A Little Creativity and Some Lessons Learned.

Beer and cake and notes scrawled on napkins. Who's best ideas HAVEN'T come to them right before last call??! If you recently picked up a copy of Coupe Magazine, you may have noticed a big ol' cake covered with words of wisdom. Well my friends, I'm proud to say that that cake was the product of another super-fun collaboration between myself and the uber-talented Dana Harrison. We decided to take up some ad space in this year's annual and use it as a promo-piece designed to congratulate all of this year's winners.

Here's a little peak into where our inspiration came from and a couple lessons we learned along the way:

After we fuelled up on Sweet Tea and Brisket Sandwiches, we ate A LOT of fortune cookies, all in the name of inspiring our copy of course.

We realized that in order to pipe our copy onto the cake (YES, Dana did that by hand!), we would have to create some kind of template.  Here comes lesson #1 - It's never a good idea to use cinnamon to create a guide for text on a white cake. That results in a whole lot of retouching.

How could this icing colour not inspire something awesome?!

Here comes lesson # 2: No matter how well Dana's dog is behaving while there is food on set, he is always, always waiting for his moment to pounce. We stupidly let our guard down for all of thirty seconds, and very nearly lost hours of work to a sneaky dog. Through some stroke of luck, he was feeling particularly generous and only ate the discard plate I was using to style the cake with. OY! Lesson learned.

As always, Dana and I had a blast. Who knows, maybe someday we'll open an online store where we sell snarky yet inspirational cakes. Someday.....

A Creativity Hall Pass

For many creative-types, personal work is essential for clearing our heads and re-invigorating creativity. You may have noticed a drop in my attendance to my blog, and before I bombard you with lame excuses for not posting much this summer, like my dog ate my keyboard, or my friend's kid super-glued my laptop shut, or I was too busy eating hamburgers - the honest truth is that when I started this blog it was very much my creative outlet, as well as my main source of inspiration. For whatever reason, my creativity-senses were tingling this summer and told me to find inspiration offline. I guess the answer was to go out in the world and create something just for me. So that's exactly what I did, and hopefully this post will prove that I wasn't neglecting you for nothing.

To my dismay, summer seems to be abruptly drawing to a close. I began working on a project that is very much about summer and feel like now's a good time to share it, as a final so'long for now to summer.

I'd like to expand this body of work and thought a fun way to do that would be to have you to share your long repressed childhood heartaches with me. Then I'll go out and shoot them. What treat would your six year old self have excitedly received and promptly dropped?

Something For Your Sweet Tooth

Like most people I know working in the arts, be it fine art or commercial practices, personal projects are what keep me going. Usually when I'm at my busiest, amidst all the chaos, inspiration will strike. Sometimes the greatest luxury during the busiest of weeks is to empty my head of all the images floating around.

Recently, the image of a bold floral print kept reappearing in my thoughts. Once that pattern was securely lodged in my brain, on thing led to another and soon I was dreaming about sweet old ladies sipping tea and snacking on sweets. Perhaps they would play bridge later in the afternoon. Thinking that I would need something rather delicate and feminine to complete the image that was slowly growing in my mind, I turned to Alie Romano of Simply Sweet, a pastry chef known for her irresistible meringues. Here's what we spent the afternoon shooting... and then eating.

While we were at it I shot some quick portraits of Alie and her magnificent pavlova topped with black cherry sauce and white chocolate curls.

Alie was nice enough to whip together a recipe as well as a few tips for making the perfect meringues.  Meringues are a nice light option for a summer dessert or after a heavy meal. With strawberry season fast approaching, she thought it would be nice to share a Sweet Strawberry Meringue with you.  

Strawberry Vanilla Meringue Baskets

For the Meringue

4 egg whites (at room temperature)

230 g (one cup) caster (superfine) sugar

1 tsp natural vanilla

few drop of red food colouring (optional)

For the Filling:

300ml of whipping cream

a pint fresh strawberries, washed and hulled.

1 Tablespoon icing sugar

1 Tablespoon white sugar

Preheat oven to 235 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Beat the egg whites in a large bowl with electric beaters until frothy and stiff.  Slowly and gradually add the caster sugar while beating the egg whites, about one tablespoon at a time. Beat until thick and glossy.  Add vanilla flavouring (and food colour if using), scrape down bowl, continue beating until stiff peaks form.  Transfer the mixture to a piping bag or spoon out onto your prepared baking sheet.  Pipe approx. 9 shells keeping a few inches apart from each shell.

If piping, be sure not to compress the mixture, coil with a light hand into a circle and layer the edges to form a bowl.

If spooning, spoon approx. ½  cup to a cup of the mixture in a blob, hollow out a center and use spoon to shape the outside as desired.

