Molly's blueberry pie

Well hello.  It's been a while.  A million things have come before this blog and it's been longer than it should since I posted.  A recent shoot with stylist Molly Shuster for Eat Boutique inspired me to get back to posting, and share her delicious take on blueberry pie. 

That and juicy, in-season berries, a blue state of mind, and some fun prep, in process and post shots we took.  

We shot her recipe, then we couldn't help but fiddle, style, re-style and shoot.  The traditional pie was our jumping off point, and the other, our indulgence. Which do you like?  Same set and ingredient.  Two very different looks.  The pretty pie plate was the jumping off point for the second version.

We shot these slightly ahead of blueberry season in the north east and before our own bushes have turned.  Looking back at these makes me look forward to harvesting our own.  There will definitely be more blueberry pies, tarts, and tartelettes this season.

Molly's blueberry pie with cornmeal crust (pictured above)

Ingredients:

Cornmeal Crust:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup cornmeal (I love Gray’s Grist Mill brand)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks cold butter, cut into pieces

Ice water, as needed

Cream, for brushing

Sanding or turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Blueberry Filling:

3 pints blueberries

1 lemon, zest and juice

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1. Place the flour, cornmeal, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse a few times until the butter has started to incorporate but small pieces of butter remain. Adding ice water 2 tablespoons at a time, pulse until the mixture resembles wet sand. Pour onto a work surface and shape into a disc (knead a bit of the dough if is a little too crumbly to shape together.) Cut the disc in half and shape each half into a disc. Wrap with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill, at least 1 hour or overnight.
2. Place a baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 400º. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one of the discs of dough until it is about 11” in diameter. Line a 9” tart or pie plate and prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. Place in the refrigerator to chill.
3. Meanwhile, make your filling. Combine all of the ingredients and gently toss to combine.
4. Roll out the remaining dough until it is about 1/8” thick. Cut into 1 1/2” wide strands. Pour the blueberry mixture into the pie plate and braid the strands decoratively on top. Tuck in edges and pinch together to make a crust. Brush with cream and sprinkle generously with sugar.
5. Place on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350º. Bake for another 30-35 minutes, or until the berries have begun to burst and the crust is nicely golden-brown.
6. Let cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

For more of Molly's recipes, hop on over to her blog.

Appreciating: summer stone fruit

Photography update

Wanted to let you know of two new photography offerings: kids portraits and holiday cards. I don't think I've mentioned the former on this blog. Inspired by my friends' children, and most recently, my own child, I have started offering portrait sessions and packages for little ones. You can read more about it on my website here. I am excited about this expansion to my business and hope you will spread the word to anyone who lives in the New York City area.


Secondly, I am offering three sets of "sweet" holiday cards this year. Cards are 4x6, professionally printed on thick card stock, and come in packages of 25 for $55. The outside features adorable sugar cookies and the inside of the card can be printed with the default greeting of "May your holiday season be sweet" or another greeting of your choice. This is a great value for a custom card and hope many of you will take advantage. Please email me at skrockodile [at] gmail [dot] com to place your order.

Hope all of you are well. Thanks so much for your continued readership and support!

Sweetie sweets take 2: fleur de sel caramels

It’s that time again – Valentine’s Day. It’s either a holiday that you love or hate. I’m in the love camp. It’s such a great excuse to be a little silly and of course, to cook some sweets! Last year I made truffles in the spirit of the holiday. This year I was taken with a recipe for fleur de sel caramels that I saw in House Beautiful. It’s an Ina Garten recipe. This is just a perfect occasion to employ one of Ina’s buttery, creamy, sugary fattening best! The fleur de sel is the perfect complement to the sweet caramel and pretty to look at as well. Homemade caramels are completely different from the dry, overly tacky caramels that we think of from

I was a bit wary as I’d never made caramels before but they were quite simple and quick. I followed Ina’s recipe to a “t” until I got to the very last step: forming the individual caramels. I’ve adjusted the recipe below to reflect my changes.

p.s. A couple of photography notes: my photo of homemade cinnamon buns won the "aesthetics" award in last month's DMBLGIT - thanks so much Zorra and judges!
Lou Manna is having a photo contest to help find inspiration for the cover of his next book. Read more about it here.


