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Archive for the ‘Shoots’ Category

Saucy Suzanne

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, recipes, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

The world seems to divide into two, those who like the smell of petrol and those who prefer the smell of chlorine, those who like wet food and those who prefer dry food. I definitely prefer wet food! Soups, stews, pies, tagines etc (the thought of nibbling on a dry ryvita makes me recoil in horror). Last week I was at Taste of Dubai as all self respecting foodies would have been and met up with some colleagues from work. I got chatting to Suzanne, our Bareface Entertainment Booker and realised that she has taken wet food to another level! Suzanne explained to me that she will not actually eat something unless it has an accompanying sauce, gravy, dip or relish to go with it. Her main gripe is that the proportion of sauce to main dish is often very inadequate and so she ends up leaving half the food on her plate uneaten. I have to agree with her, when I cook a roast I make buckets of gravy to go with it.

”A sauce is a liquid, creaming or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, moisture and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa meaning salted.

Sauces may be used for savoury dishes or deserts. they can be prepared cold and served cold like mayonnaise, prepared cold and served luke  warm like pesto, or can be cooked and served warm like béchamel or cooked and served cold like apple sauce.

A cook who specialises in making sauces is a saucier.” (wikipedia)

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I recently did a sauce shoot with photographer Hikmat W and W Studio for Delicio which is an Omani based company specialising in dressings and pasta sauces.

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Now the problem with many sauces are that they can be calorific so here is a delicious healthy recipe for ketchup which is known for its high sugar content (and so often a favourite of children, my god daughter eats it off her plate with hand!!!). Check out more low cal recipes on Spark People.

Minutes to Prepare: 5   Minutes to Cook: 15   Number of Servings: 100
Ingredients
Tomato Paste, 1 can (6 oz) (remove)
*Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, 3 tsp (remove)
Cider Vinegar, .75 cup (remove)
Garlic powder, 1 tsp (remove)
*Onion powder, 1 tsp (remove)
Salt, 4 tsp (remove)
Directions
In medium sauce pan place tomato paste and stir until smooth. Slowly add in splenda, water, and vinegar, continuing to stir until smooth. Place over low heat, add all other ingredients and bring to simmer while stirring. Refrigerate after cooling. Makes about 100 tablespoon servings.
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Saucy Suzanne eating sauce!!!!
1. Donna Hay, 2. Bill Granger, 3. http://www.preparedpantry.com, 4. http://www.simplyrecipes.com, 5.www.mixgreensblog.com, 6.www.femail.com.au

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Cooking with Khulood

Posted in Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I have just returned from a great new experience! I was working on a tv cookery program with Emirati Chef, Chef Khulood Atiq for Abu Dhabi TV. As I work mainly on stills and tv comercials it was great to see how a tv program is put together. Our set was modern and clean, white and turquoise with accents of red props including red Kenwood machines which I was of course pleased to see.

I was in charge of setting the themed table on set as each episode has a different them and styling the dishes for the close up shots.

The control room was upstairs where the director David Coyle from the UK would switch from camera 2 to camera 3, back to close ups on camera 1 etc. I however spent most of my time in either the props room or in the back kitchen which got fairly chaotic on a daily basis!

This is where we prepped all the ingredients and made some of the dishes ahead of time. ”Here’s one I made earlier!!”

I have been trying to get more knowledge of Emirati food and it is surprisingly hard to find this information so I was grateful to Chef Khulood who works as a Emirati Food Consultant for TDIC (Tourism Development & Investment Company) who taught me so much. She cooked everything from Semach Al Hasho, stuffed fish to Sagaw, sago. We also diversified into Emirati sushi made with rocca and spiced hammour and Emirati pizza. I have learned that saffron, cardamom powder, sugar, flour and ghee are key ingredients in Emirati cuisine.

Chef Khulood

I have to say a huge thank you to Executive Producer-Charbel who did everything from buying props to washing the dead goat in the shower! Script Writer and ingredients coordinator Susie who taught me Arabic everyday and Assistant Executive Producer-Jaad who spent most of his time in the supermarket but kept us all entertained, all from Firehorse in Lebanon.

