For over twenty years, Michael Skott has recorded his unique and beautiful viewpoint of life that surrounds us. His book projects have encompassed the range of food, entertaining, and travel, including Martha Stewart's Entertaining, Mary Emmerling's American Country West, and American Cooking, California Style. Here are the books for which Michael was the sole photographer.

California Cooking: Parties, Picnics & Celebrations
By Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Museum Council, Lois Dwan, Michael Skott
Hardcover / May 1986/ 0517560836

California Cooking began in the mid-seventies, when a remarkable group of very talented young chefs discerned the kernel of truth in French nouvelle cuisine. Led by the late Jean Bertranou in Los Angeles and Alice Waters in Berkeley, they set upon a course of principled experiment that exploded into a galaxy of tastes as brilliant as the French Impressionists' explosion of color.

California cooking has become more than skill, more than sensuous awareness. It is a recognition of the meaning of food that sounds all through history and echoes in the pleasures and ceremonies of our own lives. We have learned to break only the best bread together. We have decided that the quality of what we eat matters to us very much. (text by Lois Dwan)

Cherokee Style
Photographs by Michael Skott

The American West - these very words conjure up images of wide open spaces, herds of elk or cattle grazing on a vast meadow of golden grass and wildflowers, and of people living in hand-hewn homes of logs, adobe, or stone among some of the world’s most splendid natural beauty. After driving 6000 miles to photograph this book, my appreciation for the endurance of the first cowboys and settlers grew as I was able to witness in my mind’s eye their crossings and attempts to tame an unpredictable land. today, their memory lives on in the homes and lifestyles of the modern American West.

The Chesapeake Cookbook: The Best Home Cooking of Maryland, Delaware & Tidewater Virginia
Susan Belsinger and Carolyn Dille
Hardcover / July 1990 / 0517573288

The rows of gleaming oysters on ice, the glisten of fresh fish, the fire engine glow of steamed crabs, the piles of podded lima beans, the matte green of corn husks and the pearly pale kernels of Silver Queen corn, the smell of freshly grated coconut, the aromatic pungency of horseradish root, the sweetly scented flesh of Eastern Shore cantaloupe, the strawberries and raspberries to inspire perfumers, the heady fragrance of peaches - these are the impressions one receives in the Lexington Market of Baltimore, Maryland. The oldest continuously operated city market in the United States palpably introduces the real-life cornucopia that furnishes the Chesapeake region.

American Country Cooking: Recipes and menus from family and friends across America
By Mary Ellisor Emmerling, Michael Skott
Hardcover / October 1987/ 0517560208

Crisscrossing the United States as often as I do, compiling material for my books, I have discovered that the warmth of Country style goes far beyond baskets hanging from the rafters, layers of quilts and Indian blankets on handcrafted beds, or Country cupboards brimming with family treasures. Country style really has more to do with the feeling of home than the objects that are in it. Nowhere is this attitude better expressed than at the family table, in the simplicity and flavor of American cooking as varied as a lobster boil in Maine, a German-style pork roast dinner in Pennsylvania, or a light pasta supper dressed with a simple sauce of ripe tomatoes in California's fertile Napa Valley.

Entertaining
Martha Stewart
Hardcover / December 1982 / 0517544199
Paperback / October 1998 / 0609803859

In this fabulous book, Martha Stewart presents a totally new style of entertaining that is personal, relaxed, and expressive. "I think of entertaining as one friend treating other friends", she writes. "Entertaining can be as simple an offering as fresh-picked strawberries and iced tea on a summer afternoon or as elaborate as a formal dinner for twenty-four. What matters is not elaborate technique or pomp or show but warmth, thought, and a sense of your own individual style. There are as many good formulas as there are personalities." (text with Elizabeth Hawes)

The Natural Home: Living the Simple Life
By Tricia Foley, Michael Skott, Jill Kirchner
Hardcover / April 1995/ 0517596687

I have found over the years I have come to rely on certain basics in my home: the big old sofa in front of the fireplace that I can never part with and just re-cover periodically, the huge white buffet plates so useful with a big family, the simple linen curtains on the windows, and the sisal rugs on the old pine floors. As the seasons change, pots of tulips are replaced with pitchers of Queen Anne’s lace, then branches of bittersweet in the fall, and evergreens for Christmas. Collections and personal memorabilia change and evolve as my life changes and evolves, but it is the simple things that I find comfort and pleasure in. On the following pages you will find a few of my favorite things.

Pacific Northwest Flavors: 150 Recipes from the Region’s Farmland, Coastline, Mountains & Cities
By Michael Skott, WithLori McKean
Hardcover / February 1995/ 0517575647

Briny Willapa Bay oysters, Dungeness crab, and sparkling fresh fillets of king salmon. Woodsy wild mushrooms from the forest’s floor. Sweet Walla Walla onions, Quillisascut cheese, and tangy huckleberries. The indigenous foods and fresh produce of the Pacific Northwest reflect the region’s diverse natural resources and add an incomparable vibrancy to its distinctive cuisine. Drawing on the inspiring palate of local foods and varied cultures of its people, northwestern cuisine has come to the forefront of the American culinary scene. And from the shorelines to the cities, mountains, and forests, home cooks, purveyors, and professional chefs have devised enticing new ways to prepare the Northwest’s bounty that reflect the adventure and pioneering attitude of the area.