Fleur de sel caramels (by the Barefoot Contessa, adapted from recipe printed in HouseBeautiful)
(Makes 30 caramels)

Vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon fleur de sel, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Line the bottom of an 8-inch-square baking pan with parchment paper, then brush the paper lightly with oil, allowing the paper to drape over two sides.

2. In a deep saucepan (89 diameter by 4 1/2" deep), stir together 1/4 cup water with the sugar and corn syrup and bring them to a boil over medium-high heat. Continue to boil until the mixture is a warm golden brown color. Don't stir — just swirl the pan to mix. Watch carefully, as it will burn quickly at the end!

3. In the meantime, in a small pan, bring the cream, butter, and 1 teaspoon of fleur de sel to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat and set aside.

4. When the sugar mixture is a warm golden color, turn off the heat and slowly add the cream mixture to the sugar mixture. Be careful! It will bubble up violently. Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, until the mixture reaches 248°F (firm ball) on a candy thermometer. Very carefully (because it's hot!) pour the caramel into the prepared pan and refrigerate until firm.

5. When the caramels are cold, use the parchment paper to pry the sheet from the pan onto a cutting board (note: the caramels will still be supple and easy to handle – if too stiff, allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes). Using the parchment and starting from the long side, tightly roll the caramel up until you have rolled 1/3 of it. Cut along the edge and repeat two more times. Use the parchment to gently roll each log to even out the thickness and smooth out the seam from the cut side. Cut each roll into 8-10 pieces, taking care not to touch the caramel with your finger. Sprinkle each piece with fleur de sel and wrap individually in glassine or parchment paper. Store in the refrigerator and serve the caramels chilled.

Styling super talent: Paul Lowe

"Black fig shoot." Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

Have you heard of Paul Lowe? He’s a brilliant food and interiors stylist who captures his styling adventures and inspirations on his blog, Sweet Paul. I find Paul’s work completely inspirational. He has a wonderful modern aesthetic in the very best sense: beautiful, natural, warm, clever, clean, soulful and crisp. Quite hard to describe so you will have to see for yourself.

Paul started out as a florist, and when a photographer friend of his suggested that he would be quite good at styling, he gave it a try. A few jobs and rave reviews later, Paul was hooked. Even though Paul only moved to the U.S. (from Oslo) a few years ago, his amazing artistry has already attracted the attention of an impressive array of talented U.S. photographers: Ellen Silverman, Gemma Comas, Colin Cooke and Frances Janisch to name a few.

"Black fig shoot." Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

I spent a couple of hours with Paul last week as he styled for a shoot for European magazine, Interior Magasinet, for photographer by Colin Cooke. The theme of the shoot was “Christmas desserts” and I fully expected to see a lot of red, green, tinsel, evergreen and all of the other clichés. Not so in the world of Paul Lowe: it was a beautiful rustic-natural shoot with white the only inkling of a winter-holiday connection. He integrated flowers and knits into the shoot and everything had an “effortlessly casual” style that is so difficult to create.

"Black fig shoot." Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

I was amazed to see Paul in action: there were eight or nine different shots captured. Paul had developed all of the recipes for the shoot himself (which he did on little notice, and only a few days before the shoot) and was not only in charge of the food styling but also the prop styling. He created the sets and styled the food quickly and effortlessly. While I sat there mesmerized for two hours, I saw three complete shoots from start to finish. There was no over-manipulating the props or undue set adjusting. Colin shot tripodless, un-tethered and with natural light and breezed in and out of the set capturing a number of different angles for each shot swiftly and confidently – a perfect match for Paul’s own approach. Paul swooped in, did his magic, and swooped out. Everything created was entirely edible, and in fact, when done, Paul and Colin sat down to a healthy helping of fondant spice cake and orange vanilla cake.

