food styling and french toast
Finished homework: bread and jam for breakfast.
Sometime during the summer, I thought it would be a good idea to sign myself up for a month long food styling class beginning in mid-September. This was, of course, before I actually looked at a calendar. But here we are now in September and I have just finished week one of the course. I’ve learned several tips and tricks from a professional stylist for making salads stand tall, cold drinks look cold, cold food look hot, and adding movement to beverages. I’ve learned how to create a professional food styling kit. I have yet to learn how to make food that we are actually going to eat look more appetizing or where to put a food styling kit in my already cramped house. And because this is not a food photography class, the standard “natural light is always best” applies. In other words, don’t expect better shots of our evening meals right away as I am not going to start making and photographing dinner during the middle of the day. I love you and I love this blog, but I am just not that organized.
The first homework assignment was to shoot a simple breakfast scene of bread and jam. Here’s my first attempt.
Horrible. Too much going on, bad angle, weird food. So I tried this.
Slightly more natural but still not right.
And here’s what my house looked like during the process.
Once again, all you amazing bloggers out there shooting food and making it look absolutely scrumptious? I am in awe. You work your butts off and deserve a vacation. You people create magic with food and most of you do it with kids at home. I’m just a home cook trying to make it through the week with tasty food. One of these days, my photographs might actually be spot on. That probably won’t happen until all of the kids have left the nest and we eat cereal for dinner every night.
In the pursuit of a better photograph for my homework, I did come up with an awesome use for those sliced bread heels that no one will eat. You know what I’m talking about. I’ll bet if you look in your bread bin right now, there is a bag of bread with two sorry ends in it and someone has already started using a fresh loaf of bread. Here’s the deal. Those bread ends make excellent French toast and if you disguise them with a cookie cutter, no one will even know that they are eating a heel.
Use lots and lots of butter.
I used two small star cookie cutters for my French toast. My plate of French toast was made from four bread heels, one egg, a bit of milk, splash of vanilla, and sprinkle of cinnamon. I think from now on I am going to freeze my stale bread heels together in a ziplock until I collect enough to make a nice batch of French toast.
