IDEAS IN FOOD

Photos of McCrady's

Since we are usually too busy cooking to take pictures during service, we were lucky to have a couple of excellent photographers join us last week at McCrady's Restaurant. Paul Cheney and Jason Kaumeyer did a fabulous job weaving in and out of the controlled chaos that was service that evening. Feel free to take a gander at our evening with Sean, his crew and the many volunteers who came to give us a hand. It was a night to remember and now we have the pictures to prove it.

Light Box

How do you control light?  That is an interesting question and lies at the root of more than one good argument.  We are visual.  Whenever we can enhance and improve our photography I am all for it.  Over the years we have been fortunate enough to have plenty of natural light to work with.  This has meant that we were often taking pictures at the crack of dawn or as the sun faded into West.  Since our initial beginnings we have been shown a few tricks, one of the best being to use a reflector to bounce and filter light.  Since then, we have seen several homemade light boxes which act to tame both natural and artificial lights. Although the idea was intriguing, we never actually got around to creating one of our own, until today.

In the past Alex has had issues with the background in our photographs. In the beginning we took most of our pictures outside and he was reasonably tolerant of the fact that we had to deal with having the great outdoors as our background. When we moved to New York and began doing the majority of our photography indoors, that tolerance evaporated. We would spend hours going back and forth about what was acceptable and when a background actually became an integral part of the picture. He prefers a bit more austerity, to highlight the food being photographed. I like a bit of background at times because I think that the appropriate scenery, even blurred out, can add to to the overall effect. I first started showing him home made light boxes almost a year ago as a good, inexpensive solution to his issues with background. As winter has progressed the light has gotten stronger and harsher and even filtering it does not always mitigate the sharp effect that it can have on pictures. Today seemed like a good time to revisit the concept of building a light box.

In the past I had not wanted to make this box for a number of pointless reasons.  Today, our discussions (arguments) about photography pushed me over the edge.  If we were going to continue to improve we needed a system in which we could take excellent pictures anytime of the day. (True) So finally the moment arrived. I was ready to embrace the light box.  Aki showed me a relatively simple design that she found on-line and I was off to buy the materials.

Unsurprisingly I became distracted by the supermarket next to the office supplies store and the trip took a bit longer than anticipated. (That's what I get for letting him go by himself.)  I returned home and immediately got to work on the dining room table.  It was bit crowded with various flotsam and jetsam. I cleared a few things off and pushed others aside and began cutting and taping. I left my coffee and a cola around in case I needed sustenance while working on my project. Note to self, take the beverages off the work space.  As I was putting on the third side, I suddenly noticed a beige river flowing across the table.  Thankfully Aki was in earshot and quickly ran to my rescue as I held the dripping box up over the table .  A few handfuls of paper towels and a good shot of Windex alleviated my mess.  Back to work.  Building the light box took more time than I had first anticipated.  In the end it was worth the time and effort I put into it. I was simply left wondering what took me so long.

We now have a great new tool to help enhance our photography and allow us to capture inspirations as soon as we think of them. Simple, inexpensive to make, and priceless.

Compilation

The minced kampachi that was seasoned with the aji dulce zest is topped with shaved king trumpet mushrooms.  The hot spring quail egg yolks which caught my eye the other day were presented as I saw them on the plate.  A sprinkle of course salt and a spritz of Meyer lemon (our citrus of choice these days) completes the dish. 

The only thing missing is the white anchovy brioche.

Gingerbread Bisque: a dish

In our first presentation of the gingerbread bisque (so named for its texture) we added rounds of cranberry cured daikon radish and zested Benton's country ham.  The daikon adds tangy-ness and a fruity crunch. The frozen ham takes easily to the microplane and dissolves into the bisque leaving behind it's haunting, salty essence enrobed in the rich, spicy soup. A touch of coffee dust and a few thyme leaves add bitterness and herbal notes to round out the finished dish.  The bisque perfumes the room and warms the body. Mission accomplished.

Effortless Beauty

I was working with hot spring quail eggs and was in the process of cleaning the whites from the yolks.  As I began to set the cleaned yolks aside for a dish we were working on I knew we needed a picture.

These yolks are the result of cooking quail eggs in their shells for forty five minutes at sixty five degrees Celsius. 

Turkey Season

Since it is turkey season again we wanted to remind everyone about our turkey destruction and construction pictured here.

Wow!

I just stumbled across this this photo set on flickr of two meals at Per Se and just had to share the link.  Enjoy, it is truly inspiring on many, many levels.

You Looking at Me

A Montana Morning

Reason enough to wake up inspired.

Look What We Found

We just pulled back in from a quick trip to Philadelphia.  We were lucky enough to be Shola's guest and get an insiders culinary tour of the city.  One stop along the journey was the Reading Terminal Market.  While Scrapplefest 2007 made the market a true mad house yesterday, its quiet calm this morning produced some great culinary finds.  One of those was a pile of beautiful purple artichokes.  We just could not pass them up.  Here they are, in the sunlight of our kitchen window.  What will we do with these beauties?  A quiet night at home may allow us to relax and let the artichokes choose their own path in the morning.