And yes, the last episode was cooking a whole goat in true Emirati style! It was the first time I had seen one being prepared for cooking and now I can definitely say I have styled a baby goat. Always a winner on the CV!!!!

Watch Sarareed with Chef Khulood on Abu Dhabi Emirates channel everyday throughout Ramadan at 3pm.

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Meeting Meeta

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a food photography and styling course here in Dubai. It was held by Meeta K Wolff who is the author of the very successful ‘Whats for lunch Honey?’ blog. It was organized by Sally Prosser of My Custard Pie  blog fame and was held at Nasimi Beach at Atlantis where I have to say we were totally spoilt! We had cocktail demonstrations and cooking demonstrations from their talented chefs as well as a full on Arabian banquet in the evening where all course attendees got to know each other better after our first day of learning. It was great to talk and share with other bloggers and foodies.

It was very inspirational to hear how Meeta has developed her skills of photography and food styling over the years driven by her love of food and to learn of the success she is now experiencing. I personally learnt  a lot about my camera, what I want from my camera and how to use it as a proper tool.

Lunch!

Cocktails and Chefs

On day two we all met at Lafayette Gourmet at Galleries Lafayette for a guided tour by Chef Russell and for more photography challenges!

Meeta showing us how its done!!

A huge thank you to Meeta, Sally and Alison from Nasimi for all the effort and organization that went into this inspiring course!

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Are you Dating?

Posted in food tips & techniques, recipes, Shoots, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 25, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Recently  I was asked to style an Arabian Lifestyle stock shoot for Arabian Eye. This involved two very talented photographers, Katarina Premfors and Rich Facun and the equally talented cameramen Nick Davidson and Andrew Clemson both from Alchemy. Now, all stock shoots are pretty hectic as the aim is to get as many quality shots as possible but when you have two photographers and film rolling you have to make sure that scenes work from all angles and everyone has a set-up to shoot!!!

I was responsible for the props, wardrobe and food. Luckily I was given two fabulous assistants, Simona and Sandiya to make this all possible. Here is the thing, you cannot do an Arabian Lifestyle shoot without dates and Arabian coffee served from a dalla (Arabian coffee pot). And to convey the Arab culture of hospitality I usually have to buy quite a lot of dates!

The Date, some facts……..
1. The English name as well as the Latin species name comes from the Greek word, daktulos,  which means finger because of it’s elongated shape.
2. Egypt produces the most dates at 1,350,000 metric tonnes and the UAE are 5th at 795,000 metric tonnes per year.
3. Dates are used in savoury dishes such as the Moroccan tagine, sweets such as Ka’ak, the Arabic cookie and in various date desserts popular in the West.
4. Dates are fed to camels, horses and dogs in the Sahara.
5. Traditionally, it is believed that dates can counteract alcoholic intoxication!!!(mmm, not sure about this one!)
6. Dates are a natural laxative so good for preventing constipation!
Well, as I mentioned earlier I am always left with rather a large amount of dates at the end of one of these shoots so I just choose one of the numorous recipes on the internet or from cookbooks for date cakes, date cookies, date squares etc but here is a tasty one called date drop cookies….
Ingredients:
1/2 cup , 4 ounces, of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Date filling:
1 pack, 8 ounces, dates, cut up
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup warm water
Preparation:
1. Bring dates, sugar and water to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring, until dates are thickened. About 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Cream butter and sugar, stir in egg, water, flour, vanilla, baking soda and salt.
3. Drop cookie dough by the teaspoonful onto a lightly greased cooking sheet.
4. Place  half a teaspoonful of date mixture on top of the cookie dough.
5. Bake at 350 degrees or 180 degrees for 10 to 15 mins.

Before

After

 

Share with friends, family and hardworking Bookers in the office. Enjoy your date!

