Food | Jessica Svendsen

What Katie Ate

13 November 2010

What Katie Ate has some of the most beautiful food photography that it makes me want to drop graphic design and become a food photographer for life. Not all hope is lost, however, because Australian photographer Katie Quinn Davies spent many years working as a graphic designer before re-focusing her career to food photography and styling. Her design background is clearly evident in her typographic style and overall compositions. But her photographs capture a certain color, texture, and realness of food that is overwhelmingly appealing and appetizing.

Each post and photograph also incorporates the original recipe—so all foodies or photographers or both, start reading What Katie Ate (if you’re not already).

IKEA

2 October 2010

Food, Graphic Design, Photography

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IKEA recently released the book Homemade is Best, which features these carefully arranged photographs of 30 recipes. Instead of photographing the finished meal, these images simply show the ingredients needed for each recipe, measured by actual quantity. However, I find the layout and texture of each of the ingredients to be the most interesting part of this series. Inspired by the tradition of Japanese minimalism, the most basic ingredients (like the flour, sugar, and butter) take on a variety of shapes and layouts.

Though I still only trust cookbooks with excellent food photography displaying the prepared dish, I wouldn’t mind this obsessively-neat ingredient arrangement as a preparatory photograph.

I’ve included some of my favorite arrangements below, or you can see more of the photographs from the book designers, Forsman & Bodenfors, or from the photographer Carl Kleiner.

Jamie Oliver for Williams Sonoma

26 August 2010

Food, Graphic Design

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Design for wholesome food doesn’t get more grassroots than this. Jamie Oliver’s new packaging for his line of Williams Sonoma products is another example of how the sustainable food movement (or Jamie Oliver’s own Food Revolution) is adopting populist design. Though Whole Foods has quietly integrated simple, vintage design for organic packaging, this seems to be taking it another step. It is as if the first problem with our national food crisis is the misleading photoshop of corporate packaging on every box of corn syrup cereal.

Instead, Oliver hearkens to the roadside stand or the farmer’s market with hand-lettered type on a refreshingly sparse label. As a notorious critic of most packaging (I keep most of my pantry in glass jars to avoid the visual onslaught of colored boxes and bags), I wouldn’t mind having these on my shelf—and Jamie’s touch of humor certainly adds to the appeal.

Check out the full product line over on Jamie Oliver’s website.

Food photography

9 July 2010

Food, Photography

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As an admirer of the persuasive food photographs found in the Barefoot Contessa and Martha Stewart cookbooks, and even the Williams Sonoma catalogs, I found The Design Files interview with Deb Kaloper, a food stylist in Melbourne, a pleasant and informative read.

I naively did not know that “Food Stylist” was even an occupational option, but after consulting a few of my cookbooks colophon pages, I quickly discovered the vast, mouth-watering world of food photography. When meals are captured with craft, color, ripeness, and an arranged spontaneity, I’ve been tempted by foods I would normally never consider consuming. Case in point: the summer Williams Sonoma catalogs, featuring perfectly grilled meats and vegetables, have left me uncharacteristically ready to go buy a grill and start smoking the charcoals on my fire escape.

The Food Revolution

5 April 2010

Food

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If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. I watched the initial three episodes of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution this weekend (available on hulu, for those of us who don’t own televisions), and this part-documentary, part-reality TV show exposes the American food system for what it is: a fast food chain of obesity that trails all the way down to elementary school lunches.

Watch the episodes. (Though they’re sometimes tense without needing to be, and sometimes hilarious because of Jamie’s distinct word choice, but they’re worth watching.) Then sign Jamie’s petition to support his “wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

These photographs show where I first learned about where my food comes from: the Yale Sustainable Food Project. In the middle of Yale’s campus is a small one-acre organic garden where they grow everything from winter spinach to summer sungold tomatoes to a flower CSA. Students volunteer at the farm each week, learning about sustainability while gaining the practical skills of agriculture. On Friday afternoons, at the end of the long work day, students gather around the brick oven on the farm, baking pizzas and topping them with ingredients harvested directly from the farm. The next morning, the Yale farm produce is sold to the community at the New Haven Farmer’s Market.

