Part 1: How to become published food bloggers?

WE WERE SO stoked to be featured in the latest Real Magazine, in a sister vs sister cook off and thought we would share with you the fruits of our labour and a bit of a run down of how we got to do it.Vanessa and I were both eight months pregnant when we managed to score a face to face with the Editor and Art Director of Real Magazine (New World's foodie magazine), we literally waddled in, to two very surprised faces when they both realized that we really did do things 'together'!


HOW TO SCORE A FACE TO FACE?

It really is a 'who you know' kinda senario, I used to work at Fairfax Media Magazines, designing and art directing lifestyle magazines. When Vanessa and I started getting serious about our blog and about our cooking, food styling and photographing, I started getting serious about trying to get us a foot in the door. I started with the Photo Editor at Fairfax, showing her our work, and wondered if she could advise us. Thankfully she quite liked our photo's, and the ball started rolling. She started to mention us to Editors, Art Directors and we sold a few pics that were published in some of the food, gardening and lifestyle magazines. Then we did a job for Life and Leisure Magazine, and finally we had some published work that we could use in our portfolio. (This is invaluable, so even if you have to do some jobs for free, or cheap to start with, your gain is getting a portfolio of published work to use to promote yourself).

Real Magazine - July/ August 2012

THE MEETING

We had about 20 minutes to show them our photography, food styling and we talked (rather frantically) about what we were all about (sisters who loved food, photography, like to write about it blah blah) but the clincher was when we started talking about our sister vs sister food fight - two sisters, one ingredient, very different results, and the faces lit up a bit, so we kept talking (again, way too fast) and we left feeling hopeful we might get a phone call in the near future.

THE BRIEF

A few weeks later the phone rang and Claire, the Editor said "hey girls, lets give it a go and see if it captures the reader's imaginations". Yep, we tried to act all professional, and not yelp....YIPPPPEEEE ! but lo and behold a wee little....yippee......left my lips and went down the phone line. So our brief was set.  Cook Off #1 was Apples. 


WHAT WAS EXPECTED?

• Intro's for each recipe explaining why we chose the dish
• 2 x Apple based recipes + photographs of the finished dishes
• Photos of apples on a light background with space for a heading
• Photos of the kids and us cooking (not as easy as it sounds!)
• Photos of us together (self timer) and profile shots of each of us
• Interesting facts about apples
• Tips for cooking our dish

How it all looked published in the magazine.

WORKING MOTHERS , NEWBORN BABIES

Even though Vanessa and I have two older children, we failed to remember the newborn stage, and kept uttering out loud, " It will be easy, newborns sleep a lot don't they?" even Claire, Real Mag's Editor emailed us saying sorry about the timing, she couldn't even achieve anything for the first six weeks when her son was born. But, with our blinkers shining bright, I had my baby daughter, Eliza a week before the brief was set, and Vanessa had baby Leo a week after,  and off we went  co-ordinating some sort of working life, and baby sleep sync program.

THE INTERVIEW
When we heard we were also going to be interviewed, we assumed it would be by telephone, so we thought, "Great, we can literally stay in the pj's and keep up appearances!", but NO.....that wasn't to be the case, they wanted to see us, and get off the cuff quotes. Thankfully, the journalist who turned up, was a woman called Katherine, who as a mother to young kids herself, was understanding to our chaos, and didn't seem to mind our half finished conversations. Somehow, she managed to fill in the blanks and make us sound like we had it all together.

Just like newsreaders we looked the part from the waist up.

THE COMPETITION

Little did we know the big plan with the Sister vs Sister concept was to get the public voting. And little did we know, sibling rivalry that has lay dormant for a few years, has returned with some gusto. What dish would you vote for? Vote here

JULY 24, 2012

Vanessa's Apple Custard Tart

51% (354 votes)

Ingrid's Sweet Apple Yorkies

49% (341 votes)

WHO's WINNING?

It's pretty close, but Vanessa has the edge with 51% of the vote, it seems voters love the nostalgia of a good custard pie, and the timings seem to be very important. The baked pancake requires resting, so that adds an extra 20 mins to the process, an issue for some time-poor cooks.

In our next post Vanessa goes into more detail about the food, the photoshoot and behind the scenes.

Ingrid's Dish: Sweet apple yorkies 

I love pancakes, but I hate waiting for them. With a new baby and a toddler, I haven't got time to stand over a hot element cooking them, making sure they don't burn. I also made the rule in my household that the one cooking them always gets the first pancake, however, the first pancake always seems to be the malformed, or the thinnest, the one that doesn't bubble. A stack of oven-warmed pancakes arriving on the table just so everybody can eat them together just doesn't cut it for me either. I want them straight from the pan, butter still sizzling and hot enough to melt my refrigerated golden syrup swirls.

