All posts in Food Styling

Phew….the month of April just flew by. I mean flew by. And here we are for this months, The Inspired Plate assignment. The food stylist and food photographers that share this project are pretty amazing. Not only do they share their passion for food and photography, but they also share a camaraderie for everything that happens in-between. This months assignment is featuring Snacks. I decided that I would focus on what I would like to call, Adult snacks. For me, the month of April was filled with childrens birthday parties, filled to the brim with store bought cakes, pizzas, and apple juice, and I could use a little bit of adult food. And because I believe that life, love, and good friendships meet in the middle around good food, you will also see a few friendly peeps in my feature today.

This post was especially awesome, since I had the opportunity to share it with my good friend Tara Coakley. She is transplant foodie from Nova Scotia, she is trained in the culinary arts, and has a true passion for making good eat for friends and family. She is starting her own food styling and food photography journey, and what better way for her and I to share the afternoon. While our husbands chased the kids around, BBQ’d the black bean burgers, and sneaked wine and cheese from our set up, we happily photographed away. Notice how the bread offerings gets smaller and smaller through the shoot. This just means that not only were these snacks a blast to style and photograph, but they were some delicious eats too.

Joining me this month featuring her take on Snacks is the very talented, Sabrina Wong | Perth Food Photographer. Continue along to see what waistline stretching snack will make our mouths water for the rest of the day.

Enjoy my friends.

snippets from my garden.

Breakfast.

I am thrilled to be back this month participating with the amazing team of photographers that make up The Inspired Plate. This month the theme is breakfast. Breakfast in our house, except for the cute people I share it with is not photograph worthy. What inspired my take on this theme were memories from holidays or breaks home from graduate school, to visit my papa. When I would spend time with him in the mornings, it was at the table as he read the paper or did the cross word, drinking his coffee, having biscuits with jam. There was always coffee grounds on the counter. Some of my most life changing conversations happened during these shared breakfasts. In these photos I wanted to recreate the comfort of those shared moments, materialize those memories, smell the coffee, pick up the spoon sticky with jam. Yes, this is breakfast.

Breakfast.

This month I am honored to share this project with with my dear sweet friend Laurie Vengoechea | Southern CA Food Photographer. I am in love with her home cooked delights, and lovely food styling that captures all of the delicious goodness.

This month, I am embarking on a whole new area of inspiration and creativity, food photography and styling.  Almost two years ago I had a conversation with a friend Laurie Vengoechea, about how much I enjoyed food photography.  The energy I felt in photographing something that couldn’t run the other way when my camera came out or stick its tongue out at me.  Fast forward to the present, where Laurie invited me to participate in a project called The Inspired Plate, with monthly food photography and styling challenges.  I am a bit intimidated, since there are some seriously talented and creative people that participate in this project, but here we go!

Please follow along the circle of amazing food photographers, starting with Jennifer Grant | Michigan Food Photographer and Stylist.

This month the theme or subject is Prepared Eggs.

My interpretation: Healthy Egg Salad. Recipe below.

Mind you, my goal was to capture exactly how I cook and prep food in my kitchen with just a bit more tidiness and camera close by to capture the process.

Recipe for Healthy Egg Salad to feed 2 – 3 people:

Prepare 6 hard boiled eggs. Once eggs are cooled separate egg whites from yolks, reserving 3 yolks. Dice red onion to provide ~2 – 4 tablespoons, and set aside. Combine 3 tablespoons of plain lowfat/non-fat greek yogurt with 1 tablespoon of lowfat mayonaise. Combine 3 egg yolks with diced onions and yogurt/mayo mixture to homogenous consistency. Add yolk mixture to roughly chopped egg whites, gently folding mixture together. Season egg salad to taste. Serve on artisan bread with spring lettuce mix.

In the future I would consider substituting either the tablespoon of mayo or one of the egg yolks with half of a ripe avocado…just a thought!

-Jayme

French macarons are quite popular right now, and in my opinion right up there with gourmet cupcakes, and chocolate and wine pairing trends you see here in the Bay Area. Baking and photography are probably my two most favorite artistic outlets and so I was determined to learn how to make this delightful french dessert. In actuality this was my second try at making them, the first time was disastrous. I am a huge fan of Helene Dujardin and her foodie blog Tartlette. And so in my quest to get these right, I headed straight to her blog to read “demystifing macarons”. Her tips did the trick, and I produced my first successful batch of macarons. Nate called them, “little hamburgers”, but said they tasted merveilleux (wonderful).

|Strawberry Macarons with Whipped Chocolate Ganache Filling|