That Precious Garlic : A Recipe for Garlic Confit & Our Garlic in France, Italy and ...New Mexico !

Yes had several requests for this garlic confit recipe of Stef and Cora's that I've too have been making .Stef and Cora are photographers with an incredible eye for the detail and beauty of food and also big garlic lovers. They aren't the only ones around me with a appetite for fresh garlic. There is Rina, for whom as a Sardinian, garlic is a necessity. And Jean Pierre who eats six cloves at every lunch.  I would say we all are pretty deep into the stuff. Addicts. And that translates into tasting an enormous amount of the stuff all over the world.

We all became rather alarmed after many episodes with what we consider foul tasting and smelling garlic purchased in the summer markets of France in recent years. More and more was tossed into the garbage. What had happened to this precious precious ingredient we all wondered ?

Because even the organic stuff was bad! Slice into a piece and it smelt woody and off. One tiny piece would ruin an entire dish ! So that meant smelling literally each clove before using them! I can't tell you how many heads of garlic I threw out but it was getting expensive.

Passing some of the year in New Mexico as I do, I chatted up two folks at the Santa Fe Farmers Market selling a astonishing array of the stuff. Avrum and Kirsten Katz of Boxcar Farms, Llano, New Mexico who offer easily over thirty varieties. Kirsten had lived in France, spoke french and so we quickly identified each other as members of the same tribe. Avrum is a poet and second generation garlic farmer. Both are passionate garlic hunters.  Wild garlic hunt they do in the wetter areas of New Mexico each spring!

The other personage at the Santa Fe Farmers Market was the writer Stanley Crawford, author of the book A Garlic Testament : Seasons on a Small New Mexican Farm . 


Wonderful wonderful book. I highly recommend getting it for your library. I asked Mr Crawford what he thought might be happening with all of this bad garlic in France ?

For one, a lot of our garlic here in France has been coming from...are you sitting down? Argentina. Or China. Alot of the stuff you see down in the Provençal markets, garlic braids, transformed into pickled garlic or garlic confit etc is coming from China. Sorry to tell you that folks!

Stanley said perhaps it was simply moisture and the way it was stored. The garlic wasn't "drying out" as it should. But wouldn't that mean mold? Something that would be visible, I asked ? Not necessarily he said.

So maybe all of that time in the hold of a ship on the trip between China or South America and France was the culprit ? While the storage and travel seemed to be part of the problem we weren't convinced that was the whole story.

My garlic guy at the market here in Paris spoke of nematode worms affecting all french alums : garlic onions etc. He said it wasn't an "easy" plant. Hummmm. Gee I've seen wild garlic growing all over Italy and it looks  pretty easy to grow to me! And there again if there was a worm problem.you would think you could see some evidence of rot or insect visit. Still not satisfied.

Back to Boxcar Farm, Llano, New Mexico. Kirsten said there was a french garlic that she would very much like to try out growing at their farm in Dixon : The famous L'Ail Rose de Lautrec . This is a protected plant species in France. Gets a special label rouge like a Bordeaux wine or St Marcellin cheese. Has a beautiful pink blush color and is delicious! I said I'd look into it and send some the next year.

Came home to France, found an online supplier and wrote saying I needed some for a friend in the States that wanted to try growing this in her garden. Got 5 kilos of the stuff and sent it off to Kirsten. Avrum planted 40 cloves and not one plant came up. Mystery!

Then the A ha! moment. We figured out that the french farmer had probably irradiated his braids before sending them to me. Killing any growing part of the plant. Was this the culprit?

Kirsten wrote asking him if indeed he had irradiated this garlic before sending it to her. No reply. I wrote. No reply. Nice!!!! French!

I went back to another Ail de Lautrec supplier who said Yes, irradiation was not supposed to have any effect other than killing the germ of the plant. It helped the garlic "keep longer"  Irradiation was supposed to be "harmless" and indeed this doesn't even have to be mentioned on the label: "This product has been irradiated"  His wasn't irradiated he said but alot was! L'horreur! So perhaps this was the reason?

It seems to me that it must have some effect. I can very well imagine that all the overseas garlic gets zapped before it hits European markets can't you?

Another piece of the puzzle came from Italy, the home of one of the finest
Italian Garlic's : Aglio di Vessalico .

