Eat all of Italy!

I've had to keep this project all hush hush for the longest time so I'm very excited to share it with you! I've been working on an app, called Product of Italy, with the most awesome-tastic team a girl could ever dream of! Chef Massimo Bruno, Shawn Bailey of Orangepaperclip, Art Director Dana Harrison and I took on the task of capturing the unique feel of 20 different Italian regions in still and animated images for the most amazing cooking app you'll ever get your hands on. I had a blast shooting a little stop motion for the app's opening page as well as a cover for each delicious region of Italy. Product of Italy is an interactive food series and cooking app all in one. This app will chaange the way you think about recipes and revolutionize the way you cook.

I can't thank this team enough for bringing me in on what has turned out to be one of my all time favourite projects. Thanks you guys!!

Massimo is the real deal and so is this app. Now go get cooking!!
http://productofitaly.ca/

All Hail The Internets!

A funny thing happened the other day, and then it happend again. I found it so amusing that I thought I should share. Here's a photograph I made for this week's issue of Maclean's Magazine:

In order to keep what I was working on all top secret like, I created an instagram alias for the purposes of our shoot. Thus, cakegirl89 was born. The day Maclean's hit newsstands "cakegirl89" started receiving likes and comments. Which of course, is the part that I find to be quite hy-sterical.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to thank "pinkcutiepie13" for having my back and letting me know that my instagram shot was being used in Maclean's, and of course to "theclappingwalrus" who hit the nail on the head.

Keep it coming social media!  You never cease to amuse me.

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!

The Big Reveal

Well folks, the deed has been done! My hair has been lopped off and delivered safely to Angel Hair for Kids.

Last friday I packed up my hair and was off to meet Kerry and Ana for the big cut. I was a complete bag of nerves and excitement all morning. I'd become more attached to my long locks than I thought I would. Kerry shot some "before" portraits of me, which was a pretty great way to say goodbye to all that hair before the scissors made an appearance. I'm pretty sure that I held my breath the entire time Ana was braiding and cutting my hair. It took an eternity for her to get all the way through my braid. I thought I might cry or feel completely naked once all my hair was gone, but what I ended up feeling was really excited that I was able to grow something that could mean so much to someone else who had lost her own.

I wanted to be sure that my precious cargo arrived safely at Angel Hair, so I grabbed my braid and delivered it in person. When I arrived, I was greeted with such excitement by two wonderful women, Dee and Roslyn. They proudly gave me a tour of the little studio that is used for fittings and showed me photos of the girls who have received wigs. Even though I didn't meet any of the girls in person, I could feel happiness exuding from their photos. I knew that something as simple as a head of hair was life-changing for these girls.

I want to thank everyone for their oh-so-generous donations. THANK YOU!! Because of you, we've raised $2512.00! That's enough money for almost three wigs!

My donation page will be active until June 13th. Feel free to spread the link far and wide while there's still time to help me reach my goal.

And now...... THE BIG REVEAL......

    Wait for it.....

  DA DA DA DAAAAAAA........

    Images by Kerry Shaw  Hair & Makeup by Ana Sorys

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