After a little break where I was shooting soup in a back-of-house environment and some chocolate and pecans for a catalog, I'm back working on the cookbook. We photographed (and had later for lunch) one of the mostly unusually named dishes I ever had. It was called "Oiseaux san la Tete" which literally means "birds without heads". At first I was thinking it was a French version of those exotic songbird dishes one finds in the East but birds have nothing do do with it. Imagine veal, pounded very thin, wrapped around a ball of spiced pork sausage, tied up with butcher's string and sauteed in a red wine and shallot reduction. When cooked it does resemble, vaguely, little brown birds bodies which you then slice into 1/2 inch thick irregularly shaped disks and enjoy.
Yes it was as good as it sounds., especially when served with a little polenta and dandelion greens as a counterpoint. This brings up a question we get all the time, "Do you guys use all that fake stuff to make the food look good, you know like...?" and I then get a litany of mashed potatoes for ice cream, glue for milk etc. That fact is that for the most part (except for the fake ice cream which is often necessary) food styling is real. A little oil, a little undercooking but for the the most part real and we often get to try what we shoot...as long as it hasn't been on set too long. We always say we can do a better job if we can taste what goes in front of the camera..especially if it involves really good expensive cuts of meat, fish or cheese, ;-). Here's a photograph I did of a couple of chefs for Bridgeport Brewing and our own inimitable Jeffrey Thomas(in the middle) our producer standing for the third chef. Prost!