From the monthly archives:

June 2008

Some thoughts on photography

by Emilia on June 25, 2008

I am at home right now trying to stay still and heal from some tooth surgery; actually I got two of my wisdom tooth pulled, but the other one had to be cut open and pulled surgically. It is really boring to just heal and eat soup and smoothies, I do not like this at all, I never was very good at being sick, but luckily it will soon be over.

As I received the Arte y pico award from Naomi at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried, I thought that I might make a post about food photography in general. I am going to give this award to five bloggers whose photography I admire, but please don’t feel obligated about this meme thing at all. This is just my way to say thank you to some people whose photography I feel is inspiring and beautiful.

I would like to give the award to these bloggers in no particular order-

Fxcuisine.com for the unique style in photos, which I would describe as somewhat hard and very stylish.

Make life sweeter because I like the light in the photos and the eye of the photographer.

VeganYumYum for the use of colour; the photographer has such a good eye for colour, it is always inspiring to look at the photos.

Have Cake, Will Travel I am a huge fan of the photographer, I love the clean cut look of the photos, the style is unique.

Yarnstorm the beauty of her photos is why I want to give this mention, just for the beauty. The new address would be this.

I would also like to state that these are my thoughts in general, I am not a real photographer and my words should be taken as just that; some thoughts from an amateur.

Food photography is said to be different from other kinds of photography; and I would say that it is true. Rarely do I see a food photographer who has a good eye for regular photos, and vice versa. Some people have a unique eye with food, they have the ability to catch something that makes the food look really delicious, maybe they have some kind of a passion towards their subject and it shows in photos?

As for retouching and food pictures I would say that if you are really good with your camera and you know how to adjust everything by hand to be perfect, and I do mean perfect, then you have no need for retouching the photo. Some, like me for example, who are not that good with cameras have a real need for RAW processing and retouching, but this is an area where a little bit goes a long way; I should know since I almost always go overboard with photos, but I am learning.

It is important to shoot in RAW mode, since it gives you the chance to adjust the lights, saturation and basic things like that. As for the ISO I would say that use 100 if you have a tripod, it makes a big difference. You can see that most of my pictures are shot with a higher ISO, I even use 1600 sometimes, which is really bad and the photos are grainy when using something that high. The reason behind my high ISO is that I have shaky hands and I don’t like using a tripod every time.

The light used in food photos should be natural; you can’t go wrong when shooting in natural light. Direct light is too harsh, so block it with some white paper for example. Try getting the light to come from one side and using a reflector if you like the look it gives. I myself don’t like using reflectors, but I still use one small reflector sometimes. You can use anything that reflects light as a reflector - mirrors and foil for example. The light from the north is the best one in my opinion; use it, if you have the chance.

You can see the difference some Corel use does in photos if you look at the first cat photo which is the finished one; it has been edited in RAW and moved to Corel and then edited there. I use Corel even though I do have Photoshop since I like it more, actually a lot more. It is easier to use and I just feel comfortable with it.

This is the straight out of camera shot. As you can see it has a grey film over it and it is there because I am not so good that I would know how to adjust everything perfectly.

This is after some RAW editing, I adjusted the saturation and a bit of the light, and increased the sharpness.

This the finished photo. I used a layer of hard light with the opacity of 30. Some unsharp mask with the strength of 20 was then used. For the eyes I used unsharp mask with the strength of 100 and then some contrast of 30. Not much editing, but the difference with the first photo is huge.

Some general advice I would give is to use auto contrast and unsharp mask with photos, just those two will give you sharper and brighter photos. Auto contrast will get rid of the grey film in photos in a snap. You can find it in Corel from Adjust->Brightness and contrast->Levels->Auto contrast. In Photoshop you’ll find it from Image->Adjustments-> Auto contrast.

You will find unsharp mask in Corel from Adjust->Sharpness->Unsharp Mask. Adjust the strength, I usually use 20. In Photoshop you’ll find it from Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask.