Styling comes completely naturally to Paul: so much so that it’s difficult for him to articulate how he does what he does other than to say that he just tries “to create beautiful things” but I did get to talk to him about his inspirations, approach, and general advice to budding stylists (and ahem, certain avid food photographers who fancy themselves as “do-it-alls”):

"Christmas dessert shoot for Interior Magasinet" Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

What is your approach to developing the look of a shoot?
I often use neutral colors as they are timeless. I want the food to pop. The overall image needs to be pretty. That’s hard to describe but I want people to want to tear my image out of a magazine and tape it to the wall because it’s pretty and inspirational. I hate mediocrity.

Are there any tips or tricks you regularly employ?
I don’t do anything “fake” except use Cool Whip instead of whipped cream. It’s important to not cook certain things through, like pasta. It’s also important not to overly fuss over the food. I like to keep it simple and keep it real.

What has changed over the years that you’ve been in the business?
On aesthetics, everything is moving toward a “natural” look and a “green” direction: natural, organic, fresh, high-quality. Food is no longer plastic looking. The day of the painted, plump, shellacked, monster Thanksgiving turkey is over. Even commercial shoots are beginning to take on a much more natural, “editorial” feel. On the business side, one key change is that more and more companies and magazines are hiring and using photographers in-house. That has changed the landscape for freelancers and the economics of the business. On the technology side, the digital age has changed the business tremendously. Not only is it easier because you can immediately see the images you are producing, but it also makes fixing issues much more possible.

Where do you find inspiration?
Many different ways. While eating a meal at a restaurant. At the grocery store looking at ingredients. At the flower market. On Ebay. Another way is reading blogs. You can get such quick information from so many different sources with unique perspectives. I also find inspiration in the Sunday New York Times. I keep an idea file with photographs, illustrations and other things that generate ideas. The hard thing is to come up with an idea, the easy thing is to execute on the idea.

What blogs inspire you?
The Bedlam of Beefy
Notcot
Decor8
Hoping for Happy Accidents
Design*Sponge
Cannelle et Vanille
Souvlaki for the Soul

What magazines do you find inspirational in the food world?
Donna Hay, Côté Sud, Vogue Entertaining (Australian), Delicious (Australian)

"Christmas dessert shoot for Interior Magasinet" Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

What are your favorite types of shoots?
Editorial shoots where there is a lot of leeway to envision the image and make it my own. Commercial shoots are much different since a room full of people often drives them and it might take all day to produce one shot that everyone can agree on. I do my own prop styling in addition to food styling, which is somewhat unusual in the business. I prefer when I am hired to do both. My work is 70% editorial and 30% commercial.

What is some tactical advice you would give to budding stylists?
Test, test. Experiment. Fail. Work with photographers to practice. Begin to develop a sense for what works and what types of foods are photogenic. Try to develop a unique style. Work whenever you can. Meet people and gain exposure and experience. Be alert. Look out for ideas and props.

Any “watch-outs?”
1. If you don’t feel comfortable, you shouldn’t take the job. I have gotten into trouble with that in the past. Once I had to do a pizza shoot and it was way over my head at the time. It was a commercial shoot and required an enormous amount of control over the food.
2. Don’t take too long styling. Just go with your gut. Don’t second guess. You have to move on and you have to teach yourself to work quickly.

"Christmas dessert shoot for Interior Magasinet" Styling by Paul Lowe. Photography by Colin Cooke

DMBLGIT winners announced!

It has been great fun hosting last month's DMBLGIT contest. There were 107 photos submitted. Thank you all for your participation! It was great getting to know more of you through your photos and blogs.

I had fun coordinating efforts with our five judges:

• Melina Hammer, professional food stylist, photographer, and metalsmith.
• Thorsten Kraska, food photographer and co-founder of the Food Photography Club (one of the best food photography critique groups on flickr)
• Martha Larson, Seattle-based professional child portrait and maternity photographer.
• Lou Manna, award winning Olympus Visionary photographer (and author of Digital Food Photography) whose work has appeared in national ad campaigns, major magazines, and more than thirty cookbooks.
• Dayna McIsaac (December 2007's DMBLGIT host), fellow food blogger with not one, but two blogs: Food + Photography and Vegan Visitor.
  