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The Studio Kitchen

Posted in personal, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Its done! We have completed the new kitchen in The Studio, Al Quoz. With bespoke kitchen units, a new fridge, 5-hob gas cooker with electric fan oven, a new extractor fan, a new hot water tank and even a moveable centre unit with a gas hob insert! This has been designed to be a functioning kitchen for all food stylists as well as ideal for shooting cookery webisodes. The colours are neutral greys which can be propped with numerous complimentary colours to achieve different looks. It is also equipped with chopping boards, pots, pans and knives to help food stylists lug a little less. And thanks to Rehana from Kenwood we can also boast top of the range cooking machines, blenders, coffee machines and more which are on their way as we speak!

To book this space go to The Studio. Thank you to Nick Davidson, Selva, Jumeirah Carpentry, Rehana, Elisa and Candice for making this happen.

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Fadi and The Frozen Yogurt Factory

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Last week I met Fadi Younes who is the proud owner of The Frozen Yogurt Factory in Dubai Mall. As you can imagine shooting anything frozen is tricky, with ice cream it is preferable to use fake as it can be controlled and therefore quicker in the long run. These yoghurts however had to look like Mr Whippy straight out of the machines. Sometimes these are made in resin by very talented props makers, but this is very expensive, takes time and once the model arrives there is only so much you can do with it!

I went down to the store earlier in the week to select some of the 50 toppings for our shoot, these range from fresh fruit, gummy bears, mini choc chips and grated oreos (one of the top sellers I was told!) I also had a little practice on the machines and as I suspected it was hard to get that perfect pyramid swirl! We also timed the yoghurts and worked out we had 3 to 4 mins to shoot each one! Scary!!

Fadi had three machines and the yoghurt mix, strawberry, mango and coconut delivered to The Studio the night before the shoot. Once the machine is turned on this mix is frozen in a matter of minutes ready to be dispensed, amazing! Luckily Fadi is excellent at making these yoghurt swirls so I concentrated on working on the composition and balancing the colours of the toppings. We worked out that freezing the yoghurt once a perfect swirl had been created gave us a valuable few more minutes on set!

Just after lunch, Fadi, whose background is in graphic design came up with an idea he wanted to try. We had earlier discussed that we like the yoghurt clean and I had placed the strawberries around it as opposed to on it. Fadi wanted to go step further and do circles in the flavoured syrups around the yoghurt and place the toppings in this. It made for a much more exciting image as there was movement as well as texture. I loved Fadi’s enthusiasm once we got going with this idea!

Frozen yoghurt is a much healthier treat than ice cream as it has a lot less calories. The Frozen Yogurt Factory has positive feedback in Time Out and when I visited the store there were people constantly popping in. One of the great things is that you pay by weight and it is self service so you can decide exactly how much of each topping you want.

Comment from Time Out reader

You will find the store by the cinema, opposite Sega Republic, Dubai Mall. If you are off shopping this weekend why not pop in for a guilt-free treat!

Thank you to Roger Payling, photographer and his assistant Selva and to The Studio and of course to Fadi for being such a creative and enthusiastic client!

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Kenwood to Bollywood

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Last week we were at Palmonade, a kitchen showroom on the Beach Road for four days to shoot a Kenwood campaign. This time we were specifically shooting images for the Indian market which meant both the food and the wardrobe had a strong Indian influence. The photographer was Daryl Patni, the agency TMH and the crew and models from Bareface. Both Angie, the wardrobe stylist and I threw ourselves into it spending hours at a time down at Mina Bazaar, myself looking for pots, pans and rolling pins etc and Angie picking out the loveliest saris,(on one of the shoot days we actually counted her saying the word ”sari” 15 times in three minutes! Just a little obsessed!!!)

I had treated myself to two new cookbooks for this shoot, one for its incredible information on Indian spices, THE INDIAN KITCHEN by Monisha Bharadwaj and one on its fantastic propping, EAST INDIAN COOKBOOK by Manju Malhi mixing both Indian antique with modern western tableware. I was able to achieve something similar by buying props in Karama, Mina Bazaar, Zara Home  and Tavola.

