If a cookbook author or food blogger wants to try and photograph their own dishes, I’d definitely encourage them to do so. Click on the link to see examples of my published work and read the 10 tips below to improve your own food photography.

Enlightened Cook Food Photos

Here are 10 tips I can offer to other cookbook authors and budding food photographers:

1. Rarely shoot directly overhead. It’s usually a dull angle and almost never works when plates are round, because photographs are rectangular or square.

2. Don’t use a flash camera. Use natural light and a few bounce cards if you need them. Flash produces a very flat shot and glaring highlights. If you absolutely have no other option, back way up creating distance from the subject and zoom the lens in. Then the light won’t be so hot. (This is much more flattering for people, too.)

3. Never, ever use a light box. This light is too even and looks fake. If you do use one, your food will not look real. It will look more like a Hallmark card circa 1970’s.

4. The other trick to making sure your images don’t look like Hallmark cards is to have some of image in sharp focus and allow that focus to soften toward the background. Photos where the entire image is in focus don’t look natural because if the dish were actually in front of your reader, their eye would not see it that way.

5. Make sure you look at everything in the frame and take all extraneous things from the background out, unless you specifically want them there.

6. Shoot so that your photographs have a very large file size that will equal at least 300dpi so that when it goes to print, the images will remain clear. There’s nothing more disappointing than a great photo that doesn’t have enough resolution to be printed.

7. If you don’t absolutely love the photograph of a particular dish, omit it. If there are poor photographs it very quickly lessons the perceived professionalism of the whole book.

8. Don’t ever grab photos off the web to use on your own material. You must have copyright for all images. If a publisher finds out one of your images isn’t being used legally, I can promise you they won’t work with you again. Their liability risk for being sued is too high and too costly.

9.Be sure to choose props that are unique to each shot. It’s important to have other things in the frame, not just your food. It should look like we just arrived a talented host’s home where everything was beautifully laid out. I shop thrift shops constantly for tablecloths, napkins, utensils, dish and bakeware. Make sure everything you use is laundered, polished and immaculately clean.

10. After a few attempts, if your work isn’t top shelf, find another photographer and negotiate a rate you can handle. I work with cookbook writers and food writers to quickly get food images on a budget. I’d be happy to find out what food images you need and work with you at a reasonable cost. My food photos are on 10 food blogs and in my book, The Enlightened Cook: Protein Entrees.

In addition to immediate downloads of the The Enlightened Cook: Protein Entrees, beautifully glossy, soft-cover books are now available in the column immediately to the right for $11.99. Order directly from this site to save off the bookstore price and support the author best! Your book will be printed and mailed to you within 48 hours directly from the publisher! Now that’s modern publishing!!

With Super Bowl Sunday fast approaching, most are thinking about betting on the big game. I’m marinating instead. Here is an awesome recipe for Chicken Wings and the story that goes with them. Recipe more via India than Buffalo!

4 lb chicken wings
3 cups plain yogurt
3 oz beer
4 limes
1½” ginger root- coarse chopped
2 t dried thyme
1 t dried lavender (yes!)
1 t black pepper
¾ t sea salt
1 ½ T sesame oil

Rockin' Chicken Wings

Rinse and poke holes into the wings with a sharp knife, so marinade penetrates the flesh of the chicken. Juice 2 limes and mix with remaining ingredients, except the oil. Marinate refrigerated for 1-3 days, stirring the mixture occasionally.

Grill over indirect BBQ flame or oil a preheated, baking sheet and oven roasting wings at 475º. Flip wings after 30 minutes. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until crisp and golden brown. Serve with remaining limes cut into wedges and celery sticks.

Sauce Safety
It’s okay to brush additional sauce on the wings as they cook, but not after the halfway point because bacteria from the raw chicken is also in the sauce. Be sure to allow ample time for it to burn away to be safe to eat.  Dispose of left over marinade and serve with clean utensils.

The Wing Story

A dear friend, Vicent Grupi, told me in1983 that he had fabulous chicken wings at a Super Bowl party. He was told they were made with yogurt. It seemed a very strange combination, yet he claimed they were the best wings ever!

I wondered how anyone, especially Vinny, could get that excited about chicken wings. To me, chicken wings were greasy, bar food with little culinary merit, yet somehow the thought of developing a recipe from that one ingredient stuck in my mind for 20 years. By then, my cooking acumen heightened and I began saving original recipes that would eventually become my first, self-published book. I learned of India’s yogurt-marinating Tandoori tradition, so that became the basis of my recipe.

Two decades after Vinny’s rave, I looked down to discover super-plump chicken wings at the grocery meat counter. They were hormone/antibiotic-free and organic, but still very inexpensive––a great place to start! Combining an unusual blend of Eastern and Western spices, I marinated those wings for 3 days, before bringing them swimming in sauce, to Texas grill master Will’s Labor Day BBQ in Venice, CA. My rock star date (who’d prefer to go nameless) was licking his keyboard fingers with delight and our drummer friend was stomping his foot with speechless appreciation. Everyone at the party said they were the tastiest, most succulent wings they’d ever had, except Will. Unfortunately, the wings were all gobbled up before he got one.  Sorry, Will!

Long before the recipe was developed Vinny moved to Florida and then passed on, but every time Super Bowl Sunday rolls around, I thank him for his friendship and wish his beautiful twin sons, Peter and Ray, whom I’ve sadly lost track of, knew that Vinny inspired this fantastic recipe. I spent many an Italian Sunday dinner with that family of all boys, who embraced me as family, too.

Saucy, luscious Pulled Chicken Molé with secret ingredient, cocoa powder

Hello People,

I’m working hard on finishing the first volume of the Enlightened Cook: Entrees.  Here is one recipe on which I’d love some feedback. What I generally ask of my recipe tests to provide feedback on the clarity of  the directions, accuracy of the measurements (i.e. too much salt? enough oil?). In the case of this terrific recipe, what I need in addition is info on how accurate the timing of each step was:

How long did it take at the given temperature to initially cook the chicken breasts so that they were slightly pink inside?

Was 2 minutes enough to sufficiently break down the tomato at the end into a smooth sauce?

I am considering instead instructing readers to add the tomato and then add the cocoa powder a few minutes later.  It’s really important the cocoa powder is not scalded or truly it ruins the sauce. (I’ve tasted that overcooked taste soooo many times in Mexican restaurants.)

So here is the recipe and a note on brining that will appear on that page of the book. Pulled chicken Molé is a recipe I truly love for it’s utterly unique yet unidentifiable flavor.