Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
The 2,000 Pound Rib Feast
Don’t play with your food, you say? Jennifer Rubell didn’t hear you. For the opening of Performa 09, Rubell staged a “Creation” themed food installation featuring 2,000 pounds of honey-drenched ribs, 2,000 pounds of peanuts, and 2,000 pounds of ice – all mounded in tall piles. For dessert, Rubell brought in chopped down, fully mature, fruiting apple trees. They lay toppled on their sides with red apples scattered on the ground of the installation space. If the intention of this spectacle was to make a statement about mass consumption, Rubell has done just that. Guests circled her food piles, cringing slightly at the exorbitant display. Rubell is unapologetic about any offense her installation might cause, saying “I wanted people to be forced to examine why they’re so concerned about killing an apple tree.”
What do you think? Art for art’s sake or do Rubell’s antics make you question your relationship with food?
photo from 16 miles of string
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| Categories: | Events • Uncategorized | Leave a Comment |
| Tags: | culinary event • food art |
Tonight Chef and Mixologist Kathy Casey at Nightschool
Nightschool’s Drinking Lessons continues with celebrity chef and mixologist, Kathy Casey tonight at 6 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. at the Sorrento Hotel’s Hunt Club bar. Considered a pioneer of the bar-chef movement, Kathy will educate and entertain 24 lucky attendees while serving up what’s hot in cocktail culture. Kathy is the owner of Kathy Casey Food Studios® and Liquid Kitchen™. She is the author of nine cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-nominated Kathy Casey’s Northwest Table.
Nothing could coincide more perfectly for the cocktail revolution happening today than her most recent release, Sips and Apps, a sexy cocktail and appetizer cookbook.
Follow along on Foodista and Nightschool Twitter and on the Nightschool Blog for real time reporting of Kathy’s creations. All the cocktail recipes Kathy shakes up tonight will be available on Foodista.com.
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- Waiting by the River at Dawn
| Categories: | Cookbooks • Cooking tips • Events • cocktails | Leave a Comment |
| Tags: | cocktails • drinking lessons • Kathy Casey • Nightschool |
Waiting by the River at Dawn
Christopher Kimball threw down the proverbial glove and issued a “Wiki vs. Test Kitchen Challenge” on October 15th. I publicly accepted within hours, but after 3 weeks, we still haven’t heard back. I left blog comments, @tweets, and submitted a private message via Cook’s Illustrated. I’ve seen no additional announcements, and though others accepted publicly, none came from a Wiki. Further, it’s clear that his post was in response to The New York Times and TIME Magazine articles about recipe Wikis that featured Foodista and quote both of us.
Dueling Pistols image courtesy of Nfutvol
Though the idea of this challenge seems to have fallen by the wayside, the resulting discussion has been fascinating. I’ve observed a lot of confusion about how the Web works and what a Wiki is vs. a blog, a search engine, or other types of web technologies. This is the first in a series of posts where I will share some of what I’ve learned from 13 years of building large scale websites and a prior career in cooking.
So what exactly is a Wiki? Well, the whole concept is less than 10 years old and there are a number of definitions, but they all share these elements:
- Is accessed via a Web browser
- Facilitates easy creation and publishing of web pages
- Enables large numbers of people to edit the SAME page
- Links between pages
- Reports on who edited what pages and when
Print has been a medium used to convey knowledge for thousands of years, including recipes. Indeed, some of the earliest surviving cookbooks date back to the Romans, including De re coquinaria, from circa the 4th century. Gutenberg later used technology to create a new medium: mechanical printing. Replacing legions of scribe monks, his press had a major impact on the business of the printed word when it massively reduced the cost of each additional copy produced. Cookbooks quickly grew to be a significant part of the overall printing industry. Over time, more mechanization continued to lower costs to the point where hundreds of pages can be had for pennies.
