Behemoth

Fruit. Eh. Yeah, I have to admit I'm not feeling the fruit thing quite so much either. It's almost hard to make that stuff look bad. The thing that's useful about posting cooked dishes/dishes in progress is that it is what most people have been doing already in the dinner thread and in the blogs, which was sort of the point of this exercise. So I would either go in that direction, or else pick some commonly occuring challenge like "glare" or "dim lighting" and try to find a means of dealing with it, either in the course of the photo, or via photoshop. At least, that would be much more useful for me. It would definitely be fun to have a non-"plate"-focused thread, but here the point was primarily to improve the utilitarian snapshots lots of us were already taking.

Definitely, that's why, for example the pad thai recipe asks for half the scallions and sprouts to be cooked, the other half to be added raw at the end. Makes good plating sense, never mind the photos. I have to say, though, while I've always been aware of how I serve things, having to take photos of the fished product really forces the issue of "what will look good".

So this was my lunch...Pad Thai. I used dynamic focus so it wouldn't focus on nearest thing. I used "vivid" setting to punch up the greens a little. (They were just pale things.) Shot the photo in front of a window, with white balance set to shady. I think it's too dark a photo, still. Bah, shoulda probably used some sort of fill light, huh? The flash tends to really glare off these dishes. This is like trying to put a t-shirt on an octopus, so many things to do all at once! I'm hoping with some practice at least 4 or 5 of those will be semi-automatic. Ellen, where and what would I buy to make a diffuser?

I remember the tomato salad. Yum. That may have been where I was picking up the spices. But I am guessing the "curry powder" is a substitute for one of those spice mixes common in the middle east. I know the lebanese one involves cumin, cinnamon, pepper and some other stuff...I would guess the iraqi version bears some similarity. I find garam masala to be a credible substitute, though these days it is easy to find the lebanese mix in most middle eastern groceries. Still, curry powder would probably be okay too. What I assumed was sumac must have been the tamarind. I do remember cumin, sourness and the smoke flavors. And that the fish was dry, and was eaten with a wet salad. Beyond that I guess I shoulda paid more attention. Hmm, might be worth trying to come up with a variation on the Weber...indirect low heat with the lid on might work. I think I need to buy the book! Edited to add -- I just realized, salt & pepper on the fish: most lebanese would use the pepper mix, not plain black pepper, when they talk about "pepper". Could be the same in Iraq. Maybe that's what I am thinking was the spice rub? I might give it a try with lebanese pepper on the fish and curry powder in the salad...that sounds about right(?)

It is very cruel to post this picture right before lunchtime. Looks like fine dining to me

Hiya, The one thing about this photo that keeps bugging me is that my eye keeps getting drawn the the space between the two pastries, towards the middle of the picture. If I were to take that shot, I would try to maybe have the front pastry much more dominant in the foreground, and the other one more blurry and hidden in the background. Having said that, I wanna come to your house for dinner! I really should never look at this thread before lunch... I love the composition of the crab photo -- though I've noticed glare coming off food and plates on a lot of pictures, including this one, can be distracting. This is something with which I've also been having trouble. Does anyone have any strategies for avoiding that?

Zora, does that book contain a recipe for masgouf? I found what is supposed to be a Claudia Roden version via google but it just doesn't sound like what I remember. All other recipes I've found seem to be similar to that one. I specifically remember the cooking process being closer to smoking than to quick grilling, and with a spice rub on the skin. It was about 15 years ago that I had it (in Baghdad), but it was quite memorable -- they impaled the fish on vertical sticks skin side facing the fire and it took what felt like forever before it was ready to eat. There was some technique involved in building the fire, as you needed the smoke to blow onto the fish, but it was set away from the flames. I think the rub involoved cumin and maybe sumac? That I don't remember as well. I just remember the skin side was like a spicy smoked whitefish, and the flesh side was just steamed. Wonderful. I can't believe publishers refused the book! I would think people would be even more curious because of the war.

This is something I was wondering about -- I have been taking my photos with my glasses off. There is a little dial on the front of the camera that supposedly compensates for my vision impairment. Anybody know if I am doing the right thing here? I liked the last berry shot the best, too. Reminds me of chinese paintings. For the black beans -- I mean, its just hard to make that kind of dish look good without some form of garnish. Why are canned black beans always so much more glossy, anyway? This question has always haunted me. Hey, at least they liked some of your photos. I like Heidi's idea of focusing on one subject, though this thread seems to be picking up a little steam which is nice.

See, that is really cool. "Aish" means life, which is a common word for bread in some places. Tanoor is the clay over it's baked in. So basically it is literally "clay oven bread". "Tanoor", or "Saj" bread would describe this rustic-style bread if you were in Lebanon or Syria. I think the difference in texture comes from it being almost seared against the walls of the oven, more like Indian Naan, as opposed to the stuff baked in industrial ovens that we would get in cities. My free form geek-out is now over, sorry

That is an impressive difference, and it is making me very hungry. Lots of digital cameras now have those functions built in. I was going to post a pair of photos I took last week of some lettuce & nasturtium salad, one with "vivid" setting, one without. In the default photo the lettuce looked kind of grayish blah, but with the boost in color it looked beautiful. On my screen the difference was really impressive, but once I shrunk the photos down to gullet-size it was not as obvious. (The default just looks a little darker). Worth playing with those features though...

