What's for Dinner 19th October?

[Snip 13]

LOL, I got the plates at Dollar Tree. I liked them enough to buy 4, although I haven't sprung for the matching salad bowls. I just can't get over the $1 each price! I think I have bought the 4 we've been discussing plus three other designs 2 plates each. I'm going to visit the 99 cent store soon, to get more plates to shoot. I've really gotten into this (shooting my food, photographically), particularly since mostly it costs me only $2 for a pair of plates of any design.

I would buy only one plate (for shoots) but I figure if I buy at least two I can some day invite company over (just one person) and be able to change the designs for repeat guests, and also match the plate to the food. Tonight I served the jalapeno poppers to my neighbors, and I made a conscious decision as to which plate design made the food look best. It was the blue rings plates that looked more appealing to me.

I've never been into the aesthetics before, like which plates you use or the little sprigs of parsley, lime slices, lemon wedges, etc. When you get a camera between you and the food it looks very different, it's a whole new angle to look at food. As I go I'm remembering food shots I've seen over all the years particularly Sunset Magazine.

Food photography gives me a whole new appreciation for warm food. Now I get to choose between having good shots or warm food.

I bought 4 on sale too lol! I actually bought them for my husband so that he can stop breaking my good plates
I love taking pictures, I've always wanted to be a photographer. Had to sell my camera about 2 months ago when we were broke
I have another one but it broke along with my Microwave and tumbledryer.
Not sure what's gonna go next!
I love the look of food on odd shaped white plates. Square is my favourite.
I've got green clear glass plates but they don't photograph well.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

You have dollar stores in SA? I didn't know that. (I don't know a lot of things. In fact they wrote a book about that. Encyclopedia Britannica. It's full of stuff I don't know.)

So anyway, funny thing I'm good at art--I do drawings with technical pens and with colored pencil--but for some reason I can't figure out I'm just not good at photography. I draw stuff and compose my drawings all the time, and with a camera you just point it and shoot it, right? But I really have to struggle to get good results with my camera. Maybe I should just try drawing my food, except, you know, it might take me 3-4 hours to draw a good picture of my food, and you can guess how cold my food would be by then. I'd probably have to change to a diet of cold cuts....

You must have been reading my posts lately. I got tired of bad photography so I started buying different plates at dollar stores and a few import stores (better, but more expensive). (I started throwing in sprigs of parsley and cucumber slices too, because that's what the big time food photographers do.) I like the look of food on plain white plates because the design of the plate can compete with the food while white gives a nice contrast and white kind of disappears in photos. I've got both round and square dinner plates now. I have three different designs of colored plates, and this doesn't include my actual real plates which are all in storage because I'm between houses... (File this under "short story long.")

A few weeks ago the only kind of plates I had were (1) paper, or (2) these stupid clear glass plates that I rescued from my mom's yard sale... And they just don't look good photographically, although you'd think they would work as good as white in disappearing, but they don't.

I'd probably be better off just putting the food on the bare table. That reminds me of a story about a girlfriend I had when I was about 20. I was invited over to her house to have dinner with her parents and siblings, and they served fried chicken, just put it on the bare table. I never saw that before. (I'm glad they didn't serve mashed potatoes with it.) Um, I didn't ever have dinner with them again after that. I sometimes wonder if that wasn't their intention....

So anyway I still don't know what I'll have for dinner but it's now only 15-1/2 hours away, getting shorter every minute. I guess I better decide soon. Maybe I'll sleep on it. (Probably a good idea considering my laptop just informed me that I have 20 minutes of battery left, and the power LED is flashing on and off.)

So I had betterf[W9@E[0IPA3wopeuv%^'cu[aue"URE....................>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>