What's Wrong With This Picture?

[November 29th, 2006] A shorter version of this story appeared in the Wednesday November 24th, 2006 print edition of WW.

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^FULL STORY

I’ve cooked since age 7, when Grandma bought me a Better Homes and Gardens junior cookbook. I made ’em all: cheese strata, French toast, an obscene concoction of Cool Whip and chocolate wafers appropriately called “On Top On Top.” That book was so thoroughly utilized that it was one solid food-glued page by the time I outgrew it.

But we have a strange relationship, cookbooks and I. They lure me with shiny pages, happy lists and lush photographs. Deviled eggs are perkily piped. Lamb gleams, wantonly, under a balsamic reduction. Lasagna bubbles off the page.

But cookbooks, tragically, lead me to a place I can’t go. I’m a writer, not an artist. I’ve taken knife-skills classes, sushi-rolling tutorials and cake-decorating seminars, and I’m still at the same level of artistic aptitude as when I made macaroni necklaces. While the stuff I make tastes good, it never, ever, looks like the picture.

With the holidays upon us, the entertaining bug bites, hard. I want to host friends, invite tippling. I want to create magazine-quality spreads to a chorus of soft delight. With America’s Test Kitchen’s Christopher Kimball (the high priest of persnickety cooking) in town for a reading at Powell’s in Beaverton tonight, I thought now was a good as time as any to attempt to create my own culinary masterpiece.

Still, could anything truly resemble the “food porn” these cookbooks depict? I contacted two local “food stylists,” which are people who actually fluff food—as if it were a model—for photo shoots, to find out.

“Photos always need to be strong,” explains Portlander Carol Ladd, a 20-year food-styling veteran who has done work with food packaging, infomercials and film, “because you’re obviously not going to be able to smell the product.” Ellen Jackson, former Park Kitchen pastry chef and local food stylist, adds: “Sometimes additions and manipulations are necessary to capture a certain moment in time, like melting the cheese just so or stabilizing the whipped cream. But the days of using motor oil in place of pancake syrup are over.”

Motor oil? What? Maybe there really was no way to have one’s real-world creations match a cookbook photo fantasy. Pros had all kinds of food lube at their disposal, whereas I had only my gumption.

So I picked up some recently released cookbooks, swallowed my fear and prepared for a broken heart. And, if that wasn’t enough, I begged the experts to judge my work against the real deal.

Food Porno #1: How to Boil Water: Life Beyond Takeout by Food Network Kitchens (Food Network Kitchens, 256 pages, $24.95)

Star: Cheeseburgers

I see this book as a great Christmas gift from a worried mom to her postgraduate son: lots of primary colors, simple descriptions. I haven’t eaten meat in a decade or cooked it in longer, so I kept asking my husband things too stupid even for the book, like, “Do I need to wash the meat first?” and, “I don’t knead it like dough, right?” The whole ordeal made me remember why I don’t like meat. It cooks up kind of gross. The fat trickling? That brown-gray color? Not for me. It’s why I made my husband pose with it instead.

ACTUAL COOKBOOK PHOTO Expert Ellen Jackson says: “This was probably assembled using a partially cooked patty painted with an edible ‘browning agent’ like soy sauce or Kitchen Bouquet; it looks plump and juicy because it’s raw in the middle. The cheese has that just-melted look because it was softened with something like a hand-held steamer. The entire thing stays together—and looks nice and fat—because there’s a toothpick in the middle that holds all of the layers in place.”

MY HOME ATTEMPT. Here I am trying to remember how to assemble a burger. But whatever, look at the lighting. What a nice glow for such a mediocre creation.

The stuff that comes out of the ketchup bottle before the ketchup. The "pre-ketchup," as it were. Draw your own conclusions.

FINAL HOME PRODUCT. Carol Ladd: “The hands are a bit distracting. Perhaps a manicure with a set of acrylics would be more appealing. Also, second-day upper-lip hair growth is also distracting—maybe powder, shave or out-of-focus would look better.”

Jackson: “Your burger looks better, according to my husband.”

Food Porno #2: Kathy Casey’s Northwest Table by Kathy Casey (Chronicle, 230 pages, $35)

Star: Smoked Salmon & Little Cornmeal Pancake Bites

For my next venture, I decided on something that screamed, “I live in the Pacific Northwest!” The blini turned out delicious, with enough of a cornmeal flavor to be savory but not crunchy or cornbready: a really nice savory pancake. I forgot to buy crème fraîche, so sour cream sufficed under the chunked smoked salmon.

ACTUAL COOKBOOK PHOTO. Ladd: “This looks like a simple photo, but most likely several pounds of salmon were carefully pulled apart looking for the five perfect chunks that are used here. Same is true for the blinis. Dozens were probably made in order to find five suitable pancakes.”

MY HOME ATTEMPT. Here I am, setting up my shot. I am particularly proud of the 2 pancakes in the middle which resembled the real photo the most. Also note use of lowbrow sour cream instead of the elitist creme fraiche the recipe requested.

