I used to run a forge in a previous life/career. There is so much beauty in the intensity of red hot steel and iron. Something so stone cold comes alive from within, as if all the molecules are given permission to dance and sing, slowly... then all at once, until the metal cools and the molecules are forced back into hibernation.

It's the same with cooking hot foods. Yes, we know it was all alive once but when killed, cut or picked off the tree or vine, the molecules begin to die slowly and when you heat them up they are allowed to come alive again and marry into one another creating something new.

These photos were taken in a hearth at an old friend's home, in a converted church in New England. A blizzard storm locked us in for a few days and this is what we did to pass the time.

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