Place in oven and bake for 60-75 minutes, or until meringues peel nicely off and sound hollow when tapped.  Turn oven off and leave meringues in the oven over night to dry out.

Wash and remove stems of strawberries, if using big strawberries chop into bite sizes.  Place in a bowl and toss with white sugar.  Meanwhile whip whipping cream and add icing sugar.  Fill meringue with cream and drizzle strawberries and juices over meringue shells

Tips and tricks for the perfect meringue:

• Plan to bake your meringues a day or two ahead.

• Separate your eggs when cold, it’s much easier to separate your eggs cold than at room temperature. If a bit of yolk breaks into the whites start over, that batch is no good!

• Use a metal bowl and ensure the bowl is clean of any grease. 

• When you are ready to whip your egg whites they MUST be at room temperature

• Always sift your caster (instant) sugar

• Use the whisk attachment on your mixer.. the better the mixer the better your meringues will turn out.

• Very Important: Add sugar slowly!!! Like a slow soft waterfall!

• Beat your meringues on high speed, only turn the speed down a notch when adding the sugar.. but only a little!

• Add flavouring/coloring at the end and re-whip to ensure stiff peaks and that everything is incorporated

• Once you’ve placed the meringues in the oven, keep the oven door closed! Don’t check on them until your timer goes off.  When you’re checking on them, don’t pull them out of the oven! Very carefully reach into the oven and check your meringue by lifting a meringue off the baking sheet, if it doesn’t peel off easily than continue to bake for an extra 15minutes.  If the meringue does peel off nicely than shut the oven door and turn off the oven. Leave the meringues in the oven to dry out over night. 

• Meringues aren’t ready to eat until the next day, so if you try a warm meringue you will be disappointed.. it will be chewy and sticky in your mouth, be patient and wait

• Keep meringues out of the refrigerator, they store best in metal tins.

• Whip your cream, fill your meringue and allow to soften  10-20 minutes before serving

Happy Baking!

Take That KFC!

I'm celebrating an anniversary of sorts. This week marks one year of shooting for and working with the awesome folks at The Grid. Man, that came around fast! If you read The Grid, you know that they don't mess around, and this weeks shoot was no exception. As kind of a sister story to last year's Big Mac Challenge, four chefs were asked to create their own version of the KFC Double Down. Let me tell you, they did not disappoint! The creativity and excitement that each chef brought to their creation was contagious, and might I say delicious. BQM Burgershoppe was so into the challenge, that they'll be serving up "The Pull-Down" until May 27th at their Queen and Ossington location. If anyone wants to join me for a sandwich the size of your head, give me a holler. I could probably eat ten. Yup. It's that good.

Click here for the full story.

Happy Drooling!

"The Dirty Bird" by Cardinal Rule chef Marta Kusel

"The Pull-Down" by BQM Burgershoppe chef Chris Horvath

 "The Inverted Torta de Milanesa" by Milagro Cantina owner and chef Arturo Anhalt

"The Hammered Chicken" by Hammersmith’s chef and co-owner Colin Reed

A Drink With The Queen

Last week I shot a job for Maclean's Magazine, and it was such a hoot that I can't help but share it with you.

My photo editor Liz told me that we'd be shooting a story about Dubonnet. I'd be shooting at The Drake Hotel because Mixologist Mike Webster makes a killer Dubonnet cocktail (I can now confirm that he does). Liz then told me that I would be shooting someone seated at the bar dressed as The Queen of England. YES! This was going to be fun.

My good friend Tammy is always willing to stick her gorgeous little hands in front of my lens, and luckily, she was available on the shoot day. I was a bit vague when I described the shoot to her and just sort of "forgot" to mention that she would be sitting in for The Queen. When she arrived, I handed over her wardrobe and she instantly broke out in laughter insisting that she wear the entire pink Chanel suit just to "get into character."

We spent a couple hours laughing, sampling some of Mike's amazing cocktails, and speaking in terrible British Queen accents - oh and we took some pictures while we were at it. Yup, these are the kinds of jobs that really make me love what I do. I've got to admit, I'm a pretty lucky gal.

Thank you, Mike and Tammy, for being such super-duper folks and letting me take over your Sunday afternoon! Thanks Liz for sending me such a fun creative!

For your viewing pleasure, here's the winning shot, as well as a few outtakes:

Beans N' Toast

Recently, Maclean's sent me to shoot their Student's Guide to a Cheap and Delicious Meal. Two Toronto chefs and a Maclean's writer dressed up and re-imagined a cheap and cheerful classic. May I present to you: Beans N' Toast from the Maclean's 2011 University guide. Here are the shots that made it to print, along with a few more of my favorite portraits.