I always thought pita was the Middle Eastern word for the Turkish pide which doesn't have a steamed center and the Greek pitta which has a filling. I guess it depends on what one means by "authentic." It seems like people use the word pita to refer interchangeably to greek and middle eastern styles. I have to admit I never heard the word "pita" before coming to the U.S., I assumed it refered to a greek or turkish product. FWIW, most levantine arabic breads I have had experience with had a pocket or at least some sort of double layer...though the layering is more obvious in some types than others. But I guess the question is whether those were "pita". Oh, and I've gotten that effect when making tortillas too.

Jewish ... same idea ... Double whammy. Half Jewish, half Lebanese...Not only am I obsessed with food, I am obsessed with making other people obsessed with food. I'm like a Pod person of eating.

One of my all-time favorite cartoons! Have you tried changing the metering option? Like when you take a photo of a tan person wearing a white t-shirt? My camera as a default averages out the light from all parts of the frame, so sometimes I have to switch it to spot metering. Apart from photographing in more ambient light, that might be worth a try.

There are two things that I find I really can't get (done well) in Europe -- real BBQ ribs, and mexican food. I always crave these when I am abroad for a while. Maybe worth a try? I'm sure Chicago offers outstanding versions of both.

As far as I know, olive oil can be made from almost any varietal -- what is used depends on where you are. Black olives are just olives that have been sitting on the tree longer than green olives, BTW. As the proportion of oil increases in the fruit, the olive becomes blacker. (We made both green brined olives and black oil cured olives from the same tree. My family in Lebanon still makes oil for our own use, but its a long time since I was there in season. If I had to, I would guess it would make more sense to harvest them for oil once they get black, since the proportion of oil would be higher. I remember the sludge coming off the millstones was definitely tar-black, in any case.

My mom used to just wrap them in foil and leave them atop her stove's gas burner -- they got nice and charred that way. My current apartment has only an electric range and oven -- how do you do the eggplant in the oven? Broiler? Wrapped or unwrapped? The skin just wouldn't char properly last time I tried. A turkish friend of mine had a kind of aluminum pan that was designed especially for charring eggplant on a stove top. His mom had sent it to him, so he had no idea where to find one in the US. Any idea what that might be? (edited for clarity)

Help! Until now I had been using Marcella Hazan's pizza dough recipe, which I've always been able to toss into shape. Decided to try the Peter Reinhart version, which involves instant yeast, overnight in the fridge, 2 hrs on counter etc etc. After 2 hours on the counter the stuff is so soft it stretches too much in the middle, nearly see-through with some holes. And I mean, after only 2 or 3 rather gentle tosses. Other than that, I like the texture & taste much better than the Hazan version. The recipe worked exactly as described until that point. Am I doing something wrong? Am I a no-style no-skillz loser? Am I forever doomed to rolling my pies out (horrors!) with a pin? Should I start working it sooner while its still a little firm? A lot of people on here seem to be fans of the Reinhardt books, so I figured someone may have dealt with this already, or have some ideas. (edited for clarity)

Genius.

Shrimp with lobster sauce is one of those dishes that will always remind me of being 5 or 6 years old, going out to eat with my grandparents in upstate new york. (It must be a Jewish thing, despite the double-non-kosher ) The restaurant was one of those converted former A-frame steakhouses. I am so glad there is a place for this dish on eGullet. I still love it, but whenever I've ordered it since then, for old times sake, the sauce has been really much too bland. I know it isn't a highly seasoned dish, but I don't remember it being quite so -- bleh. Maybe a road trip to Queens is in the cards for next summer, I could use a good version.

On really cold days I would just leave them outside on top of a bowl of ice until I was ready to cook them. I also take the beards off at the last minute, and use a brush to scub them clean. Don't think I killed any. Before the steaming, I mean

For the past year I have walked by a little Korean "bubble tea and chocolate fondue" place near my department, and they have a little sign in the window that says "we have Pat Bing Su!". Now I know what it is The place is actually called ah-ri-rang. I wonder if there is a connection?

I love Japanese food, but indian is closer to what I'm used to culturally, so it is a lot more like "soul food": Atkins be damned, I need bread.

Wookie cookies. Is that like cow pies?

Ah, unless you read Hebrew. It's all "where your eyes go first", I guess. Ha, I actually thought of that too, as I grew up with languages that go in both directions. heidihi -- the pig photo is humbling. What I like about your photos is they have this sort of very formal structure but with informal content. What you said about photoshop is about where I am -- it is something to look into but for now I am really trying to learn the ins and outs of using the camera first. By the way, I figured out what went wrong with the egg photo in terms of focus -- this might have been obvious to you guys but my camera defaults to focusing on nearest object. I can change that very easily now, and may try to redo the pic to show the result (need more light than I have right now). For the darker pic, there are several things to try. I've found out how to change light sensitivity and the digital cameras' equivalent to film speed. For the most part what I am getting out of this is learning what technical options I have when I take a picture, and what effect they will have. I think that is something that most beginners reading this will get out of it, too. My not so secret ulterior motive in buying a large camera: I live in a small town that has 1) a newspaper with a really lousy food section and 2) a great farmer's market. The farmers avoid growing a lot of things as people don't know what to do with it, so I thought it might be fun to pitch a weekly mini-feature that would run from June through October, pick some obscure vegetable coming into season that week, show a photo of it, explain what it tastes like and give a really easy way of preparing it. Also, I really wanted to finally learn all the technical camera stuff, and have somethng I could really take a long time growing in to.

De Rien. Good lord, it's been a while...