Romantic Style: Style That’s Straight from the Heart
By Mary Emmerling, Michael Skott
Hardcover / February 10, 2004/ 0609610090

What’s romantic is intensely personal and idiosyncratic: It should be different for each person, just as our passions, loves, and pursuits are all different. For a shy romantic, the surprise of a staid cabinet’s lush red interior or just a few vintage floral pillows tucked on neutral sofas and chairs might do the trick; for a sensualist, touchable textures like velvet, chenille, fur or cashmere spell seduction. For almost all of us, candlelight, a fire in the fireplace, and a bouquet of full-blown fresh flowers are timelessly romantic. In our increasingly hard-edged, fast-paced, technology-ruled times, it seems to me that romance is more important than ever. Taking refuge in sensory pleasures and surrounding yourself with tactile and visual antidotes has become all the more essential. I hope this book will inspire ou, no matter who you are or where you live, to put a little more romance in your life! (text by Jill Kirchner Simpson)

Quick Decorating: Fast and easy projects for every room of the house
Mary Emmerling
Hardcover / April 1997 / 0517704676

When I stop to think about it, much of my life has been spent honing the art of quick decorating. I got a thorough education in decorating under deadline in my many years as a home editor, author, and stylist (surely i must have a Ph.D. in it by now). On most photo shoots there is only a day, or perhaps just an hour or two, to transform a house from ordinary to camera-ready, to place bouquets of flowers into pitchers, to fill the bowls with fresh fruit, to organize clutter neatly into baskets and boxes, and to add unexpected accessories to charm the eye. "Styling" is the art of arranging these various objects into interesting vignettes that form a cohesive whole. Other books explain how to choose the paint for the wall and the fabric for the sofa; Quick Decorating acknowledges you may not have the time for full-scale remodeling. I will share with you the secrets of the stylist's art. These tricks of the trade may seem like small details, but hey, have a great impact in the way they quickly pull a room together (and draw attentiion away from a room's deficiencies). (text by Jill A. Kirchner)

Sailing Style: nautical inspirations for the home
By Tricia Foley, Michael Skott, Jill Kirchner Simpson
Hardcover / May 2003/ 0609610260

Sailing Style examines the design legacy of the sailboat as inspiration for a clean-lined approach to modern living: its timeless palette of colors and materials, and its practical aesthetic; the architectural elements, both exterior and interior, that have been inspired by or adapted from nautical design; coastal architecture as defined by humble shipbuilders as well as grand Shingle Style architects; the instruments and accoutrements of sailing that have become not only valued collectibles, but touchstones for the bravery and beauty of a bygone age; and the romantic beacons that still have the power to lure us to the coast - lighthouses, boathouses, and sheltering harbors that offer safe ports in a storm. Sailing Style is an evocation of the ways in which homes by the sea - or those informed by the same relaxed, clean-lined sense of style - celebrate what is best about the boats that have set sail in our collective imagination for generations. (text by Jill Kirchner Simpson)

Smart Decorating: Inexpensive projects for every room in the house
By Mary Ellisor Emmerling, Jill Kirchner, Michael Skott
Hardcover / October 1999/ 0609603256

"Where do you begin when you're decorating a home?" As I crisscross the country, photographing and filming houses, it's one of the most frequent decorating questions I hear. And even if their homes are already furnished, people often assume they have to completely start over if they want to change or upgrade their look. My philosophy, however, is that where you start isn't as important as the end of the process - the finishing touches. While there is plenty of advice out there on buying furniture and coordinating fabrics, few experts focus on the details - the throws and pillows that will personalize a standard-issue sofa or revitalize a hand-me-down; the mix of candlesticks, books, and mementos that will put your individual stamp on the most basic coffeee table. These small, initmate touches are what make a house a home, a place that is unique to you, and as this book will show you, they are often the least expensive elements in decorating. I never think of it as "cheap decorating": to me it is really just "smart decorating". (text by Jill Kirchner Simpson)

American Country West: A Style and Source Book
By Mary Ellisor Emmerling, Michael Skott
Hardcover / October 1985/ 0517552779
Paperback / February 1994/ 0517881403

American Country West is as much a style of today as it is a colorfully embroidered legacy of our past. It is cowboy charisma and down-home rusticity in a country homestead. It is native Indian crafts and desert colors in a city apartment. It is the use of building techniques and materials, whether in a new adobe or a restored mountain cabin, that are appropriate and authentic - honest - for dwelling and site alike. American Country West is East meets West and West travels East. It is our English, European, Mexican, and Indian heritages coming together to create a look that is uniquely and genuinely American. (text by Carol Sama Sheehan)