FINAL HOME PRODUCT. Ladd: “The cookbook photo implies that this is an elegant appetizer for a party. Your photo with a half-empty mug of beer and the paper-towel platter suggests something entirely different.”

Food Porno #3: Skinny Cooks Can’t be Trusted by Mo’Nique Imes Jackson & Sherri McGee McCovey (Amistad, 176 pages, $26.95)

Star: The Morning-After Breakfast

My husband suggested I replicate TV star/cookbook author Mo’Nique’s cover shot of herself serving a casserole in a non-supportive peasant blouse. He wasn’t thrilled with my idea of a sports bra instead. This book had the widest disconnect between the recipes and the photo: The scrambled-egg recipe didn’t call for chives, but the photo had them; the home fries showed tomatoes that the recipe didn’t include. The full recipe for the blueberry pancakes suggested using Bisquick Shake ’n’ Pour as a quicker option. Instead I shook out some of the organic mix I’d bought at New Seasons. Because you know, us skinny cooks, we can’t be…oh, never mind.

ACTUAL COOKBOOK PHOTO. Ladd: “The stylist may have put thin pieces of cardboard between each pancake to give some separation. Without the cardboard the top two pieces would flop backwards. The pancakes may also be propped up in the back.”

FINAL HOME PRODUCT. Ladd: “The eggs and potatoes look appetizing, but you need a higher stack of pancakes. If frozen strawberries had to be used, they could have been placed on the back of the plate, out of focus. Blowing some warm air on the strawberries would take away that frosty look. There’s too much empty plate.”

Jackson: “Seriously? Are you actually trying to replicate the plate as it’s composed in the book?”

Food Porno #4: The Best of America’s Test Kitchen: The Year’s Best Recipes, Equipment Reviews, and Tastings (America’s Test Kitchen, 312 pages, $35)

Star: Boston Cream Cupcakes

America’s Test Kitchen is as anal as they come. Each recipe is painstakingly researched and compiled. They’ve explored every option so you don’t have to. And the photos! How could anyone resist the money shot of chocolate glaze? Succulent vanilla filling? A recipe that calls for a “reverse creaming method”? The batter tasted like something God would bestow upon the truly virtuous. Chocolate glaze so lickable that when some fell on the floor, a friend ate it anyway. However, my first vanilla filling separated into a chunky solid and a bright yellow liquid (see below). It reminded me of an unfortunate, alcohol-soaked trip to Montreal with an ex-boyfriend who puked into a clear plastic bag and held up its contents for inspection.

ACTUAL COOKBOOK PHOTO. Jackson: “Sometimes a perfect drip—or the sensation of gooey-ness that you get from pulling the cupcake apart—can be achieved with candle wax, strategically placed and covered with the actual foodstuff: chocolate frosting in this case.”

First attempt at my own cream filling. Not sure what happened to make it this way (temperature too high? too low?), but it could not have looked more like hurl.

Tell me this is not food porn at its zenith! The open, sweet cupcake hole ready for its filling, shot in mid-air for all posterity. And all so, so delectable.

FINAL HOME PRODUCT. Ladd: “It could use a few more chocolate drips.”

Food Porno #5: Michael Mina: The Cookbook by Michael Mina (Bulfinch, 272 pages, $50)

Star: Black Mussel Soufflé with Chardonnay Saffron Cream

The porniest of the porn, this tome should be relegated to the coffee table. Yet, I couldn’t resist the golden shower of the saffron cream splashing atop a perfect flesh-colored soufflé orb. But I should have admired from afar; it wasn’t meant to be. The sauce never turned the promised ochre shade. Lumps of soufflé committed suicide off the top of the dish onto the cookie sheet. I used one big soufflé dish and not eight small ones because I don’t have eight small dishes; nor do I have a white pitcher, so used a measuring cup. The whole thing ended up looking like Southwestern-desert roadkill.

ACTUAL COOKBOOK PHOTO. Ladd: “This is a strange-looking soufflé. Actually, it doesn’t even look like a soufflé. It looks more cake-like.”

FINAL HOME ATTEMPT. Ladd: Your photo looks more soufflé-like than the one from the cookbook, even though it looks more like a puffy cobbler than a proper soufflé. A more elegant sauce pitcher would be more appropriate. Also, I don’t think that the cell phone adds much.”

FOOTNOTE. Uh, yeah. This is the souffle sinkhole that remained after we "buzzarded" the top of the souffle because it was the only part that actually got fully cooked. Bet you want to go out and spend the $50 to make this dish now!

THE AFTERMATH: After all of this feedback, I wasn’t hurt. I know my strengths. As Ladd put it, “Every successful food photo is a collaborative effort involving stylist, photographer and art director. In your defense, you were probably focusing on the food.”

And it’s true. I don’t really care if my garnishes are at right angles or if my mashed potatoes are turgid enough. It all still tastes pretty good.

Would I love to whip up an airtight, hand-decorated tin of lacy cookie delights? Sure. But that means less time for the things I care about at this time of year: getting well-fed and really drunk. Because that’s what this season is all about.