    Giovanna Alonzi - Terroni's Executive Chef

    Jessica Allen - Maclean's Resident Foodie

    Matty Matheson - Parts & Labour's Executive Chef

Oh Summer...

As the fall weather begins to overtake the summer's heat, I can't help but think about one of my favorite evenings in recent memory. On one of the stickiest nights this summer, Dana and Joel (of the famed Wellpreserved.ca) invited Zac and I to join them for a little al fresco dinner party. This was not your usual backyard BBQ. This was a feast catered by Massimo Bruno, a charming and incredibly talented chef who hosts an Italian Supper Club. Over the course of about four hours, he filled us full of luscious burrata, carmalized figs, zucchini blossoms stuffed with ricotta, multiple handmade pasta dishes, steak grilled over coals and homemade cannoli (just to list a few!). Uh oh, I think my food coma is setting in again just thinking about it...

Here are a few images from that evening:

Not Your Momma's Take-Out Menu

Recently, Dana Harrison (an uber talented designer and all 'round swell gal) and I collaborated on a take-out menu for Frida Restaurant. Our challenge was to create a menu that stood out from the piles of typical take-out menus that we so often find taking up space in our mailboxes. We needed to create something simple and eye-catching that would instantly have you running for the phone. 

I asked Dana about her inspiration for this project, and how she pulled all the elements together. This is what she had to say:

     "My inspiration for the menu came from Frida Kahlo's life and work. I decided to take the opportunity to watch the movie Frida (2002) again and found that the art, animation and colour in the film were amazing. The colourful culture and food of Mexico that Chef Jose and Steve have brought into Frida Restaurant, as well as one of the plates we sourced for the photography (shown in the guacamole shot) were also places I drew my inspiration from. Reena and I worked closely to style the images so that they would showcase the family-style nature of the items on the menu. I love Reena's 'deconstructed' way of styling food and wanted to feature one of these on the cover of the menu. The 'before and after' taco shot just makes you feel like running in and grabbing that last one before someone else does! The way she lights everything to create a really intimate, comforting, homey feel inspired the idea to shoot everything from above. That way the images would have the feeling of being laid out on a table, passed around and enjoyed. We wanted to create a menu that really communicated that this is restaurant quality food made with fresh ingredients, the same as you'd enjoy during a night out at Frida Restaurant."

Creatively, the biggest challenge I faced with this job was shooting a take-out menu for a fine-dining restaurant, without making it feel like an entirely different place. The most important elements we used to tie the two faces of Frida together, were colour and plating. We started with colour, which, for me, is essential in setting a tone and conveying mood through photography. We paired Frida's existing colour palette of vibrant oranges and punchy blues with a casual wood surface and mismatched dishware, creating images that felt warm, friendly and inviting without straying too far from the restaurant's fine-dining roots. Most importantly, we wanted the food plated in a more rustic manner but didn't want to lose Chef Jose's artful touch. 

As with most of my photography, I'm always itching to tell a story, no matter how simple it may be. I wanted these photographs to draw people in and make them feel like they could pull up a chair and be a part of the meal. For me, when food tells a story, it instantly becomes more inviting and more appetizing. The more inviting a photograph can be, the more people will want to be a part of what you have created. In this case... the more people that want to pull up a chair to these tables, the more take-out orders for Frida, right?
 
When I asked Dana what her favorite part of the project was she simply said "drawing the sketch of Frida for the cover...and eating the food at the shoot."

Thanks to Steve and Jose for trusting in our vision of your food and for letting us tell your take-out story.

Charcutepalooza Challenge #6

Once again, this month's challenge was down to the wire, but James and I refused to be defeated by our busy schedules. We scrambled to make our Hot Dogs the day before the posting date and here's a quick roundup on how we felt about the challenge this month:

James: H-dogs 2.0. After our epic fail last time (when we weren't suppose to make hotdogs anyway) I was more than a bit nervous that this would all turn pear-shaped for a second time. It didn't! We made delicious, hotdog-tasting hotdogs. The thing about hotdogs is, well, they're just hotdogs. The best hotdog I've ever had? Nearly. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. While I do appreciate the process of making an emulsified sausage, the attention required to make it work and the premium ingredients - I don't think it's worth all the time and cost required to create a gourmet dog. Sure ours were juicier, more tender, had better flavour and weren't the least bit rubbery. Sure they rank right up there with the best. But c'mon, they're just f*cking hotdogs! The lesson is this: While it's nice to use costly beef ribs to make hotdogs, it's not worth it. The reason: With simple slow, low smoke you can turn a rack of beef ribs into something divine instead of a glorified kid's birthday party treat. I'd give ours an 8 out of 10. But what's a 10 out of 10 hotdog really worth? A 6 out of 10 rack of ribs? C'est la vie.