Italians take their garlic very seriously as you might imagine. Aglio di Vessalico has the protection of the Slow Food Presidio and that should give you some idea of just how important this plant is to the Italian foodchain.

We sent our representatives down for their annual garlic festival in  Liguria on the 2nd of July and they came back with the goods in the form of several long braids of the stuff.


As well as council from a Mr Franco Cha of Aquila d'Arroscia. He said that our beautiful garlic braid was in fact, still growing. In winter hibernation but still growing . It needed to be kept in the light. Not in a dark place. And to use the garlic from top to bottom so that the bottom most heads remained attached to their long dry stalks.Like this, if treated properly this garlic would make it through the winter til about March when next years garlic shoots would be popping up! What he said makes sense doesn't it ?

Our garlic braids are living things. There is a reason for buying garlic in a braid and it is not just for kitchen decoration folks.

All very well and good Franco if you have braids and braids of it. I had just the one this year. So I decided we would go the garlic confit way. I'd done 10 or so jars this summer, some for Mom who has become quite addicted and the rest to send out with David to our New Mexico family, The Wong Wagners. Tiger's friend Vincent calls it "pissing garlic" because of all of the juicy olive oil that spits out of it as you eat it, skin and all.


Because in our disgust at the French Garlic situation , I'd bought home to France a whole load of BoxCar Garlic. Kilos and kilos of it. Sharing all with my fellow garlic lovers. We had planted some. And eaten alot. Stef found a recipe for garlic confit from chef Alain Ducasse.

Here it is more or less as Alain does it with a few additions of my own:

Preheat your oven to 100 C ( 215 F)

Separate all of your garlic heads into individual cloves. Do not take the skin.off each clove.

Crowd these into a heavy cast iron casserole/dutch oven,

You will need at least a wine bottles worth ( 75cc) of decent olive oil. Nothing fancy. But not junk either. It will be heated so alot of the precious aromatics of an extra virgin olive oil will be lost.

Two sprigs of fresh Rosemary, A nice generous bunch of thyme ( I like lemon thyme), a coffee spoonful of good black peppercorns and a large spoonful of sea salt.  

Pop this in the oven, uncovered for one hour. Test a piece after an hour and see how it feels, tastes. It should be somewhat gooey and kind of caramelized. And delicious. You will be tempted to eat the lot.    

During oven time, start preparing your jars:

When your garlic has about 20 minutes to go,  boil your jars for fifteen minutes in a bubbling hot water bath. Pull the jars out with long tongs and place them mouth side down onto a clean kitchen towel so that they can dry and drain at the same time. This should only take about a minute or two.

Pot up your hot garlic in the still warm jar. Not too tightly but pretty tightly! Pour over some of the remaining hot oil til about a half an inch of the top of the jar carefully covering every clove of garlic confit. I put one piece of  lemon peel ( none of the white)  in mine at this point for a little extra umph!

Pop the covers on your jars, leaving just a little bit of play left for the seal of the lid to go down as they cool..When they have cooled completely. Give them a last twist to close and pop them in the root cellar til needed! No root cellar? A cool dry dark place then.

You will also have a good cupful of garlic oil elixer. I pot this up too and use it on vegetables etc. And yes, I've been known to put a piece of toast down in there to get every last little drop!

As you can see, one braid of garlic doesn't make a whole lot! I had about 8 heads and it made about 1 1/2 cups worth of garlic confit! Not a huge amount! I made one big jar but suggest many little jars. Finishing them off one at a time throughout the winter! Giving away a few to real garlic aficionados. It's practically candy for people that like salty food!

Hopefully your jars of garlic confit will last until June when you start all over again! I guarantee you will will be putting up double the quantity next year, so good is this.

So all you need now is a supplier of good garlic. Big Smile. I'll leave you all to organize your next batch !

Lissa, on a cooler day in Paris, end of November 2014

  

Kitchen Gadgets We Love ! The Foley Fork

Ah the Foley Fork ! Numerous impersonators, none get the details right ! 

First a bit of family history. My grandma Hazel Sheets, sweetest lady, was a wonderful cook. She and Grandpa Edwin Sheets had a large farm on the outskirts of Topeka Kansas. Grandpa was a stockman. He bought and sold dairy cattle through the midwest from Canada right down to Argentina. He knew livestock ! 

