Posted on August 4th, 2008 by Carolyn
For those of you who don’t write your own food blog, you likely don’t realize how difficult it is to photograph some foods. Notorious amongst the toughies: any food, absolutely any food that is brown. It’s blah. Indifferent. No pep or vigor to it. The trick is to get some contrast – light and dark, forward and backward interest. Color, etc. I do think about it when I’m photographing food for the blog. And then there are those times when nothing I do seems to work. Take this time.
We had salad for dinner. And yes, I have some salad dressings in the refrigerator (a store-bought mango dressing that doesn’t seem to go well on greens), and the lemonade one I made last weekend. It’s very good, and we’ve eaten it several times in the last 8 days, but it’s sweet. I wanted something savory. A quick perusal of my recipe binders and I decided on one of The Silver Palate’s staples – their Basic Vinaigrette. I’ve made it innumerable times, and always liked it. It seemed like a good fit for the clean-out-the-produce-drawer salad we had. (We attended our youngest grandson’s baptism today and had an ample lunch afterwards, so we weren’t hungry for a full-blown dinner.)
I whipped up the dressing in a bowl – using my favorite O (brand) cabernet vinegar, and good French Maille Dijon mustard. I added salt, pepper, a bit of sugar (actually Splenda), some parsley (Italian) and then I drizzled in some Lucini brand olive oil. Using a whisk, I whipped until the dressing had emulsified. I haven’t looked it up, but emulsified means until it thickens – it’s when the oil and the vinegar come together and become one, like homogenizing milk.
All was going well, and then I decided I needed to photograph it. Yeah, sure. So, I poured it into a plastic bottle and did a couple of side shots of it (photo below). Blah. Brownish dressing, some smeared on the side of the jar. Not very appetizing! I poured it out on the salad, and took a picture of the salad itself. Great shot of a salad, but you would have no idea what the dressing looked like. After dinner I glanced at the empty bowl I used to whisk up the dressing, and snapped a photo of that. Perhaps more interesting than the bottle. 
I’ll give you both, however. No matter what you think of the photo, the dressing is just great. Perfect for my mixed greens (watercress, some spring mix, thinly shaved fennel, radishes, celery finely minced, radicchio sliced thinly, and a bit of Greek feta cheese). We had some leftover ribeye steak which I sliced thinly and lapped that on top of our salad. Okay, so I’m done ranting now about photographing brown food. Tell me you got the picture? Comments are always appreciated!
Basic Vinaigrette
Recipe: The Silver Palate Cookbook
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar — preferably cabernet vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons parsley — or Italian parsley
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1. Measure mustard into a bowl. Whisk in vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and herbs to taste.
2. Continue to whisk mixture while slowly dribbling in olive oil until mixture thickens. Adjust seasoning to taste.
3. Cover until ready to serve. Whisk again just before serving.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:24 am
You’ve made me wonder, how would it be if you had another colour to contrast with the ‘brown’? Not that I can actually recall brown being on my colour wheel, but you know the principle? Again, in painting, to make a shadow look part of the object being painted, use some of the colour of the object in the shadow. I’ll have to do some experimenting at the weekend! That will keep me busy, what fun!
Oh, and I liked the sound of your salad and the dressing!