An Actual Post about Food Styling!

 

Scotch pie with 1980s decorative touches

It has been a few weeks since my last post.  Since May 8th  I have written 2 food related articles for our Laurentian paper, and I have been working on a buffet scene for a French/Canadian film production.   I am happy to report that I had a moments pause on set to actually take pictures of some of my work.  Something that I wish I had done when working on Barney's Version.  I did not yet have a iPhone when I styled that contract, and probably would not have had the time to use my camera anyways.  I took a picture of a "Scotch pie" (pictured above), that I made with salt dough that is very similar to 3 that I made last summer for Mirror Mirror.  This time I knew where I was going, and was able to make my pie in about half the time.  I was not completely satisfied with the effect shellac gave to my 3 pies for Mirror Mirror. For this contract I used an egg wash to give the pie a more "edible " feel. I also used an edible browning liquid called Bouquet Garni to give the pie a warm natural look,  and add a little more relief. Bouquet garni is a food stylist's best friend and is far superior to the liquid Beef Bovril I used before I discovered BG. All my pies consisted of a frame and were covered in salt dough, and then baked at 325F for several hours. The egg wash was added for the last hour of cooking, and I used BG once the pie had cooled.  In the pie pictured above I used a large Dutch oven as a frame (a real time saver).  A cardboard frame works well to, but takes much longer to construct.

 Three canapes all made without milk or meat.  I made a "salmon cream/mousse" with a soya based "creamed cheese", and I made a compound butter with margarine, curry powder and turmeric.  The quiches are made with eggs, water and parsley.  Parsley is an herb that keeps its' vibrant green when cooked.  I skipped the milk so that the quiches yellow color would pop, and because they would spend a lot of time on set and I wanted them to be edible if need be.

 

Piece montee: Fruit and nuts

   Unfortunately I did not take this piece from the 

intended angle, but you get the drift.

As always many of the foods I prepared did not make it into the final party scene.  And of course what did make it will be seen on camera (if the scene is not cut in final edit), for mere seconds.  It's the way it goes.  I am not naming the project at this time (as it is ongoing), and will probably only be seen in France.  I think every one was happy with my work and I did enjoy myself.  The film is set in the 80s and I love the over the top decorative elements.  We are presently in a kind of tasteful, but stark white on white food styling trend that is easier to do, but often a lot less fun. It also has a lot of prop stylists out of work in the world of photography.