Grandma Hazel kept things going house, garden and 4 kids-side in their family. She was a fantastic cook. Always interested in trying new foods even when well into her nineties. She was a champion pie maker, pickle maker and any kind of jam maker. Food was as fresh as you get living on a farm. Potatoes, peas, tomatoes, melons,  guinea hens, fresh milk for butter and cream were literally right out the back door.

With her passing at 106, I inherited her two pie pans and many fine recipes. My mom got her Foley Fork.  Oh envious me! How I looked for one myself in antique stores and garage stores ! Finally eBay filled my Foley Fork desire ! I'm now the happy owner of three. One, with a broken tine lives at the studio where I work. The other two live at home where they are loving used in any weekend baking project.

For making that mealy aspect of pie crust making or folding one thing into another, there simply is no better tool. 

The story of the Foley Fork is a simple one. In 1926 , Mr. Walter M Ringer Sr. bought  a manufacturing company in Minneapolis making bandsaws. Walter's motto of  "Keeping Everlastingly At It Brings Success " pretty much describes the can- do attitude of the day.
They made various metal kitchen tools, a popular food mill, even mess kits during the war years. In the sixties they moved manufacturing of their kitchen tools overseas. These days Foley United is out of the kitchen tool business and concentrates on golf turf cutting machines. 

Lots of copies, but none that get those two all important details of the gentle curve ot the metal stem nor the 6 twisted tines ! 

Very hard to photograph but I think you can see how the six tines are each twisted towards the right at about a 35 degree angle.

The tines don't lie exactly flat yet they don't have an extreme curve upwards like some of the copies.  The metal stem has a slight curve which allows it to sit perfectly in the bottom of a mixing bowl.

The good news is that eBay Vintage is not your only option for purchasing one of these classics !  

You'll find a replica Foley Fork on sale at the Minnesota Historical Society Online Gift Shop !
 Haven"t held one in my hand but I'm hoping they know their business !     

I've also added a link here to the current ebay selection of Foley Forks. 

A welcome addition to any baker's kit !

November 27 - December 1, 2014 Paris Salon des Vins des Vignerons Independants

Oooooo! Get your calendar out ! It's the bi-annual Independent Wineries Fair in Paris at the gigantic Porte de Versailles Exposition Hall ! Whole lot of fun...though not for kids, I'm afraid. No this is definitely big people fun.

Over 1000 small vineyards from the 12 principal wine growing regions of France. Yes, there are cognacs, champagnes, calvados and eau de vie too. I'd recommend giving two days to this. Wines on day one and if you still have the courage, the other alcohols on day two. Pretty much every grape and cepage is present. Even organic wines or at least "culture raisonée". Not much in the way of the big burgundy's but pretty much everything else is represented.

In order to sell your wine here you must be a grower, harvest your own grapes, make and bottle on site. Store in your own cave and be your own salesman. There are no "negotiants" here, no cooperatives nor any of the big wine conglomerates. No, these are the little winemakers of France. Les vignerons indépendants !   

The tickets are very easy to come by. Everyone at the entrance usually has come with several extra tix as more that one vineyard will have sent them multiple tickets. Anyone with an extra ticket is always willing to share. You shouldn't need to "buy" one but you can. I think they run 5 - 6 euros. As you come into the fair your ticket is taken, you are given both a guide to all the participants and  a clean wine glass. It's yours to take home! But hang onto it! Everybody else has one too and as the day wears on...oh you can imagine.

If you are just learning about french wines, this is a very good introduction to some of the more unusual varieties that you don't often see outside of France. Nothing fancy. These are very small producers. Often a winemaking family that goes back generations. There are also the odd British couple that have bought a vineyard in the popular southwestern part of France and have leap into winemaking with a fervour!

Even if you don't speak french that shouldn't be a problem. Everyone here speaks "wine" ! Even a first time participant soon learns the etiquette. Just watch how your neighbor does it !

This is a pretty much all day affair where you go from booth to booth, tasting whatever the winemaker and their family is pouring. That can be upwards of 5 different wines. Whites, roses reds. First the lighter white or rosé is offered then you move progressively into the heavier reds.

You aren't supposed to be drinking all of this obviously, so spitoons are on offer at each spot. Swirl the wine in the glass a bit, take a sip, let it sit in your mouth for a second or two, appreciating the subtle differences of flavor between each candidate then spit it out ! Offer your feedback and put your glass down on the shelf for the next taste.