For really good Photoshop advice you could go to the Pioneer Woman site, Ree also has some Photoshop actions there which are free and really good. The advice given there is simply done and that’s why it is so good, you can understand it even if you are not familiar with all the photography terms.

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Gluten-Free Rhubarb Pie

by Emilia on June 23, 2008

I decided to make some rhubarb pie the other day since I had this rhubarb craving going on. Adding something with coconut was essential since I have been on this coconut binge for some time now, I even eat coconut cream by the spoonfuls from jars; maybe a bit strange, but this is something that I can not explain, I just give into it.

As I gave into my current passion combined with some rhubarb I decided on a pie with shredded coconut and quinoa flour as a base. You can of course substitute the quinoa with something else, but I would not say that it tasted bitter or strange here. I didn’t use any xanthan gum or psyllium husk as a binder; I left the pie to cool before cutting it and at least when cool it holds together nicely without added binders.

The taste was very good, I ended quite happy with the end result; I especially loved the crumbly coconut topping. As something negative I would have to say that with all the fat and sugar used in this it is heavy to eat, so I wouldn’t recommend going on a pie binge with this one. I served this with some thick coconut cream which I really recommend trying if you don’t eat dairy. Some ice-cream would also be lovely combined with this pie. This is dairyfree if you substitute the butter with some dairyfree margarine.

Gluten-free rhubarb pie recipe

-150 grams butter

-0,4 cup or 1 dl sugar

-1-2 tsp vanilla

- 1 egg

- 0,2 cup or 0,5 dl shredded coconut

-3 dl or 1,2 cup flour (I used quinoa)

- 1 tsp baking powder

The filling

-7 dl or 3 cups chopped rhubarb, or berries, or fruit

-1 tbls flour

-1 dl or 0,4 cup sugar

-1 tbls cinnamon (don’t use this with berries, use it only with apples and rhubarb)

The topping

-100 grams butter

- 2,4 dl or 1 cup shredded coconut

-1 dl or 0,4 cup flour

-1 dl or 0,4 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 200 C or 400 F.

Make sure all your ingredients are room temperature.

Measure the soft butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat them until they are creamy and pale. Add the egg. Measure all of the dry ingredients and combine them. Mix everything together.

This will be quite runny and you can spoon it into a greased pie form. Make sure it is evenly spread.

Mix the filling ingredients together and fold them into the chopped rhubarb gently. Pour everything on top of the pie.

Mix the topping together and spread it on top of the rhubarb.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes. Quinoa is notorious for never baking if there is a thick layer of it, so the time will depend on the thickness of the quinoa base and also on the flour you used, rice flour will probably be done faster so keep an eye on your pie.

Let it cool before cutting or I am almost sure it will not hold together.

Another way to eat rhubarb is to make some rhubarb “candy”.

Chop some rhubarb into thin slices and take a jar and some sugar.

Make layers with the rhubarb and sugar- one layer of rhubarb, then a layer of sugar etc. Let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours and it will end up almost like candy.

My aunt used to make “candy” a bit like this for us, but she used garlic cloves and honey. Just peel the garlic cloves and stick them into a honey jar, make sure they are totally covered with honey and leave everything to sit for at least 2 months, half an year would be ideal. Garlic candy doesn’t sound all that delicious, but it really is very good.

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Stuffed Bananas

by Emilia on June 16, 2008

These bananas are overly simple to make and I thought about posting the recipe here for a while, since somehow I feel that the things I post about should be a bit more complex; but then again simple things are nothing to be embarrassed about.

The idea with this is just to stuff a banana with something, some dark chocolate is classic, but I do feel that adding something to it gives a nice touch and of course a nice bite.

Chopped nuts give these bananas the bite they need in my opinion and the added chewiness of the dates gives this recipe some nice contrast. You should think about desserts as in contrast of texture - different textures in a dessert can sometimes make a plain dessert nearly orgasmic. For example the best chocolate cake I have ever had was made so special and perfect by using different kind of textures; there were thin crisp chocolate layers, soft and gooey melting layers and so on.

This is not nearly as good as that chocolate cake - nothing is, really, although this is good enough for a simple weekday dessert.