We shot 4 to 5 machines a day over the three days with the last day concentrating on the the Kitchen Machine and the  Kitchen Chef with Chef Osama, who brought down lovely Arabic pastries from his own baker. The three new machines featured were the …..

HB 890 KMIX Triblade 5 in 1


This hand blender  comes with the the triblade, the soup XL and a durable metal balloon whisk as well as a chopping blade and shredding disk with the 1 litre food processor and is available in white, cream, black, silver and red. We shot the red model so we coupled it with a lovely green coriander chutney amongst other dishes.

The BL 480


This blender has three speeds and crushes ice, has a grating mill and a grinding mill. Ideal for those spices needed to make curries!

The BL718


This slick blender is a little more hardcore being more powerful with five variable speeds and metal body. It is the first Kenwood blender to have a thermal shock resistant glass jug which means both hot and cold liquids can be blended. I very much liked the weight of this machine!

Some styling tips when doing curries:

1. keep bowls small to make and curries more attractive by having a smaller mass of sauce as it is often brown in colour.

2. use ready made curry sauces (to save time but adjust colours if needed) and cook vegetables and meat separately and mix together  last minute to keep ingredients defined in the sauce.

3. think outside the box! I didn’t have any saffron to garnish my mango lassi so i cut very thin slithers of beetroot  to place on top. it worked a treat!

Here are some behind the scenes shots of this very fun shoot…..

A massive thank you to Rehana from Kenwood for being such a cool client, Zahra and Darine from TMH  and to Palmonade for letting us totally take over again! And a little special thank you to Ant for keeping my work space so tidy and functioning!!!

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You got to Espresso yourself!

Posted in food tips & techniques, Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

This week we did a three day shoot for DeLonghi. DeLonghi are an Italian, family owned and run company in Traviso near Venice. Interestingly the company started out repairing and then making oil-filled radiators. Now they make everything from electric ovens to ice-cream makers. There are over 20 categories of coffee machines and we shot a selection of these. The images were clean, sleek and sophisticated, some shots were with models and some were straight forward still lifes but the heroes each time were the espresso, cappuccino and the caffe latte.

The espresso is a concentrated coffee brewed by hot water being forced at pressure through coffee grounds. Espresso often has a thicker consistency than coffee brewed using other methods. And the stronger the brew the more crema (foam) you get. It has been recorded that the espresso was invented as far back as 1884.

The cappuccino is a coffee made from espresso, hot milk and steamed milk froth. The name comes from the Capuchin friars, referring to the colour of their habits. It is a morning drink and rarely drunk after 11am.

The caffe latte is similar to a cappuccino but with more milk and less milk foam. It was actually invented in California and not in Europe although similar breakfast drinks did exist. If you ask for a latte in Italy you are likely to get a glass of milk.

A caffe latte differs from a latte macchiato in that in a latte macchiato, espresso is added to milk, rather than the reverse.

The location of the shoot took place at the Hacker showroom on Sheik Zayed Road. Hacker is another family owned company this time from Germany. They make beautiful high-end kitchens. Their kitchens range from 60,000 to 2 million dirhams and feature sensomatic drawers and magic cupboards where the inside shelves gently pop up and become extra work surfaces. Genius!

Behind the scenes:

Food styling tip:

To create longer lasting foam slowly heat some full fat milk in a sauce pan and add clear washing up liquid. Whisk the warm milk with an electric hand whisk. For close-up shots it is always better to use the real thing and a coffee machine is required for this.

A huge thanks to Rihana from Kenwood, Zahra and Darine from TMH, photographer Richard Allenby-Pratt, Samir and Scott from Hacker and the Bareface team, producers Neha and Wafa, wardrobe-Angie, hair and make up-Kat, booker-Leila and our lovely models.

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Fruit Ninja

Posted in food tips & techniques, personal, Shoots, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2011 | 3 Comments »

“Hi my name is Mary-Kei and I am a Ninjaholic!”