The people manning each booth are both knowledgeable and hospitable. They are rightly proud of their wines, can tell you everything about the weather, their soil, this year as compared to last year, how long they think this particular wine or that should wait in your cave or not as the case maybe. All the while pouring you taste after taste after taste.

Lunchtime is a jolly moment. Everyone piles up to the sandwich making booths for Foie Gras on a Baguette (my favorite) or Camembert or Saucisson...no sitting down I'm afraid. It's a test of one's stamina.

I've made real friends here. Made real discoveries that I keep going back to time and time again. Cote du Rhone Wines like St Joseph, Cairanne and Vacqueyras. Chateauneuf du Pape and Minervois. Wonderful discoveries of the wines of the Loire Valley. The prices will just floor you. It's really quite inexpensive compared to buying it from a store or from a wine merchant.

Yes, there are cognacs, champagnes, calvados and eau de vie too. I'd recommend giving two days to the Salon. Wine one day and all the other alcohols on day two. Pretty much every possible grape and cepage is present. Not much in the way of big Burgundy's but pretty much everything else has a representative in the over 1000 vineyards participating.

You may purchase wine here : the price is given usually by the case. Some will sell you 3- 6 bottles at the tail end of the fair. All of the participants have a limited amount that they can bring ( think it is one palats worth)  So they may not have wine to sell you right then and there. In which case, you may pre-order wine which is delivered to your Parisian address in the days following the fair.

Not to worry, the fair organizers make it all very easy. They loan you a cart (chariot) for free. Or can sell you one (guaranteed for three years) inexpensively. They have a place for storing your treasure (for a small sum) so that you can continue to stock up on goodies and consolidate your purchases for delivery or pick-up afterwards. To a local address or even organize worldwide delivery service. Last but not least, there are three daily classes in wine tasting offered for free. They really have thought about pretty much everything !  

If you are uncomfortable in a crowd or are in a hurry, this won't be for you. It's somewhat like a raucous party of old friends and their new friends! The idea isn't to drink 'til you drop, but meet the winemakers, collect addresses for future visits and discover a new cépage or grower making something that entices your palate !  

Where ? 
Porte de Versailles Pavilion 7/1 (follow the crowd) Easy access by trams 2a and 3b as well as metro: Ligne 12 station "Porte de Versaille"

When ? 
Thursday 27th November, Friday the 28th November, Saturday 29th and Sunday the 30th
Open from 10am til 20pm

Monday 1 December is closing day and the fair is open from 10am and closes at 6pm.  

An Eye for the Edible : Parisian Parsley

We were walking in the hot November sun* last week, up in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, when Rina stopped dead in her tracks, bent down and grabbed a leaf or two of something pushing up through a crack in the pavement. "Parsley !" she cried .

 It wasn't the first time I'd been out walking with her family and someone with a keen eye for the edible started gathering this or that...Escargots (snails) under a rock, wild chickpeas, wild greens, quince. Her mother has keen eyesight and can see quince fruit floating high up in a tree, a mile off in the distance. Out came the bucket(s) or some convenient container and when we left the area there was not one snail, fico d'india (prickly pear) or edible leaf left. But that was in the Sardinian countryside. In Paris ?

If you keep your eyes and mind open you'll find city forests, meadows and streets hiding plenty of edible plants, fruit and flowers.

I love the idea that anyone can walk 'round this beautiful city and find mulberries, ginko nuts, rocket, capucines (nasturtiums) , mint, plum and cherry buds, pine needles, purple sage, hazelnuts, wild fennel, wild asparagus, nettles, mushrooms (cepes, langue de boeuf, les meuniers, coulemelles, pied bleus) even parsley ! All within the city limits !

*sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? "Paris weather Nov 1, 2014 :  high 22° C - 71.6° F"
  

Eating Out In Paris and Environs : Mac/Val Musee de l'Art Contemporaine et A la Folie !

Pure hazard offered a visit to Mac /Vaĺ, a museum of Modern Art, out in Vitry sur Seine and it's restaurant/salon de the : A la Folie .

Mac/Val, the museum, is a special place, a collection of modern art dating from the 1950's. It's strong point the vibrant collection of contemporary French artists.