Steak and Eggs

In our first steps with our egg yolk mosaic we had some missteps as well as some tasty bites.  We made a steak tartare with basil, Matouk's papaya based hot sauce, scallion, olive oil and salt and pepper.  We topped the tartare with the quail egg mosaic and served it with leaves of watercress and minus 8 vinegar.

The flavors are tasty.  In my next steps, I believe the mosaic should be thicker.  That way it will be a bit more durable and also the ratio of meat to egg will be in a more appropriate balance.  I may also look at other meats and fish to use instead of the filet which we used.  The base to the dish is there, now it just needs some refinement.

Tea and Milk: the first application

It dawned on me this morning that right before I went down for the count, we were working on a hot tea and milk jelly.  The jelly base was made with milk, condensed milk and Lapsang Souchong tea.  We ended up pairing portions of the jelly with roasted scallop, cinnamon toast crusted onions and miner's lettuce leaves.  The smoky nature of the tea went well with the scallop and the sweet milk added a richness to the dish.  The miner's lettuce added a crisp green flavor to the combination and the cinnamon toast crumbs balanced the roasted onions.  What is important here is the integration of the hot jelly, it comes closer to a warm structured pudding, as well as the use of the crumbs as a seasoning agent and a textural element.  The dish works.  It is tasty and I enjoyed eating it.  However, the dish is the result of the products on hand rather than a sought out construction.  What does that mean?  It means we used a number of ingredients and techniques easily available to us to integrate the idea at hand--the hot tea milk jelly.  We can now use this dish and these applications as a springboard for further ideas and refinements with the milk jelly concept and the infusion of flavors.  Similarly, the fine cinnamon toast crumbs provide a variety of pathways in which we can integrate flavors and textures into our cooking.

Small Tweaks

Here we have a crab salad wrapped in lardo served with meyer lemon puree, a jonah crab claw and powdered green tea.  This is still a work in progress, I want to integrate some fresh herbs underneath the shaved lardo.  Also, I think we can get the lardo thinner.  These are small tweaks which will result in better finished dish.

Hot Ocean Vinegar Jellies

It began about a year ago.  I was introduced to a vinegar called marine vinegar.  The name of the place that sold it has slipped my mind.  Not that it was a bad place, actually the ingredients were great. (Actually, Shola may remember, perhaps he'll comment)  The smell and taste of the marine vinegar sparked the remembrance of a recipe where Jean Louis Palladin marinated a variety of seaweeds in balsamic vinegar to serve as part of a dish.  We had borrowed that idea and paired balsamic seaweed salad with grilled skirt steak and smoked tomato jam at The Bradley Inn years ago.  And I return to present day, now actually several months ago when we returned back to New York.  On the counter in the kitchen was a jar of homemade vinegar we started here a year ago.  The vinegar had matured and was intense.  As we unpacked our things I came across some beautiful kombu and wakame.  Everything came together.  I added the kombu and wakame to the vinegar and let it infuse.  At first the vinegar was out of balance, smelling of intense sun drenched damp seaweed mixed with the biting aromas of vinegar.  I pushed the vinegar jar back into the corner and waited some more.

Now the vinegar is balanced.  Intense, yes and balanced.  The vinegar and the aromas of the sea mingle beautifully together, reminiscent of the marine vinegar I sampled and the balsamic seaweed I mimicked, though as an ingredient all its own. 

With the ocean vinegar ready in the pantry I set out to integrate it into our cooking.  I wanted to make a jelly of the vinegar to serve with oysters or foie gras, pork and clams, roasted sweetbreads wrapped in nori.  And I wanted to make a jelly to be served hot.  Those were the ideas.  Today I prepared a simple warm salad which the ocean vinegar is a great accent and element.  The salad and the jelly are served warm, the aromas wafting from the plate and the warm jelly an unexpected element.

Here is the link thanks to Asbel to Francvin the supplier of the marine vinegar.

Storyboard of Ideas

I have spent a fair amount of time going through our notebooks and working on the concepts for dishes.  These sketches, actually more elaborate drawings, are the result of time on the ship working on the elements which eventually become a dish.  Many of these dishes are in their skeletal form, though it is essential for me to visualize them in order to bring them to fruition.

Black Forest Squab

I have continued to work through the flavors and components for the dish inspired by black forest cake.  We began with the base squab which is marinated in soy and tart cherry juice.  The crumbs are crispy pumpernickel.  We made a puree of cocoa nibs and tart cherry for the chocolate element and for the cream, we made a base of horseradish and elderflower which we whipped and served alongside the squab.  A few tender cocoa nibs and cherry syrup accent the cream.

And now to the taste.  The dish is big in intense and subtle flavors.  Tart cherry balancing the cocoa, pumpernickel supporting the chocolate and playing off the horseradish.  Texture also plays a huge roll in the dish from the crumbs to the tender squab to the thick cocoa nib puree opposing the light horseradish.  Where does that leave us?  With a handful of ideas.