I was involved with the Yale Sustainable Food Project throughout my four years at Yale—one of my favorite jobs was working as a pizza maker at the farm (superficially fulfilling my deep desire to bake bread in hearth oven). I quickly learned that the farm produce was better tasting and better for my body than the majority of my dining hall meals. Besides, I discovered the fulfillment of preparing and sharing a meal with a community of friends, over plates of whole, fresh food.

Watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution reminded me of my own school lunches at Canyon Crest Elementary, and the selection seems unchanged. Though I’ve changed my diet since my Hawaiian Haystack days, all I can say is: bravo to Alice Waters, Michelle Obama, and of course, the chap who has conquered his own turf and is now overtaking the mainland, Jamie Oliver.

Shopping Lists

2 March 2010

Food, Graphic Design

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Debbie Hill collects shopping lists. She then illustrates one item on the list, transforming a throw-away object into something beautiful.

The “I Collect Shopping Lists” project reminds me of the exclusive edition of Kate Spade Contents, a book that features all of the contents held inside the designer’s handbags. “Each spread features a photograph of ephemera and an accompanying list of the items, as well as a brief description of the bag owner’s occupation.” As you peek into their handbag, you start to recreate a person’s lifestyle and character based on the contents of their handbag. The owner is only identified at the end of the book.

With these scribbled shopping lists, you start to reassemble either their meal or their basic food needs; then, you begin to imagine the person who wrote such a list (and if they were in such a hurry that they had to use the back of an envelope).

Aprons

28 January 2010

Fashion, Food

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Ice Milk Aprons creates these gorgeous aprons that use a wonderful color palette, and with a tying ribbon so thick and so long, it’s almost like a sash. I feel like I would spoil these beautiful aprons if I were ever to use them.

Wooden Spoons

26 December 2009

Food

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I have never seen such beautiful spoons in my life. Hand carved by Londoner, Nic Webb, these spoons have curves and shapes that I’ve never seen before. What I like best is his attention to the grain and character of the wood:

When I begin carving I look for the differing qualities in each piece, allowing the grain and character to influence the design. Each spoon evolves to have its own personality and when finished becomes a showcase for the limitless beauty of wood.

One-handed

4 December 2009

Food

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Screen shot 2009 12 04 at 8.35.19 PM One handed I keep all of my ingredients in glass jars. On Wednesday night, as I was reaching for one of them, two fell off the shelf. One of those falling beasts forcefully shattered on my counter, and one of the falling shards spliced open my thumb, leaving a hanging wedge of skin behind.

I went into shock and started cursing, frightened after being diagnosed with a form of anemia last week. I briskly walked to the health services, conveniently located only a couple of blocks away from my apartment. After receiving mere Tylenol and some gauzed tape, Paul drove me to the hospital Emergency Room (which, at Yale, is oddly known as the Emergency Department).

I waited almost three hours to see a doctor. When I was finally allowed to enter the department, the gauze was painfully removed twice (the sensation was like someone ripping away your skin, caked with dried blood), a tetanus shot, a x-ray (which fortunately proved there was no glass still in the wound), and finally, dozens of stinging shots directly in my wound and all around my thumb in order to numb the area for stitches. I grasped the bed handrails for support, but I would have rather been unconscious.

11 stitches later and an arm cast, my hand looks like this.

Maira Kalman

27 November 2009

Food, Graphic Design, Typography

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I wish I could have posted this on Thanksgiving, but I have limited access to the Internet in Utah.

One of my other favorite New York Times blogs is illustrator Maira Kalman’s “And the Pursuit of Happiness.” First, I love her whispy handwriting. But she also has such a strong narrative flow, supplemented by her wonderful combination of words and images.

Yesterday’s post, “Back to the Land” is about American food culture. She questions the state of “Fast Food” and consults with various experts on the “Slow Food” movement—including traveling to Berkeley to meet with Alice Waters and to eat at Chez Panisse.

Reading her post was a welcome reminder about the importance of eating produce and natural ingredients, prepared from scratch instead of prepared with the help of a package. I’ve been looking for recipes to supplement my diet, and I have noticed the difference between those of my grandmother’s (which rely on cake mixes, the microwave, and frozen foods, or rely on gross amounts of butter, cream, and shortening) and recipes that are being published today. They almost hearken back to an earlier time of making food, when you use flour instead of a mix, when you use homemade soup stock instead of canned broth. But they also emphasize buying natural products—relying on farmer’s markets instead of superstore warehouses—and making seasonal meals.