Recent shows include that of the wonderful performance artist Ester Ferrer.

It seems a bit odd, a museum of this size, so close to Paris and its huge national museums. But the building and collections  are  impressive. Perhaps one day, Paris limits will have spread to include even Vitry-Sur-Seine !

The Mac/Val restaurant has gone through several name changes: Transversal, Le Chantier. Several chefs including the darling of Parisian foodies : Iñaki Aizpitarte.  Laurent Chareau and Gilles Stassart were also involved in Mac/Val 's café since opening in 2006.

Today it's a new story, a new name and a new chef : Hervé Riebbels.

At A la Folie, there's a good vibe, sitting in the garden on this lovely early fall day. It was opening day and the restaurant is humming along nicely, with museum staff trying out their new cantine for the first time. Everything is 100 %  Bio or "culture raisonée". Basically simple, seasonal recipes made with care in a peaceful contemporary setting.

L' Entree : salade des lentilles, poached egg and a bit of jambon poêle. Good crispy rolls. All baking done in house.

Le Plat : a filet mignon of  porc, bit of pomme du terre dauphinoise and mandolin sliced carrots, oh so sweet! Bit of chopped herbs like dill and parsley and a reduced jus puddled under everything.

 My favorite thing ?  A little colored ball of a pickled onion colored with tumeric. I'll be making those for sure ! Unexpected color and crunch always get my attention!

The quality of the meat and vegetables is top notch. Everything has depth of flavor, lovely color. It's beautifully cooked. The chef is attentive to detail without being contrived, nor making a chichi presentation.
Didn't go over the top with dessert  but there is decent coffee ( always a good sign) with its little square of a good chocolate and as they say la tour est jouée !   

It will be interesting to see how Hervé progresses in these surroundings. We are in a Museum of Modern Art and I'm hopeful that will inspire him to even greater heights ! He is starting from solid cuisine and I wonder what the "Folie" part will be ?

It's early days yet but we'll see how they manage to entice not only museum goers but also the surrounding inhabitants of Vitry Sur Seine. The afternoon salon de the and the sweeter offerings should help with that ! I'm also looking forward to those one off events that the MacVal continues to offer relating Art/Food.

A very lovely lunch at A la Folie. Even better because it was totally unexpected !

Hours :

Du mardi au vendredi, de 10h à 16h.  From Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm 
Samedis et dimanches, de 12h à 18h.  Saturdays and Sundays 12am to 6pm

Règlement par CB (Visa)  chèques déjeuner accepté . Payment: Carte Bleue / Visa 

Réservations : 
01 45 73 26 68 
herve.riebbels@free.fr

*as in : Je t'aime A la Folie! or I love you like a crazed person!

*Ugh. That lentil on the knife. Oh well! Next time. 

Grandma Streeter's Family Silver

My Grandma, Pauline Roberts Streeter, grew up in a very, very small town in Kansas. She met my Grandpa, Paul Streeter, a tenor sax player for local dance bands,  when she was 16. He got a job with the local newspaper. They married and had my Pop, Tal when she was just 18. She had no further schooling past high school.

They moved to Manhattan, a college town to live with Great Grandma Streeter in a large white Victorian style house where she took in lodgers. Nothing in this story so far would indicate that my Grandma Pauline was anything other than a small town person with conservative taste and interests.

She was anything but ! She was an assiduous library goer, a family historian and genealogist corresponding with people all over the world. She joined a group of volunteers making gifts for a place called "The Art Box". She made Christmas ornaments and Gothic style papermaché angels that sold out as soon as they were put on sale. She was a doer.

Another aspect of Grandma Pauline that was to be very important to both my father and our family, was her appreciation for all things modern. Modern architecture, modern tableware and modern furniture. Paul and Pauline, lived in a modern house that they built themselves. Pocket doors, Charlie Parker on the stereo, alongside the big bands of the time. They loved music of all sorts.  

She was ( sorry Granny!) a terrible cook! But that didn't matter. There was always Manhattan's famous Vista Burger, owned by a Streeter cousin.

Recently I was thinking about what kind of cutlery I wanted to use in my home here in France with Mom's ceramics. I'd looked around the stores, Ikea, Habitat. All my usual haunts. Then I went on ebay and found a pattern by Dansk that just seemed perfect ! 40 pieces and it was very inexpensive. Paid up w PayPal. Low and behold if this stuff wasn't coming from...Manhattan, Kansas ! When I showed it to my Mom she said "Well of course! Grandma Streeter's pattern!  

