About

Eat, meet, discover

Life summarized in three words. We eat to live, we meet to love, we discover to develop. Everything is related to food, one way or another. Kitchen Table Food is a site by Tal Maes and explores the relationship between food, people, and places.

The story behind Kitchen Table Food

Kitchen Table Food started in 2013 as a site run by two Dutch friends with a passion for food, photography, and traveling: Petra de Hamer and me. We both moved abroad around the same time some years ago. Petra went to live in Berlin, I left for Washington, DC. Both photographers and text writers, we wanted to share our new exciting lives with each other and started Kitchen Table Food.

We both moved back to the Netherlands in 2015. Petra moved to ‘the Berlin’ of the Netherlands: Rotterdam. I went back to the Dutch equivalent of DC and my former hometown: The Hague.

Moving to another country after years of living abroad, even if it is back to your mother country, means starting over. Petra started working as an independent editor and concept maker for several publishing houses where she brings together authors, photographers, and designers. She is no longer contributing to Kitchen Table Food, but we are still good friends! We work together on books and projects and still share our food experiences with each other in private. More info about Petra at http://www.petradehamer.com

Back in the Netherlands I continued Kitchen Table Food and my work as a food and travel writer. My photos are featured in the Dutch culinary magazine Elle Eten (Elle Food), where I have a column with recipes and photos. My pictures have been published in several cookbooks (publishers Fontaine, Snor. mo’media). For more than 17 years, I have created recipes for different kinds of magazines, including the magazine of Albert Heijn, Holland’s largest grocery store. Additionally, I wrote several cookbooks, travel guides, and hiking guides. My portfolio: http://www.talmaes.com

The Kitchen Table Food cookbook

While living abroad, Petra and I did not only blog about food and our culinary experiences, we also worked on a cookbook together. The Kitchen Table Food cookbook came out in the fall of 2015 and was the perfect way to close off the years we both spent abroad. It’s a book full of memories in recipes, pictures, and stories.

Bloomville

I’m so happy and proud that my 15-year old daughter Flo has her own page now on Kitchen Table Food! As a dedicated chocolate lover (preferably dark!), she started her own blog about chocolate when she was 11 years old: Flo’s Chocolate Factory. She took pictures with her phone and, precise as she is, captured every step of the recipe. It was so adorable to watch! After a while, she decided she wanted something more mature and started Bloomville, named after a tranquil village in the Catskills, NY, where we once spent our Spring Break. She now uses my or her sisters camera, and has broadened her repertoire, i.e. it’s no longer only chocolate she’s blogging about.

It was a natural step to incorporate her into Kitchen Table Food. Besides being my daughter, we practically have the same taste when it comes to food. And I love her creative way of thinking and styling. Of course I help her every now and then, but she helps me just the same: I couldn’t do my work without having her and my family around. We discuss recipes, cook together, influence each other, and critisize each other’s pictures and work. In a sense, Flo has been part of Kitchen Table Food all along.