Last month my friend introduced me to Fruit Ninja, a game on his ipad. It is a ipad/iphone game by Australian developers Halbrick Studios. Well, of course he had no idea what an addictive personality I have but I was instantly hooked. Unfortunately he would only let me use his ipad for the occasional 30 mins here or 20 mins there which was a little frustrating but I then realized I could download it to my iphone. Yeay! This of course has now led to hours of wasted time! At one point I was setting my alarm early so I could play Fruit Ninja before going to a shoot! As if waking up at 5 isn’t early enough!!!

I don’t know what the attraction is, whether is the vibrant coloured apples, pears, watermelons etc, or the delicious splatting noise and mess they all make when you slice them with your finger, I particularly like the “phfffutt” noise you get when slicing the banana! It could be the changing of pace throughout the game or the constant encouragement and well-dones, who knows. I am not a huge computer game fan and to be honest have never really seen the attraction but something about Fruit Ninja has got to me..

I play the Classic version where my high score is 479, this version can get a little stressful as if you hit a bomb it is all over and you are blinded by the ridiculously bright light of the exploding bomb. It’s quite charming in that it gives you little fruit facts, “an apple tree is able to produce fruit for up to 100 years” or ” mangoes belong to the same family of plant as poison ivy”. Fascinating! I do prefer the Arcade version as it is quick and a little more fast-paced. My current high score is 769. I was told that the world top score is a crazy 17,000. I’m not sure I believe that, that person must really have no life!

I am pleased to say my addiction is a little more controlled now. I do still play a few games everyday but it’s not at the expense of not talking to a friend I haven’t seen for a week and I am certainly not setting my alarm early anymore. As I have wasted countless hours on this I decided I needed to do something constructive so I decided on a Fruit Ninja food shoot. This was shot by Mike McKelvie www.bareface.com and I love the results. Who would have thought all those wasted hours could lead to a beautiful food shoot! Please note the ”50 bonus point” dragon fruit, my favourite!

Styling tips: All fruit was cleaned and polished. A little oil was added to some of the fruit ie apples and pears but not bananas as they immediately start to go brown. The cut fruit was sprayed with oil to stop the oxygen from turning them brown. In these cases you have to work quite quickly as fruit does degenerated fast. Fruit was held in place with skewers and tooth picks which were then skillfully retouched out afterwards.

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Splurge at the Burj

Posted in Shoots, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 6, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Every now and again you get booked on a fabulous shoot. Last week was exactly that, as we shot a five day fashion influenced lifestyle shoot at the Burj Al Arab, Dubai’s 7 star hotel.  It is my favourite building (from the outside) in Dubai. Not only is it amazing to be able to walk freely around the entire hotel, but to get to see service elevators, kitchens and staff areas is always fascinating to me. There are 1540 staff employed at the Burj and over 300 chefs! They have 6 restaurants and 2 bars. We had to shoot in all of them!

I love shooting at the Burj (we have done several shoots for them ) because, dare I say it we get to enjoy a fantastic lunch! As any good producer knows, lunch is of utmost importance to a crew. And although I am always content with our sandwiches and salads you cannot compare it to a sit down lunch with smiling waiters and chefs. At Bab al Yam, the poolside restaurant where we were invited to eat, the sashimi is on tap and the choice of salads, cakes and cheese just make you feel spoilt. Also unlike some of the hotels we have long shoots in the main course changed daily, that deserves two extra stars any day! Lunch at Bab AL Yam…

The food…..

The team included photographer Martin Beck www.martinbeckphotography.com, our “on it” producer Neha, hair and make-up by Toni and photographer’s assistants Jay and Sharif as well as my lovely assistant Dina. These are a little peep into what we shot…

Of course all this cannot be done with the help of certain people so a huge thanks to Dana at Saks, Burjuman www.burjuman.com,  and Michael Cinco Couture, www.michaelcinco.com who were so helpful. Also to Emma and of course the wonderful Marco, marketing and communications manager at the Burj.

Can’t wait until the next one….

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