Dive Bar Jukebox with Ed Anderson
"Another lifetime lived in a long night."
Today’s Dive Bar Jukebox is an encore dispatch first published on LAST CALL on November 11, 2022 and is free to all readers. Have a great weekend!
Welcome to Dive Bar Jukebox, a LAST CALL paid-subscriber exclusive where bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a cast of cool characters answer the question: If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? The responses reveal thoughts on their favorite dive bars along with a curated, annotated playlist for your weekend listening pleasure.
Please welcome today’s special guest…
Ed Anderson
Ed Anderson is a James Beard Award-nominated and IACP Award-winning photographer who has shot many much-turned to books and cookbooks that are very likely on your bookshelf. His illuminating and dynamic photography has helped bring many acclaimed and award-winning books to life, including A16: Food + Wine, Secrets of the Sommeliers, Sherry, State Bird Provisions, Food of the Italian Islands, The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook, Mastering Pizza, Bobby at Home, Big Bad Breakfast, Trejo’s Tacos, Collards and Carbonara, The Bean Book, The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread, Salt Hank, Second Generation along with our dear friend David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen and Drinking French, including his forthcoming cookbook, Ready for Dessert (Revised).
In addition to working with publishers like Artisan Books, Abrams Books, Clarkson Potter, Ten Speed Press, Chronicle Books, Little, Brown and Company, and Random House, some of Ed’s other clients include Hog Island Oyster Company, PUNCH, Peet’s Coffee, Sub-Zero, The Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator, and Food & Wine, among others.
Hailing from Ohio, Ed, who now lives in Petaluma, California, started out in graphic design and then as a book designer. But his passion for photography developed into a nearly two-decades career specializing in shooting cookbooks and food and drinks books, including my own Bitters, Amaro, and Last Call.
As Bitters was my first book and one of Ed’s early book projects, my publisher Aaron Wehner had a feeling we would get along and arranged a blind date of sorts that’s since turned into more of an arranged marriage, and an enduring friendship. In my acceptance speech for the James Beard Award for Bitters, I described Ed as “equal parts George Harrison and The Dude from The Big Lebowski.” To pull at another thread from the Lebowski rug, he’s also got a bit of the laconic Sam Elliott’s “The Stranger” in him as well.
I’m fortunate to call this very talented man a great friend, and since 2009 we have spent a lot of time together in planes, cars, and trains across America and Italy as traveling companions, creative partners, and collaborators. (Ed also designed the graphics and logo for the LAST CALL newsletter.)
Read on for some classic Ed stories about late nights at bars across America and a “very Ed” playlist that will make you feel like you’re riding shotgun on one of his many adventures on the road.
Talking Dives with Ed Anderson
What is your favorite dive bar and why do you love it?