FOOD PICTURES
More from Modernist Cuisine’s Food Photographer
Things I can’t get enough of: Modernist Cuisine and all its ilk: the iPad app, the videos, but most of all, the photography. Seattle Food Geek has yet another look at some of the photography secrets that go into creating the iconic imagery.(Second post here.)
The piece is meant to be approachable: the author tries out some of the techniques, using different, more accessible (read: less expensive) equipment to achieve the same effects. They’re tricks that just about anyone can do. f you read none of it, scroll to the bottom of the first post for a slow-motion video of gelatin bouncing when dropped. Seriously.
MORE FOOD PICTURES
No One, Not even SF’s Michael Bauer, Is Immune to Bad Photography
Food-tech theme of the moment: bad, worse, worst mobile food photography. San Francisco restaurant critic Michael Bauer gets an A for improvement, though, upgrading to an iPhone 5S this week, and able to take, presumably, much better photos on the fly. That is, when they back up properly — which they didn’t do last week, he laments on his blog.
So, the restaurant critic gets a new iPhone. What’s the big deal? Here’s the thing: camera-equipped mobile phones and the myriad apps and ways to capture and display and share food photography have made it into the big-time: even the most seasoned, well-respected restaurant critics are expected to photograph and share images of food on the fly in lieu of overproduced or overstaged shoots. That’s an example of new tech moving the old-world needle in a big way. Cool when you consider it that way, right?
COOL
Instagram for Good
Lest you think Instagram is all #selfies and bad food photos, FoodTank, a self-described “food think-tank,” has cultivated a list of 66 Instagram accounts for (food) good.
The list includes a few expecteds: Alice Waters, Anthony Bourdain, and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. It also contains plenty of grassroots, focused, do-good people and organizations; browse the list and follow your favorites to break up that surely self-involved feed on your phone.
SHOCKER
New York’s Online Cronut Reservation System Crashes
Oh, the illusive cronut. To be fair, I’ve not had one for myself, so perhaps I’m missing out on the inside edge. But I still file the cronut squarely under the heading “It’s Just Not Worth It.” Plenty of people feel differently, though, so much so that the throngs of New York City cronut-lovers crashed a brand-new site meant to keep the cronut line online — minimizing time spent in the cold.
Great thought, less-than-great execution. This is not unlike the time San Francisco’s wildly popular State Bird Provisions reopened and eager diners crashed its reservation site within seconds. Lesson: people like their food. Prepare your infrastructure accordingly.
SERVICE?
The New Yorker’s Table for Two Interactive Map
This week, The New Yorker’s restaurant coverage (kinda) joined 21st century with an “interactive” map of restaurants featured in the front-of-book Tables for Two section. The New Yorker is not, nor will ever be a review-centric publication (they run one restaurant per week), but inclusion in the column is certainly an excellent nod to great restaurants. Reviews are thoughtful and precise — moreso than most others, honestly. But I’m sort of surprised they bothered with the graphic at all. A quick look at the map will make you chuckle — the huge majority of restaurants are clustered downtown, with a smattering in Williamsburg and south Brooklyn’s hipper spots and only one restaurant above 97th Street — Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, natch.
I’m not sure how service-y this is, but at least the forks are cute?
SERENDIPITY
Frank Bruni Uses Twitter to Return Courtney Love’s Found iPhone
Only in New York! Former restaurant critic and current New York Times columnist Frank Bruni found Courtney Love’s iPhone in the back of a cab. Then, he used Twitter to give it back. Amazing. Technology!
Digestifs
- Who would mind branded content if all of it was as good as this Bushmills piece featuring Aaron Paul? — YouTube
- Turducken has nothing on this terrifying, historical Thanksgiving delicacy — The Atlantic
- Eight foods you’ve been eating all wrong (via Food+Tech Connect) — Mental_Floss