Thank you all very much for all of your time and effort!

Now, without further ado, I announce the winners:

In third place, we have a tie:

Peter from Souvlaki for the soul with Sponge cake with passion fruit curd and whipped cream. . .

. . .and Arfi from HomeMadeS with All about peas

2nd place: Piggy from Piggy’s cooking journal with Buttermilk chocolate chip crumb cake

And in first place: Helen from Tartelette with Salade de fruits

In the individual categories:

Aesthetics: Cenk from Café Fernando with Homemade granola

Edibility: Rachel from RKhooks with Blueberry pancakes R khooks stylee

Originality: Bea from La tartine gourmande with Bicolor soup: green pea and potato

As you know, as host, I have the ability to award a few of my own. I'm giving out two host awards:

One to Andrew from Spittoon extra with Apricot and Fig frangipane tart

and last, but not least, one to: Meeta from What's for lunch, honey? with Tropical fruit salad

Congratulations everyone!!!!

This month's host is Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy. Have fun Sara!

Send me your photos: DMBLGIT, March 2008

This month, I am the very excited host of the monthly food blog photography contest, Does My Blog Look Good in This (fondly known as “DMBLGIT”). I have a particular passion for food photography and am so excited to be the event's host this month. I only recently started participating in food blogging events and have found it to be a terrific way of getting exposed to new bloggers and blogs, and having fun in the blogging community. I'm looking forward to your submissions, and to discovering some new fellow bloggers!

Here's how it works:

Each food blogger can submit one photograph that was posted to their blog during the contest month (February). Photographs are reviewed by a panel of judges, who score them in three categories: edibility, aesthetics, and originality. The host then compiles the scores to determine the winners. The specific things the judges will be looking for are as follows:

• Aesthetics: composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.
• Edibility: “does the photo make us want to dive in and eat the food?”
• Originality: the photograph that catches our attention and makes us want to say “wow!”, displaying something we might not have seen before.
• Overall Winner: top overall scores in all three categories combined
  

There are three overall winners for photographs with the highest point totals in all three categories combined, and one winner in each of the three individual categories.

This month, we have a very exciting panel of judges, most from non-food blogging backgrounds:

• Melina Hammer is a professional food stylist, photographer, and metalsmith.
• Thorsten Kraska is a food photographer and co-founder of the Food Photography Club, one of the best food photography critique groups on flickr.
• Martha Larson is a Seattle-based professional child portrait and maternity photographer. She has a daily “everyday life” photo collaboration with another photographer that can be seen here.
• I am so excited to include Lou Manna as an esteemed judge. Lou is an award winning Olympus Visionary photographer whose work has appeared in national ad campaigns, major magazines, and more than thirty cookbooks. He is also the author of one of the few digital food photography “how to” books, Digital Food Photography.
• Dayna McIsaac (December 2007's DMBLGIT host) is a fellow food blogger with not one, but two blogs: Food + Photography and Vegan Visitor.
  

A very warm thank you to these special guest judges!

How to enter your photograph:

• Only one entry per person (a single photograph, no diptychs)
• The photograph must have been taken by you.
• The photograph must have appeared on your blog during the month of February.
• Entries must be received by March 25, 2008 6:00 pm.

Send your entry to skrockodile at gmail dot com, with the DMBLGIT as the subject. Please include the following:

• your name
• your blog’s name and URL
• your photograph’s title
• the URL of the post containing the photograph
• type of camera used
• Please send photos of no more than 350 pixels in width

I will be posting submissions to this gallery. If you don't see yours posted within three days of submission, please email me to let me know.

Good luck everyone! Bring the photos on!

Thank you Andrew from Spittoon Extra (founder of the event), for passing the baton to me this month.

