just going to be cooking some stuff, photographing some stuff, and we’ll see what happens. 

Thanks for reading. 

Jonathan Gayman
Photographer and Editor in Chief
March 9, 2020

Jonathan Gayman is a St. Louis based food photographer. He is the lead photographer at
We Are Alexander Studios and the Principal at Jonathan Gayman Photography.