A Year with Our Food Stories

08/2022 food & beverages

Quality food has the ability to awaken our senses, a concept well-known to photographer and food-stylist-turned cooks, Laura and Nora. Through Our Food Stories, the pair have made it their mission to attain these delights through gluten-free, vegetarian, and healthy cooking, supporting the opinion that where we eat matters just as much as what. When Laura and Nora lay out a table, the centerpiece and the dishes intertwine to provide a new found connection and appreciation for the ever-changing offerings of nature.

Bursting with delicious recipes built upon seasonal ingredients, A Year With Our Food Stories is fundamentally a cookbook, however it offers so much more. Stunning visuals of kitchens, tables set up by cozy fires, or picnic blankets laid out on flowery meadows provide inspiration on how best to reflect the varying flavors of the seasons in the settings within which we consume them.

This is a book for food lovers, with an appreciation for taste in all its forms. We sat down with Laura and Nora to discuss the inspiration and history behind Our Food Stories, and what to expect from the new release.

(Photo: Courtesy of Our Food Stories, A Year with Our Food Stories)

Hi Laura & Nora! Could you introduce yourself to those who may not know you?

We are Laura & Nora, a photographer  and food stylist couple both born in Berlin. Nora has a background as a fashion designer and Laura studied photography. A few years ago we moved to the countryside with our studio and love to be able to photograph a lot of productions outside in nature during spring and summer.

What inspired you to enter the world of cooking, and more specifically - to produce gluten free recipes?

When we met 10 years ago, Laura had a lot of food intolerances and also couldn’t eat any gluten, so it was very hard to go out for dinner. That’s when we started to cook and Nora quickly became quite good at gluten-free baking.

How do you find inspiration for your recipes?

Mostly through the season. We just love fresh and seasonal food.

(Photo: Courtesy of Our Food Stories, A Year with Our Food Stories)

What is your favorite recipe to date (and why)?

Nora’s favorite is the chocolate ricotta cake with poached pears, because she just loves chocolate and nuts and in combination with pears, it’s the perfect dessert. And Laura’s favorite recipe is the pumpkin waffles - they are just the best comfort food during autumn!

It’s safe to say that your cooking aesthetic is loved by many. In your opinion, what is so important about the relationship between the way in which we see and enjoy food? 

Especially in the past years we have the feeling that the daily life of most people has become more hectic and digital. Food can be an “analogue” way to calm down and focus on the moment to enjoy your meal. 

How have your creative backgrounds helped you in your career as chefs? 

Yes, I would say it was helpful to have a creative background, as cooking itself is also very creative. You have the whole process of having an idea and making the concept to the actual cooking / realizing the idea to the final product / dish and then the photoshoot. So the whole process is actually very creative.

What are your top tips when adapting a recipe to become gluten free?

It totally depends if it’s cooking or baking. Today it’s not complicated anymore to adapt a gluten-free recipe, as you find more and more gluten-free products in the supermarkets. For baking we mainly use a gluten-free flour mix from Bauckhof, which works so well. 

(Photo: Courtesy of Our Food Stories, A Year with Our Food Stories)

A Year with Our Food Stories is a gluten-free cookbook inspired by a love of local produce and the art of table-setting. Delightful and surprising, these seasonal recipes will help you cook the kind of simple and delicious vegetarian meals that are best shared with family and friends.