So I'm thinking there are "comfort foods" and "comfort objects". We inherit all kinds of things from our families. Recipes, favorite music, china, silverware, a photograph. Me ? I got Grandma's "silver".    

My comfort objects for the table :

  

       

Cook,Chef,FoodStylist:What's the difference ?

I'm not going to add any illustration to this post because I'd like to write more about the process of photographing food. What goes through my mind when preparing a shoot. And noting the differences between my process as a food stylist and that of a home cook or chef. 

Chef:

Precision. Knife Skills ! Boy are they fast! Food is plated in the kitchen by the chef. Hot! 

Hopefully seasonal ingredients. There is less and less of flying in your ingredients halfway 'round the world. Meat and fish should be sourced locally. Sometimes they aren't. Exotic fruits and vegetables too. Mangos, pineapples, sweet potatoes, may be flown in from the caribbean.  Mint from Morocco !

White porcelain plates, usually huge shiny things with the food floating somewhere in the middle. Precious and just so. Squeeze bottle decorative drips, splashes and dollops.

Some sort of herb or spice of contrasting color adding visual texture, plopped on the top or 'round the outer rim of the plate. The diner often removes this stuff and doesn't even eat that poor chervil garnish ! 

Home Cook : 

Less precise. More olé olé ! Food comes to the table in platters, large serving bowls, for communal eating. Hot!  

A cooks repertoire can include family recipes or one they have seen in a magazine or television show. This is quite rare. I think the numbers are something like one recipe per month per magazine purchased. If that. Some cooks don't need to follow a recipe, nor do they weigh out ingredients. 

Baking is an exception to the thought that home cooks are less precise than a chef. Home bakers are precise because they have to be! A cake is not a forgiving animal.  

The menu and choice of ingredients will hopefully be built around what the home cook has found in season at their market.

Plate, bowl  and tableware ? Whatever is in the house ! Even if it isn't the family china, dishes are usually matching tableware. People seem to like that. Everyone has to have the same type of plate, glass and bowl !

Large serving platters have pretty much disappeared. Our families are smaller. Lessing washing up afterwards. For large gatherings, family sized service will be brought out.

In the home cook's world leftovers are carefully saved, sent home with a guest, used in some later meal. Nothing wasted.

In home cooking : abundance, generosity, plates full of food are the norm. Nothing precious about the presentation. No fiddly bits.

Food Stylist:
A food stylist's food doesn't need quite the precision of a chef's. It is a bit looser, less cerebral. But not quite like you will find on a table at home either. A bit more care goes into the preparation as well as the presentation.

It's the food stylists job to be prepared for almost anything that might happen during the course of the shoot. What if I have to remake the entire dish ? Do we have enough additional material on hand ? You can't drop everything, go to the store down the block for 200 grams of meat ! Not with five people standing there looking at an empty set and their watches in dismay!

Ingredients like vegetables, herbs and salad greens, fruit, meat and fish are carefully selected for their visual quality, color and size (small) . They are treated with special care the entire journey from place of purchase to studio. At the studio, the choice is again winnowed down.

Greens and herbs with the slightest discoloration or bruising or holes are separated out. The chosen are carefully wrapped in a moist kitchen towel which is then put in a large ziplock bag that stays in the fridge until it is needed. 

Vegetable color is treated with care and attention. Sometimes we parboil veg like zucchini finishing with a dunk in an ice water bath to "pop" the color. Khaki colored over-cooked zucchini is considered dead on arrival and set back to the kitchen.

Ingredients out of season. I'm often asked to source something that is out of season. Peaches, cherries and watermelon in January. Black truffles in July. We work anywhere from four to six months in advance of our book or the advertisement appearing. If that sounds sad. It is ! But again, all part of the job. 

So I've got a whole network of suppliers for things like out-of-season fruit!  It means we have a substantially larger budget too. I'll have to order a whole flat of those peaches in January. Have them flown in from New Zealand. Luckily I live about 20 minutes from the largest food market in the world, a veritable city of food! Rungis ! I don't think there is much that you can't find there, all year 'round. 

