a husband and wife team creating recipes and running a comprehensive visual studio for food and beverage brands.
We care about the nitty-gritty details of wellness, but deliver the bottom line in efficient form like FAQ articles on topics like CBD & MSG.
We photograph, style and video all food and beverage content, along with providing graphic design services. As an all-in-house studio, we make sure everything is executed perfectly across all points.
We develop recipes that can meet specific dietary requirements (carlene is a registered dietitian nutritionist) but often develop recipes using more unique ingredients and cooking methodologies (24 hour brisket? No problem).
About us
We're a husband and wife team working from our home studio in Northern Virginia. She's a dietitian nutritionist with a streak of cat lady (and a slightly smaller, secret streak of competitiveness. Many times in school, Carlene got overly involved in a game of dodgeball and made people cry). In January 2020, our first cookbook came out: CBD Drinks for Health. Carlene wrote it, Chris photographed it.
A recognized dietitian nutritionist, Carlene has been named by MindBodyGreen 'America's Next Great Nutritionist', and was listed to Loudoun Business Journal's 40 under 40. Carlene is also a past president of the Virginia Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the governing professional body for dietitians in the state. Chris is a design savvy, typography obsessed creative who likes the third most famous New Zealand folk band. He also has an insane memory (Chris can tell you the one embarrassing thing you said the first time we met that you hope no one noticed, and also a fact about your cousin you mentioned in passing). We've known each other since fourth grade and have the cringe-worthy yearbook photos with choker necklaces and dragon shirts to prove it. Seriously. They're awful.
We work together as content creators, doing recipe development, food photography, stop motion and videography as well as consulting for food and beverage brands. We're proud to have created national marketing campaigns for clients that are seen by millions of viewers.
We also like to keep a running list of the weird things we do in our business, because honestly, we can't believe how much fun we get to have. Some of the stranger things we've done recently include spray painting 50 pieces of fruit different colors in the drive way (our neighbors have so many unanswered questions), freezing our table top to photograph ice for a ice-themed photoshoot in July in Virginia, figuring out how to make produce float, and cutting a hole in a box, sticking Carlene's neck through it and filling it with 10 pounds of cranberries.
As far as what kinds of recipes we post here on the blog, we like to say 'they're always worth it'. There are plenty of other blogs that share 5 ingredient crockpot recipes for picky eaters, but this isn't one of them. If we use an unusual method or ingredient (like sous vide or manuka honey), it's because it's the best it can make that recipe and we've tested it and know it's worth the extra work or cost. You'll also notice we use heavy cream, or butter or sugar in recipes, even though Carlene is a dietitian. We love food and believe in having the best version of it to enjoy worth it meals.
In 2021 we started a second separate business called Clever Beast that focuses on flavor and aroma development with lesser known botanicals as well as local agricultural waste streams from farms, wineries and breweries. Our first product, a 23 botanical Mid-Atlantic regional vermouth with Walsh Family Wine, launched in August of 2022.
To contact us, fill out this form.
To see what we’ve been up to, check out the Press Page or follow along on Instagram.