A job suited for type a people

Speaking of food styling, I recently finished reading Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera by the foremost expert in the field, Delores Custer.

While I have absolutely no interest in ever doing food styling for a living, it’s incredibly fascinating to read about.

Delores spills the beans on the shoot with Paul Newman and how she came up with the dishes for the James Beard Awards poster. Oh, she has had to bake many a pie and a chicken (and usually undercook them and then finish the “baked” colour with various products and chemicals.

Really.

I think the fact that it is both a job of ultimate precision and perfection and also a world where much is faked for the camera, makes for a fascinating dichotomy to work in.

The book is a fun textbook that really includes everything you ever need to know about the field. Why read another tome when you’ve got this beauty at your side?

I knew about stylists using mashed potatoes in the place of ice cream, but the extremes that they go to!

Like I said, I don’t ever want to do this kind of work (I’m a Nigella kind of gal – just bung it together with good, fresh ingredients and a ton of love), but I am so glad to have read this for 3 reasons:

1. Food stylists are some of the hardest-working, most underappreciated and almost never credited for their work kind of folks. I will never take them or their skills for granted.

2. The food that they produce is often so manufactured by ingredients and methods that would kill you if you ingested them. So finally I can feel okay by my food not being able to live up to pictures in ads and magazines.

Phew.

3. I think, for the next little while at least, the presentation of my dishes will be of a higher caliber. Just because I’m not a perfectionist doesn’t mean I shouldn’t step up my game a little bit.

Thank you Delores, for showing me your extraordinary talent, dedication and work. I am forever grateful.

And now I’m off to shop for ingredients for tonight’s dinner.

My imperfect, but tasty dinner.