P.S. The results of last month's event can be seen on Bake or Break. Guess who placed first, getting her first ever DMBLGIT award? I did! For Grown Up Graham Crackers. Yipee! I'm still in shock. Thanks for hosting last month Jennifer, and thank you very generous judges!

Behind the scenes of a food photography shoot with Judd Pilossof

above photo: Judd Pilossof

I had the great fortune to sit in on a food photography shoot of one of my favorite photographers, Judd Pilossof. How did I fall into such a windfall? Judd is teaches a one-week still life photography class at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine that I have signed up for this summer. It is so rare to find a class taught by someone whose work and aesthetic one admires. I couldn’t believe my luck stumbling upon his listing (well, I didn’t exactly stumble, I’ve been looking and looking for just the right class for a long time)! I emailed Judd to ask some questions about the class, and in the course of our emails asked if he wouldn’t mind if I watched one of his shoots. Coincidentally, Judd’s studio is about 10 blocks from my apartment. About a week later, he emailed to say he had a three-day shoot scheduled for a food product company’s publication, and I was welcome to come and observe one of the days.

above photos: Judd Pilossof

It was a terrific experience to be a fly on the wall during a shoot. There were about 15 people bustling around his studio: five clients helping to guide and approve the shots, ~5 people on the photography team working on lighting, backdrops, shooting and manning the tethered computers, ~2 food stylists preparing and prepping the food, and ~2 stylists dealing with props. Each shot was perfectly planned out. The ultimate publication was storyboarded and posted on a wall in the studio. The areas for copy both within and around an image were mapped out and each individual shot was sketched in its appropriate place. The photography and styling team had a list of products, food items and props for each shot. Some of the props came from the client, some from prop rental companies. As sets were broken down, the styling team swooped in with the next batch of props and set up the next shot. There were three simultaneous camera/sets at any one time and an unimaginable 15 shots were scheduled for each day.

__________
Scenes from the Shoot

1) Storyboard for the lobster shot
2) The mighty Hasselblad
3) The very beginning of the lobster shot
4) A blue sky backdrop is tried
5) The backdrop is switched to a plain white cloth (later covered with a solid blue cloth, and back-lit). The food “stand-ins” arrive.
6) Scene from behind the camera

7) The real stars arrive and are prepped: lobster, grilled corn, potato salad and lobster bisque
8) The final shot on the computer

__________

Some of the shots were product silhouettes and were accomplished reasonably quickly. Others were environmental shots with more elaborate sets and tricky lighting schemes and were worked on for several hours. During this time, food “stand ins” were put on set until the actual food was dropped in closer to the final shots. The entire operation was amazingly efficient. Everyone knew his/her role and buzzed around executing the shots like a perfectly choreographed silent ballet. The food arrived perfectly prepared for the shot and the team tweaked and garnished it on set. Lighting was adjusted, backdrops were experimented with and props were shifted but it all happened very quietly and decisively. The kitchen was a mad scene of cooking but was very serious and calm – so serious, in fact, it was clear an interloper would not be welcome, so I only occasionally dropped in to check out the proceedings. Everything that came out of the kitchen looked beautiful, and it fascinated me to watch the lighting and set changes that ultimately created incredible, production-ready images (never heard a single “we’ll fix that in post-production”: everything was perfected in camera). I wish I could share more of the images from the day.

above photos: Judd Pilossof

All of this only made me more excited for the summer class. Judd was extremely generous, taking time to talk and explain things throughout the day. There was tons of equipment on set that I have no idea how to use, and would love to know more about. There were also many techniques that I know about but don’t currently do: namely studio lighting (a major one), strategic use of black cards to absorb light and more scientific use of white cards to bounce light. I picked up all sorts of neat little tricks that I can’t wait to experiment with. Judd has an incredible talent for making even studio-lit shots look natural and soft. His shots look so luscious, rich and tactile – if I can just pick up a little fairy dust this summer, I will be delighted.

For more information on the Maine Media Workshops and Judd’s class, see here. To see Judd’s portfolio, see here.

above photo: Judd Pilossof