Oh maybe mirabelle prunes. And sweet corn. Yum. Or Belon oysters. Can't fake or replace those with anything else ! 

For a food stylist, unlike a chef, you aren't tasting that peach with anything other than your eyes, I'm afraid. And yes! It was mealy and in-edible but had perfect coloring and shape! For my peach ice cream client, that was all they cared about. The idea of a peach. 

I  also prepare props well in advance. Christmas decorations. Every year I purchase new Christmas kit so that I've got something new on offer when we shoot these photographs in July! 

Also candied chestnuts. Ever needed four candied chestnuts in the week before the summer holidays ? I have. Hours and hours calling around, traveling by foot looking for those monsters. So now I buy several boxes in December. .   

Choice of plate, bowl, cup. Backups of all of those objects too. I have a huge collection of objects in every possible color, material, and size.  Even then I still  find myself with a can of spray paint out in the courtyard the night before in preparation for the next days shoot.

I'm constantly on the look out for new objects and backgrounds for our work. I may spend a day trying to find some particular object. A napkin of a certain color. The perfect bowl, glass or chopping board. That "perfect" is quite subjective! What is "perfect" for one client is simply "awful" for another.

It means listening carefully to what your client thinks their food  looks good on. Not whether the plate is or glass is lovely in and of itself. Everything, every object on set, is there in service to the food alone. Not the other way around.

We work with smaller portions. And smaller plates. And the smaller salad size of cutlery.  

This is just a question of optics and not any willful deception on our part. A camera exaggerates the size of what it looks at. That hamburger patty looks like it must weigh a good pound ! So thick is it!
In reality, it's exactly the amount stated on the menu.
   

The larger the plate or portion, the less appetizing it will look. Chefs often get this part of food photography wrong. The larger a plate, the less you see of the ambiance around it. The life around it. Most of the photographers I work with want to tell a story and that means putting your food in some sort of context.

I make double to three times the amount of food that we are shooting. If say, we are shooting a salad I've got two heads of lettuce tho we will only need one eighth of that. Salad is a delicate beast. It sometimes works like a champion boxer and hangs in there. And sometimes it doesn't and has to be changed repeatedly.

Four -  five carrots when the recipe calls for only two. Four times the amount of meat needed for one hamburger shot. The first one might not work out or the client has changed their mind about what kind of cheese they want on it. Nothing looks quite so bad as food or a sauce that has been fiddled with.

We've thought ahead of time about the precise placing of the plate and the direction the food will be facing. Where the fork will sit. Yes, we can quickly change something. But preparation ahead of time is half the job.

My photographer is ready and waiting for the star of the show to come out of the oven. We have chosen the background, the forks, the napkins and the surrounding atmosphere. We have discussed what we are trying to show or highlight. 

Our food comes on set just a hair above room temperature. This isn't just because I am slow at plating. I wait and plate something when it has cooled off a bit. We don't want a sauce to congeal or make kind of a skin. That happens if it is plated too hot and then has to sit around. A camera lens sees everything if it is close enough. And it often is.

Sometimes you are looking for the moment, the immediate and that "hot off the grill" feel. A high flying act. Luck, experience and lots more preparation comes into play when you are photographing food "of the moment" .

Some photographers need more time with their subject than others. Food gets to the set, they turn it this way and that. Try several points of view. With today's digital cameras and flash lighting, we have a bit more leeway than we did in the past. Working pretty quickly at this point, we make a few adjustments and shoot the picture.  All the while, the food is on the slow march towards its inevitable death. 

And no, I don't throw out food when it is all over. I have 24 hungry testers and one large dog working next door that can be called in on a moments notice. All perpetually hungry beasts.

They know to add a bit of salt and pepper as I don't season anything ! Regular table salt is too small to be seen and ground pepper looks like dust or dirt!

Some photographers are very very good at photoshopping images. Changing the color, brightening something. Rebuilding an entire surface. This retouching skill comes from seeing an awful lot of real  food.  Yet they can go too far. I think our brains recognize when something is overworked. It looks a bit odd. Too bright, too smooth, too uniform in color...like the facelift of a celebrity.

We are slowly moving towards food photography that is closer to reality. It's been a long haul. In advertising and packaging, this search for perfection is still pretty much our client's goal. But you do see some interest in something less clean. Allowing for some imperfection.         