Still, printing has a number of limitations relative to a Wiki. Here are a few points of comparison:
- Cannot be changed once produced
- Expensive:
- Additional cost to every copy
- Cost increasing, especially when considering the environmental impact
- Slow to produce and distribute
- Invisible editorial process
- Disconnected, getting more information/context is difficult
Wikis
- Pages are continuously improved
- Inexpensive and getting cheaper, cost of each copy is close to zero
- Fast to produce, publishing is instant
- Open and transparent editorial process
- Connected, more detail is just a click away
This is not meant to be an attack on print, in fact I have a large and treasured cookbook collection. However, I feel it is also important to point out some of cost/benefit issues missing from the debate.
Upcoming Post: Quality and Accuracy in Wikis
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| Categories: | Author • Cookbooks • Cooking tips • Events • Technique • books | 2 Comments |
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A Chance to go to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen
Normally I don’t enter a ton of cooking contests, mostly because I don’t make the time, but PAMA Liqueur sent us an email about about “Cooking with PAMA Contest” with the Grand Prize winner receiving a trip for 2 to the 2010 FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen. Which, if any of you have heard about the Food & Wine Classic, it’s pretty foodie-tastic.
If you are feeling ambitious and like pomegranate liqueur-here is the nitty gritty:
-Create a recipe of your own using at least 3 tablespoons of Pama pomegranate liqueur. It can be in an appetizer, dessert or drink.
-Get official rules and submit your recipe and photo to Pama Pomegranate Liqueur on their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pamaliqueur
-Enter by November 16
Above Photo by Joe M500
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| Categories: | Beverages • Events • Travel | Leave a Comment |
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Oktoberfest
I used to work at a German pub and instead of celebrating Oktoberfest every fall, we celebrated it all year round. Patrons would sit at long wooden tables, drinking steins of beer in a quaint pub that reeked of slow cooked sauerkraut and hot pretzels, and to every regular at the bar, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Of course things always got a little crazier at the end of September and the beginning of October when the entire pub was decorated in blue and white checkered signs and the owner would don lederhosen and tap a wooden barrel keg of beer to celebrate Oktoberfest.
Now, since I am no longer a bar maid, I get enjoy a bratwurst with a tall pilsner on the other side of the bar for a change. Perhaps I’ll even make my own soft pretzels and perfume my house with slow cooked sauerkraut to celebrate! Suddenly my mouth is already watering thinking about the tang of vinegary cabbage.
Feeling inspired to celebrate?
German Fare You Can Make at Home
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| Categories: | European • Events • German • Holiday • Uncategorized | Leave a Comment |
| Tags: | German food • octoberfest • Oktoberfest • oktoberfest food |
When Foodies and Photographers Come Together
Last Friday, a group of 75 passionate food lovers, photographers, chefs and food stylists came together for FoodSnap! an event put together by Keren Brown Media and Foodista.
It didn’t matter if you only had a point and shoot camera or zero experience behind the lens, eight other photographers and food stylists were right there holding reflectors, white cards and offering tips to help you capture the best shot. Chef Wayne Johnson from Andaluca catered lunch for the event and several other vendors provided delicious offerings, including Kathy Casey who provided the attendees with two FoodSnap! signature edible cocktail gelees; pomegranate rosemary and elderberry and cucumber. The gelees were just as beautiful as they were delicious.
Here is Keren Brown holding a tray of Kathy Casey’s Pomegranate Rosemary Gelees
Guest of honor, Lou Manna, educated, entertained and inspired us all to take better pictures in general, not just of our dishes.
Pictured above is Karlyn, Sheri, Lou, Barnaby, Keren and Melissa
Lou started us off with his basic recipe for food photography (excerpted from Food Arts – July/Aug 2007 issue):
- Start with a full helping of the camera manual. Lou says your camera’s manual is like a cookbook that will help you find the key ingredients of your camera.
- Think grey. Your camera’s light meter is calibrated to measure grey, so using a grey card to meter the reflected light or an incident meter to meter the light falling on the subject will help give you the correct exposure.
- Think white. Be aware of the White Balance setting on your camera. Do your photos often have that yellow, green or blue tint? Auto White Balance doesn’t always work; you can set it manually or take a Custom White Balance to brighten the color of your photo.
