food styling and photography
I’ve only been taking pictures of food for as long as this blog has been around. If you look at some of my earliest posts, you can see that I had no idea what I was doing, and that I’m continuing to learn what it takes to produce photos that make you want to reach out and eat your screen. I am constantly learning about lighting, arranging dishes, using props and everything else that might possibly come up. I feel like I am pretty ok at taking a decent picture of the food I make, but when it comes to making food professionally pretty, I am at a total loss. Thankfully, there are people out there who do these things for a living! Enter: Abby Stolfo, food stylist. I met Abby at a class put on by the incredible church the husband and I attend in San Francisco. We hit it off right away, after discovering a common obsession for food. Right away we planned a time to cook, eat, and refine our respective food skills. What a fun meeting it was! Abby prepared all of the food, styled it and tweaked it to make it completely beautiful and magazine cover worthy. I took that food and photographed it, and photographed it and photographed it. Abby had a wonderful eye for arrangement and placement of the elements of each dish. It was fun to see the process that I go through often, from the perspective of a stylist. An attention to detail was something I realized I lack, and hope to now give some extra thought.
I’m constantly learning and am certain that I will never be through with it. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey and for hanging with me through this process. It’s been a complete joy!
Here are some of the fruits of our labor. I hope you like them!
heart shaped
Now I know this is a food blog, and I know that this post does not contain any kind of recipe or pictures of food, but it does revolve around a vessel that will eventually bring you something undoubtedly delicious. It also speaks about good friends, and as we all know, friends and food are synonymous.
I just couldn’t resist telling you about a little heart shaped casserole that surprisingly came into my life.
My best friend and I were on our way to Tahoe this last Friday, and we decided to meet at her sister Leslyes’ house since it was on the way. As we were leaving, Leslye asked us to stop by the Le Creuset outlet (!) to pick up a package for her. My first reaction was, “They have those?!”, and continued to tell her that I could not guarantee her item would make it back to her if it was something that I took a liking to. Oh my naivety. So, we did as we were told, forced to go to an outlet store solely dedicated to french cookware. I flittered around the store, drooling over what I would buy if I had all the money in the world. All the while my best friend is chatting with the sales person about the package that was waiting patiently on the counter. I walked over to them, trying to distract myself from the gleam of enameled cast iron, and noticed a nicely wrapped package with a card nestled tightly under pink and red ribbon. The card read, “Mr. and Mrs. Logan.” I said, “Wow! Leslye knows someone that has the same last name as me!” Then, slowly, the excitement built as I realized, that’s for me! Technically it’s for us but the husband really only enjoys what will eventually come from that pot. So, after realizing that this package was indeed for me, I tore it open to uncover the little gem you see above. It is perfect in every way, and if it’s possible, it was made even more perfect by having Julia Childs’ boeuf bourguignon recipe hiding inside. What a wonderful gift. Thank you, thank you, thank you Leslye and Mel for such a delightful surprise. I simply can not wait to post my first recipe made from this heart shaped pot built for two.
Share the goodness
Do you ever make something amazing and then forget about it later when you’re trying to figure out what’s for dinner? I do all the time. I see a wonderful recipe, struggle to create it, enjoy it and then forget about it the next time I’m walking up and down the grocery isle with a growling tummy. Well, here is the fix. I’ve decided to enter the blogging world in order to cure my self of premature memory loss. No ginko biloba for me, just a place to put a list together of all the things I enjoy eating, and hope that eventually you will too. There is SO much goodness out there, and I think it couldn’t hurt to pay it a little respect.