  

Food is beautiful in and of itself. It has an ephemeral beauty as do all living things. We food stylists and food photographers aren't trying to control that beauty only underline and highlight some aspect of it. A fine line, I'll admit.

Books We Are Proud of : Christophe Adam's Eclairs !

Christophe Adam's Eclairs !

This is a tiny little jewel of a book. Its size and graphic quality are both things I like. Quite a few tricks in eclair making with great step by step photographs of the entire process. 

Christophe Adam the author, was "director artistique" of Fauchon at the time. He had risen through the ranks of Fauchon's pastry team, working under pastry chef extraordinaire Pierre Hermè. He has since gone on to be have his own shops called L'Eclair de Genie (selling just eclairs) here in Paris, opening soon in  Tokyo. He's also appeared here on french television in a reality show about french pastry making. 

It was quite a privilege to work with him on Eclairs ! 

La Martiniere, the publisher, put our team together with care and inspiration. Laurent Rouvrais, the photographer and I knew each other quite well. We had been working together for quite some time but had never done a book together so wow! Freedom ! Great graphics from Carin Turin of la tête moderne . And certainly Chris, a modern guy if ever there was one. We all took our inspiration from his visual world.  

Christophe Adam loves cutting edge design. Brilliant color, incredible textures. He looks for the surprise of unexpected techniques. Remember his Mona Lisa printed eclair ? I do ! It goes without saying that everything he makes is also wonderfully delicious ! Technically speaking, he is a high flyer. Total dedication to technical perfection. This is french pastry making at its most modern and technically proficient.

Sounds like Chris was all alone out there in his laboratory building these things. That is far from the case. He works with a talented team. Benoit, his second in command, Cedric, the young apprentice that did all of our step by step photos, have the hands of surgeons, assured and professional like their boss. The precision with which the entire team makes these creations isn't a one off. They do this day in day out. And can reproduce everything ad infini. Pretty miraculous.

What does a food stylist like me do when working alongside these two powerhouses? Essentially come up with ideas of presentation and the objects used for each recipe.

Chris and his team made 5-6 new recipes daily that were delivered each morning to Laurent's studio in Montrouge. Then together, he, Laurent and I we tried to figure out a story for each eclair, each recipe. We wanted each photo to offer one aspect of the wider story of the eclair. All reflecting Chris's vision, his personality. 

These beautiful bijoux (jewels) had little stories inside each one. They challenged your conception of what an cclair should be. Have you thought eclair's were only chocolat or coffee flavored and sweet?

Like an Eclair ChocoCoco !

toasted coconut on the outside, creamy milk chocolat pastry creme inside. 

 Or the Eclair Mimosa?

One of Chris's salty eclairs. This is basically an egg salad filling with chives and other goodies

I added a little salad of alfalfa sprouts and itty bitty threads of red radish.

Oh. And a fork! We took this photo this right before lunch time!

The Eclair Mini Hot Dog's ? These were the sweet ones!

So amazing. Chris and his team came up with the idea of making rasberry /chocolat pastry filling an edible casing. As I recall the "mustard" and "ketchup" were really a colored icing. Then they split open a small eclair shell and popped their "mini hot dogs" atop.

Talk about surreal!

 Or the Eclair TomateMozza

This is another riff on a classic. With a tomato glaze, slice of mozzarella in the middle of an eclair sandwich. 

I added a little sundried tomato, small fresh basil and little japanese wooden picks.

As I'd recently come back from a visit to New York, that is a Crate and Barrel aperitif plate.

Chris riffing on eclair sizes and shapes. As the shoot progressed, we were pretty surprised at the variety of sizes and shapes that Chris and his team were coming up with. I saved out a few of the shells in each size and did this shot on the last day. That background is a bakers silicon non stick sheet. So it's a part of the story too!

We did graphic step by step photographs of some of Chris's most elaborate inventions for Fauchon.

This tricolor eclair he called "L'Aquatique".  What a spectacular thing ! And an incredible invention.
Think you can do this at home? Only the bravest of the brave! One eclair by one eclair by one eclair. 

 I remember asking him if he really wanted to divulge his secrets for these complex recipes and fabrication? He replied : "We are so proud of what we have developed, of the techniques that we have invented as a team ! I want to show that."

Hats off to you Christophe Adam  !