7-time James Beard Award Winner, COOKBOOK WRITER, COOKING TEACHER, FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER
The Europeans envy us our abundance of crayfish. Most of our crayfish, at least live crayfish, come from the Southeastern United States although some come from the Pacific Northwest. The Australians also have a creature they call a crayfish but it’s of a whole different…
Even though a food stylist’s role is to make the food look good for the camera, in a real life shoot setting, the food stylist, prop stylist and photographer are all interacting to make the photograph work. Because of this, it is helpful to notice…
Most of us cook lobster in a straightforward way, usually by plunging it in boiling water for a few minutes and then serving it with drawn butter. Occasionally we split the tails in two and broil them. Both of these techniques makes sense when expediency…
A meurette sauce is a simple red wine sauce made with mirepoix (a mixture of diced carrots, celery, and onions, with onions prevailing), prosciutto and herbs. One of its great advantages is that it can be made without broth or stock. There are a couple…
The word strobe is just another way of saying “flash” but seems to be the term preferred by professional photographers. In any case, when dealing with strobe we’re manipulating very short bursts of light. The light is very intense and can expose film or a…
Unlike meats, which are braised for long periods to break down connective tissue and muscle, fish is braised only long enough to cook it through. (Octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are an exception.) Braising, of course, is cooking in a small amount of liquid, the idea…
Hot Lights Just a jazzy term for what are basically the same lights we use (or used to use) at home. Because hot lights have tungsten filaments, they are commonly referred to as tungsten lights or just “tungsten”. The advantage to hot lights is that…
Even though it’s a fairly simple concept, the notion of contrast is sometimes hard for people to grasp. Photographers are always talking about contrast or about an image being “contrasty.” What does this mean? Contrast is the difference in the amount of light coming off…
When arriving in France after a long absence, three imperatives assert themselves: the need for oysters, a farm-made Camembert and sole meunière. Oysters are usually had on the first day and Camembert by that evening, but sole meunière awaits the first meal in a real…
No dish, except for perhaps cassoulet, French onion soup, or salade niçoise, invites so much polemic as bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse aficionados range from the ultra-conservative (bouillabaisse can only be made feet from the Mediterranean using only seven varieties of fish) to relatively liberal (bouillabaisse can be…