I'm Ready for my Close Up!

I just got home from LA yesterday - Ron and I were working out there and decided to spend a few extra days vacationing.  What was I working on?  Oh just a little food styling and catering for a webisode.  That's right - my food is going to be famous!  I am very lucky that Ron's good friend and boss gave me the opportunity to do this.  I worked in an amazing kitchen in a beautiful home in Pacific Palisades with lots of borrowed kitchen supplies!  This picture isn't so great - but it gives you a good look at the kitchen.  

Double oven, six burners, two sinks (one with a garbage disposal), tons of counter space, and a microwave drawer.  The only problem was that there was nothing in the kitchen!  The cabinets were staged with dishware so all of my supplies ended up on the counters - I managed to make quite the mess.  I didn't realize how much I'd miss little things like a drying rack!  See that orange thing on the counter?  That's my new knife bag - hopefully I'll have more uses for it in the future.  I got good use out of my pretty apron that my good friend Marybeth made me for my birthday last year - see her blog about it here.  

For the cast and crew I did a store bought/homemade breakfast combo.  Store bought fruit, yogurt, coffee, muffins and bagels with assorted cream cheeses, butter and jelly.  

As for the homemade portion of breakfast we had a couple of Vegans in the house so I made a vegan crumb cake from scratch using a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum.  It turned out okay but I didn't have cornstarch so I left it out - I'm curious to see what this would have tasted like if I had added it.  Either way I think the Vegans appreciated that I made a coffee cake just for them - whether they ate it or not!  I also made a frittata with ham, roasted red peppers and goat cheese that everyone really liked and some roasted potatoes. 

Lunch was just sandwiches and salads.  

Sandwiches 

Vegan Tofu Vietnamese hoagies

Roasted Vegetables and Herbed Goat Cheese 

Turkey, Coleslaw and Russian dressing  

Roast Beef, Cheddar, Lettuce & Tomato 

Chicken, Roasted Red Pepper and Artichoke Puree, Lettuce & Tomato

Salads

White bean and Israeli Couscous with radishes, arugala, lemon and olive oil (you can see it in the lower right hand corner of the photo above!)

Romaine Salad with Black beans, Corn, Chayote and chile vinaigrette 

Crudite with hummus

The prop food was fancy BBQ so I made a potato salad with tomatoes and green beans and a pasta salad inspired by this pasta primavera salad from Smitten Kitchen.  I can't wait to make Deb's recipe with the fettucine, procuitto and parm - but for this shoot I wanted to keep it meat and dairy free and thought that the fettucine wouldn't really look like a cold BBQ salad.  There was also a fixin's plate, corn, fruit salad, crudite and Sangria.  On the grill there was burgers, hot dogs, chicken and grilled vegetables.  

Here are pictures of the table in the beautiful Southern California sun and then soon after in a little sun shower!  

It only rained for a few minutes during the shoot but the crew was nice enough to rig up a cover for the food.  I love this picture!  Such a fuss over my spread!

Overall I'd say it was a success.  I have several things to work on and learn in the styling department but hopefully I'll be getting more practice soon!  I'll post a link to the webisode when it's up.  

After the shoot was over Ron and I had a few days to relax - and of course our time in CA included some great food and drink!  I'll post about that later this week. 

I'm starting a new job tomorrow so I won't have quite as much time on my hands to blog - but I'll try my best to post a couple of times a week.  Wish me luck on my new job!