Pumpernickel Gnocchi

Today we put the finishing touches on our pumpernickel gnocchi.  We served them with warmed watercress sauce and shards of Cypress Midnight Moon cheese.  The sauce is an adjusted version of the watercress puree we used with the ice cream and smoked roe.

An Incredible Sunrise

Now that we are back in the States we are able to share our first glance of New Zealand.

How to eat chips

As demonstrated by Aki, be careful and have fun.

Bernie, Australia

Being in Bernie, Australia it makes sense to write about Tasmanian Sea Trout.  Here is a dish of slow cooked Tasmanian Sea Trout on warmed papaya with shiso leaf and crispy lotus root.  The lotus root provides a crisp nutty texture to the tender fish.  The papaya is warmed and dressed with lime juice and salt a firm terrine like texture below the fish.  The shiso leaf adds an herbal note, which piques the flavors of the fish and the papaya.  A pomegranate syrup adds an acidic point to the dish.

Sunchokes and Egg

Here is a dish with our truffle infused egg yolk.  Its creamy rich texture and heady aroma compliment almond crusted braised sunchokes and sliced elf mushrooms.  The elf mushrooms have a firm meaty quality to them and the almond crust on the sunchokes adds great texture to the dish.  At first I was looking for a sauce or puree to finish this dish, though in eating it the spreadable quality of the miniature egg yolk allows the diner to accent bites as they wish.  The sauce/puree was not needed; the dish ate great as it is.

Blue and Blue

Well, we have now finished our first food photo shoot for someone else.  We did an array of pictures for The MouCo Cheese Company .  We have been using there cheese for a number of years.  It is tasty, unique and approachable.  They make three great cheeses: ColoRouge, Blu and Camembert.  We have served the cheeses simply with a bit of pate on a baguette as a rustic snack or synergistically with sake cured roe and maple poached sunchokes.  Our appreciation for the cheeses led to the MouCo team asking if we would be interested in photographing their cheeses and our cheese dishes for them to use.  We responded with an immediate yes.  We had never really taken pictures for someone else before, so this was a definite learning experience.  While not every picture or dish was used, we became more engaged in the relationship between ingredients and the picture taking process. 

Here is a picture of the MouCo Blu cheese which did not make the cut.  The dish consists of a slab of the tender blue cheese with blue foot mushrooms, almond crumble, aged balsamic vinegar and papaya seeds.  The picture itself is a great.  The catch is that the mushrooms are the star in focus and highlighted.  The cheese while crisp, is only an accompaniment.  At least it is in the picture.  The dish itself balances textures, tastes and temperatures.

Pistachio Crust

Today we began work on a pistachio crust.  We used it to crust calamari which we paired with compressed papaya and pickled onions and jalapeno.

Moo Cards: Picture of Pictures

This is a pile of our Moo cards.

Cucumber Rigatoni

We found some beautiful tiny cucumbers at the store yesterday.  It sparked the idea of cucumber rigatoni.  In following the Italian theme, we wrapped and roasted flounder in prosciutto to season the fish and then peeled it away to expose the firm flaked fish beneath.  We paired the two together with some shimeji mushrooms and mortadella bubbles.

The cucumbers were cooked sous vide and then sauteed on the pick-up so they were slightly denser than raw cucumbers, tender on the outside and still slightly crunchy in the center. The texture mimicked "al dente" pasta that had been  slightly under-cooked. The mushrooms were soft and slippery with a sweet flavor and some delicate earthy notes. The cheese added a hint of creaminess and really pulled the everything together. The fish was tender and toothsome. The flavors of the mortadella hit the front palate giving way to the light, clean flavors of the fluke and finishing on the slightly game-y notes from the prosciutto wrapping. All in all we were quite pleased with the way this dish came together.

Tasmanian Sea Trout

Here is our slow cooked Tasmanian Sea Trout with warm cauliflower panna cotta, cauliflower crisp and oregano scented crispy skin puffs.

Candied Papaya Seeds

Yesterday we candied some papaya seeds to act as a spicy accent for this scallop dish.  The papaya is compressed and gently cooked, then we serve it with seared and sliced scallops which are topped with candied papaya seeds and tarragon.  A few drops of olive oil and lime juice pique the flavors.

Long Shallots

We came across some beautiful long shallots at the market recently.  We braised them in Kola Nut butter.  In this dish we served the warmed shallot topped with Meyer Lemon and scallions alongside MouCo's Camembert cheese.  Who ate the dish?  Well we did of course.

Meyer Lemon-Bay Scallops

Today we were able to transform a few great ingredients into a few simple dishes.  The first one we put together consisted of Meyer lemon dressed bay scallops with jalapeno, scallion, crispy Meyer lemon and green tea.

Raw Ingredients

Sunchokes

Meyer Lemons

Bluefoot Mushrooms

Upclose

Here is a great shot of some really tasty fresh sheeps's milk cheese in the making from 3 Corner Field Farm.  We were lucky enough to sneak a peak at the cheese room where this fresh cheese was resting on racks.  We also had the opportunity to eat a slightly more mature version of this cheese.  It sparked the idea of a dried fruit draped sheep's milk cheese with white anchovies and Lampong pepper puree.