Scott McGehee: Proprietor of the Year Arkansas Food Hall of Fame | Arkansas Food Photographer

You may not know his name, but if you live in Arkansas, chances are you’ve eaten at one or more of his restaurants: Big Orange, Local Lime, Heights Taco & Tamale, Lost Forty Brewing and ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co.

Scott McGehee is the executive chef behind Yellow Rocket Concepts restaurants which are some of the most popular in the state. McGehee was recently named Proprietor of the Year by the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame.

I spent an afternoon in early March photographing McGehee for a recent feature in Arkansas Living Magazine, published by the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas. You can read the current issue of Arkansas Living here.

Scott McGehee is the executive chef behind Yellow Rocket Concepts

I met McGehee at Big Orange Burger in Little Rock’s Midtowne district. We had a relatively tight schedule and a lot to photograph. I wanted to photograph him at three different locations without taking up too much of his time. He told me he allocated three hours for the photo shoot and I was thrilled to have this much time. If you know Scott, he goes at 90-to-nothing.

We started with a portrait of him at the bar and then moved on to photographing a trio of their signature burgers and a bowl of their famous cheese dip. Cheese dip runs in his blood and in his family…literally. His father, Frank was the co-creator of white cheese dip and was a partner in Little Rock’s Blue Mesa Grill and Juanita’s.

A trio of burgers from Big Orange (from left): the Smashed Avocado Turkey Burger, theFarmer's Burger and the White Truffle & Pecorino.

From Big Orange, we headed to Heights Taco & Tamale Co. for a taste and preview of their offerings.

Lastly, we headed over to ZAZA Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Co. ZAZA is my personal favorite. I could eat the ZAZA Italian Sausage Pizza ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. I wanted to get a few cooking shots in additional to the portraits and styled food photos so McGehee donned his apron and whipped up a classic Pizza Margherita.

There is no better way to cook a pizza than in a wood-fired oven. Period. Go ahead, argue your case.

For fans of his restaurants who live in Northwest Arkansas, your wishes are coming true. Bentonville Taco & Tamale Co. is coming soon. The menu will feature an Ark-Mex menu designed by McGehee. The menu is also expected to include fan favorites. The new restaurant will be located on the Bentonville Square at 101 W. Central Ave., and is projected to open in fall 2020. This restaurant marks the 10th restaurant location for Yellow Rocket Concepts.

One last note, I can say with honestly, Scott McGehee is a really nice guy. And he is generous. Extremely generous. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, McGehee vowed not to lay off any of his employees by working hard to maintain curb-side pickup at all restaurant locations. McGehee also has been providing meals almost daily to area healthcare workers.

Milken Educator Awards | Arkansas Editorial Photographer

In late 2016 and in early 2017, I spent a several days over the course of six weeks traveling throughout the southeast again working with the Milken Family Foundation photographing the Milken Educator Awards. I worked with this incredible foundation previously in 2015 for the same event.

What are the Milken Educator Awards? An initiative of the Milken Family Foundation, founded by Lowell Milken, the awards honors up-and-coming educators around the country and awards each with a $25,000 unrestricted cash prize. In the words of Dr. Jane Foley, senior vice president, Milken Educator Awards, at the Milken Family Foundation, who won the award herself for the state of Indiana in 1994, "Movies has the Oscar's, music has the Grammy's, science has the Nobel Prize and sports has its gold medals. We have the Milken Educator Awards." Teacher magazine calls it, "The Oscars of Teaching."

For 30 years, the Milken Educator Awards has recognized and rewarded excellence in education by honoring, and surprising (more on that below) top educators around the country in a very public way. To date, more than 2,700 Awards have been given out, totaling $68 million. Once an educator wins this award, their careers in education will never be the same.

Simply put, this is an absolutely wonderful event to photograph. The winners have NO idea they've won until their names are called. No one knows. Not the students, not even the rest of the faculty have any idea what's about to happen. Only a select few administrators knows who wins. An educator cannot apply to receive this award. You don't find them, they find you. As you will see below, some of their reactions range from shock, to utter joy to disbelief.

Below are some of my favorites moments from each state I photographed: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi.

I am really looking forward to working with The Milken Family Foundation again this year.

 

Alabama

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Mississippi

On a side note: I left the newspaper world over four years ago so it was fun to see my name on the front page (maybe) one last time.

From Baths to Beers: Part Two | Superior Bathhouse Brewery

By now, most of us know about Superior Bathhouse Brewery in Hot Springs. It's the only brewery located in a national park. I spent a day at Superior this past spring photographing their brewing process as well as some beauty shots of selected beers and some of their more popular menu items.

The old, and historic, Superior bathhouse seemed like a logical place to have a brewery, after all bathhouses are built to handle large amounts of beer's main ingredient: hot water.

The idea of re-purposing an old building as a brewery is not new. Retrofitting Superior posed special challenges since the bathhouse building itself is a National Historic Landmark.

The spring water that is brought into the building is already at 142 degrees, so less energy is needed to get it to 172 degrees which is ideal for brewing beer.

Superior is getting lots of national attention. In a recent article by the Chicago Tribune, spoke to owner Rose Schweikhart, "Very few springs are both hot and potable. We are the only brewery in the world utilizing thermal spring water in our beer. You will find many breweries with spring water and many breweries that use geothermal technology to heat water, but we are truly the only one who uses thermal spring water out of the ground directly into our processing vessels."

There's a lot of downtime when it comes to brewing beer, which is something I learned during my photo shoot. In between the steps of the brewing process is when I photographed the beer beauty shots. You can see those in my other blog post.

Once the brewing process is complete, the spent grains are then scooped out and dumped into buckets. But what to do with it? Jay Lee, a local farmer and owner of JV Farms in Bismarck picks up the grains who then feeds it to his pigs. To the pigs, it's like eating candy. JV Farms processes their pork and several of their items can be found on the menu at Superior. I can attest to how good their bratwurst it.

More on that in another blog post coming next month....