R: Oh, while we were rushing to get everything done, we did somehow manage to squeek in dessert. Giant soft pretzels, that turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to our hotdogs. The recipe we used called for pretzel salt, but we thought this treat would be far superior if we doused the pretzels in salted butter and cinnamon-sugar, and boy were we right!  I highly recommend giving these a try! For the recipe, click here.

Sharing the Bacon-y Love

I've been holding onto this for some time now and trust me it hasn't been easy. It's a little project I've been dying to share: The promotional piece that would formally introduce me as a "brand" to the world.... Or at least a selected group of Art Directors, Ad Peeps and Magazine Folks.

Over the past few years I've attempted to make my "debut" as a photographer but have put it on hold for numerous reasons. When I left Westside Studio, where I had worked as a producer, the timing was perfect and everything began to fall into place. I suddenly had time on my hands and was compelled to fill every second with my eye to a lens. I spent a year shooting and putting together a portfolio that I could be proud of. I wasn't going to come out without a bang. I needed to create an image that was distinctly me and would showcase my personality before you even knew who "me" was.

When I first found out that my friend James (who you may know as my partner in crime for Charcutepalooza) makes his own bacon, I immediately thought: Make your own bacon??! You can do that? What does that even mean? I had to shoot James in action. Soon after we had booked a shoot date, I came across a recipe for bacon caramels.. yup you read that right. That folks, was the pig-in-the-blanket that began the creative process of designing and executing what I was pretty sure would be a unique promo that would hopefully garner some attention.  

Here's how it all came together:
With all the debate going on these days about paper promos (which I won't get into...cuz that's a whole other post in itself) I was hesitant to even put this project together, but it really wasn't the kind of thing that I could e-mail around. Right off the bat, I decided to go small. There were too many images to use on a postcard so a book seemed like the right solution.  Sending out a book of images still didn't seem exciting enough to me. I wanted the recipient to have the full experience of the story. I decided that I would make and hand wrap candies to go with each promo (I sent two with bacon and two sans-bacon, for any non-adventurous eaters/vegetarians/non-bacon eaters out there). The next question was how to package the pieces in a fun way. Candy boxes. Through some stroke of pure luck and a lot of leg work I managed to find candy boxes complete with inserts that held four candies and were the exact same size as the books I wanted to send (so you have an idea of scale, the packages are 3.5"x 3.5"). Now I had a box containing four candies with my book neatly tucked inside. How did I wrap and address the packages? Butchers paper with a meat label to bring the entire project full circle.

You can see the story on my website by clicking on the I Heart Bacon gallery.
And if you're so inclined, you too can make bacon caramel.

I have to send some special thanks out into the world to the folks that helped me out of the goodness of their hearts:
Aleks Wallner, an incredibly talented artist who drew the little piggy for the cover of my book.
Dana Harrison, a graphic design guru and all around lovely lady, who designed my logos.
And not to be forgotten, James Kennedy, for letting me invade his kitchen and stick my lens in his face. Oh and for the bacon.

The overall response to this little promo of mine has been rather overwhelming. I went into it assuming that I wouldn't hear a peep. In the first couple of days, I received emails from people thanking me for the afternoon snack, a handful of requests for meetings, an Art Director who Tweeted about the promo, a shout out from Heather Morton (yay!), aaaaannnd a job!

Perhaps the moral of this story is: People like bacon and if you send it, they will call.

Big Mac Challenge

A couple weeks ago I received a call from Shelbie Vermette, the photo editor at Toronto's newest and most exciting paper, The Grid.  As soon as she told me the concept for an upcoming shoot, I was immediately on board.  This was going to be FUN!  Four of Toronto's chefs were to be given a Big Mac meal which they were asked to transform, without adding any additional ingredients, into a dish fit for their restaurants.  As you probably know by now I am no stranger to the hamburger, so being asked to take part in a burger re-imagination project had me pretty excited.  Writer Karon Liu and I literally had no idea what to expect when heading out for our shoot.  Each time a dish came out of the kitchen, our minds were truly blown.  The creativity, thoughtful care and humor that each of the chefs put into their dishes was absolutely inspiring.  The chefs were all such great sports that they even let me snap a few quick portraits of them enjoying their creations. 

You can read the full story here and can check out the behind the scenes story here.

Aravind’s Open-Faced Samosas by Chefs Raj and Aravind Kozhikott

Campagnolo’s Big Mac All’Americana by Chefs Craig Harding and Nigel French 

Local Kitchen's McLumi Platter by Chef Fabio Bondi 

The Drake’s Birthday Surprise by Chef Anthony Rose