- Think Right. In the Western world we read from left to right, so it makes sense that our eyes also scan a photo the same way. Lou says there are some simple rules of good composition: a spiral composition that leads your eye clockwise; and the Rule of Thirds, where you divide your frame into a tic-tac-toe design and place your subject at one of those intersecting points.
- Serve with the proper resolution. Use some type of photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, and as Lou puts it, “cook” your photos to enhance their “visual flavor.” Set the digital oven to 300dpi with an image size of at least 5×7 in a jpeg format. “Don’t forget to meta tag your photos, use keywords, write captions, and use a descriptive file name.”
For more information and workshops check out and join Lou’s social network DigitalFoodPhotography
If you’re looking for an excellent, informative photography book, check out Lou’s Digital Food Photography book available on Amazon.com:
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- The 2,000 Pound Rib Feast
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| Categories: | Events • Photography • Uncategorized | 1 Comment |
| Tags: | digital photography • food photography • foodista • foodsnap • lou manna • photography tips |
Next Up for Drinking Lessons Robert Hess
Drinking Lessons, a Night School event continues this Sunday, September 20th with Robert Hess behind the bar at the Sorrento Hotel in Seattle. At 6 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. Hess will mix, muddle and stir for 24 lucky attendees sitting around the smooth mahogany bar at the Hunt Club that is inside the swanky Sorrento Hotel.
Seattlite Robert Hess is founder of the Chanticleer Society, author of The Essential Bartender’s Guide: How to Make Truly Great Cocktails and operator of Drink Boy.com.
Want to go? Email nightschool@hotelsorrento.com for reservations.
Can’t go but want to follow via the virtual bar? Go to http://www.foodista.com/nightschool/ on Sunday night!
Cheers!
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| Categories: | Author • Beverages • Events • cocktails | Leave a Comment |
| Tags: | drinking lessons • night school • Robert Hess • sorrento hotel |
Lights Camera Action
We are counting down the days to FoodSnap! an all-day food photography and food styling event happening this Friday, September 18th at George Town Studios in Seattle, Washington. The event has sold out, but you can follow along with us on Twitter the day of the event and stay tuned for a FoodSnap! round up blog post with highlighted tips and secrets we will have learned from the pros that you can implement at home with a simple point and shoot camera.
Here’s the list of food photographers and food stylists who will be sharing with us their magic bag of tricks!
Lou Manna
Lara Ferroni
Rina Jordan
Barry Wong
Charity Burggraaf
Kevin Fry
Tyler Rebman
Danielle Leavell
Jonathan Shmidt
Kathryn Barnard
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| Categories: | American • Author • Events • Photography • Technique | 4 Comments |
| Tags: | food photography • food styling • foodsnap • loou Manna |
Friday Fun Links
Above Photo by Summerrunner2009
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| Categories: | Cooking tips • Events • Photography • kitchen equipment | 3 Comments |
| Tags: | 100 mile diet • Ben and Jerrys • Friday Fun links • michael pollan |
FoodSnap Food Photography Workshop
Foodsnap! – a collaboration between Foodista and Keren Brown Media – is a full-day food photography workshop lead by Lou Manna, www.LouTheMan.com, award-winning Olympus Visionary and New York Times photojournalist, commercial photographer, educator and author of Digital Food Photography with over 30 years of experience.
Lou will lead the workshop with the professional assistance of Seattle’s top food photographers, Lara Ferroni – www.platesandpacks.com and Rina Jordan – www.rinajordanphotography.com, as well as other well-known Seattle photographers and stylists.
Tickets are now available on Brown Paper Tickets. Register before it’s sold out!
Possibly Related Posts:
- The 2,000 Pound Rib Feast
- Tonight Chef and Mixologist Kathy Casey at Nightschool
- Waiting by the River at Dawn
- A Chance to go to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen
- Oktoberfest
| Categories: | Events | 2 Comments |
| Tags: | food photography • food styling • foodsnap • keren brown • lou manna • Photography |