This baked eggy puffy cloud packed with sticky gooey caramelised apples is about as close as I can get to my idea of breakfast heaven on a cold winter’s day. It's sort of a sweet version of the Yorkshire pudding (which appeals to my English Hull-born bloke) and also why I call my dish Sweet Apple Yorkies.

It has origins from the Apple Dutch Baby or the German Pancake and could be filled with just about any stone fruit or spice. Caramelised apples, however, are just perfect, and your whole family will get excited watching the magic of the custardy egg rising over the edges of the pan in the oven. One more rule however, these must be eaten immediately, or risk watching them fall.

Vanessa's tip: Top pancake with grilled bacon for a hearty brunch.

Ingrid's sweet apple yorkies

I used 2 x 20cm [pie tins but you could also use a large , 30cm wide, cast iron skillet or deep ovenproof  frying pan and divide the pancake into 4 when cooked – it would save on dishes!


What you need:
Caramelised apples 
25g butter
4 cooking apples peeled, cored and roughly chopped
¼ cup golden syrup

Batter 
¾ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 eggs

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200˚C or 180˚C fan. Divide the butter between the pans and allow it to melt in the oven for a few minutes.
2. Place chopped apples evenly over the pan. Pour over melted golden syrup and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through, until the apples are caramelised.
3. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and gradually add the milk and vanilla , whisking to remove any lumps.
4. Add eggs one at a time. Lightly whisk the batter. Let it rest for 20 minutes. Pour batter over apples.
5. Bake for 20 minutes until the batter puffs up and the edges are golden. Serve with a dollop of natural yoghurt.

Preparation time: 30 mins + 20 mins resting time
Cooking time: 20 mins
Serves 4

TIPS
* Resting the batter allows time for the starch to absorb the liquid and air bubbles to form making your batter light and fluffy.
* Don't over mix your batter as you will get rubbery pancakes.
* Remember to have your table set and plates ready, as the yorkies will sink a few minutes after you remove it from the oven.

Vote for the winning dish

Real Magazine, New World's food magazine, set us a challenge, to each create a winning dish using apples. 

They have put it to the public vote....ekkkkk and everyday we both see the slider showing who got the most votes. It's driving us crazy, it's getting us all edgy and a spot of sibling rivalry has emerged! 

I never thought Vanessa would start a voting campaign against me on Facebook - but right back at you sis...x

SO CHECK IT OUT & GET VOTING

www.newworld.co.nz/inspire-me/out-of-the-mixing-bowl/sister-vs-sister

How to style food for a magazine

Recently Vanessa and I were commissioned to style and take some photo's for a fabulous magazine called NZ Life & Leisure. Each year they put out a special title and this year it was The Insiders Guide to New Zealand showcasing NZ's top spots to visit for food, where to stay, people to meet and things to do . I thought it would interesting to share our experience and also one of the recipes from the day, that we tucked into with gusto.

  

THE BRIEF: To photograph four recipes (Kingfish Tartare, Kedgeree, Chargrilled Lamb Steaks with Smoky Capsicum Salsa and Avocado Salad) in a relaxed casual style making sure it was a good fit with the other recipes in the magazine (which were stock images from a variety of photographers and stylists) and also to compliment the colours used in each section of the magazine.

Words used were: Country style : relaxed : natural light : a little bit of depth of field (background blur): unstaged : unfussy

We were given pdf proofs of mockups of the magazine from the Art Director (which is virtually unheard of!) which gave us a great overview of the style and feel of the mag, and also the colours of each section (which were segmented by different places to visit in NZ)

What plates, cutlery and props to use? Our setups before the food arrived.

THE SHOOT:

We decided to keep it very simple, with muted colour and let the food be the focal point. We choose to shoot above if the food was quite flat, and we choose a 3/4 front on angle if the food could be piled high.

PROPS USED: Muslin cloth (great for creating a relaxed style, as the edges of the muslin roll up which create a nice subtle effect, old enamel plates - different sizes stacked on top of each other, old wooden boards, white painted wooden boards create a marine/ seaside feel to the shot especially good if your photographing seafood, red fry pan to compliment the capsicum salsa and to add colour as meat (Lamb steaks) can sometimes be quite dull. Lemons cut in different ways always add a freshness to a dish.

The recipes were supplied to us, so make sure you double check you have all the right ingredients showing in the photo. An avocado salad ain't an Avo salad if you forget the AVO!

CAMERA USED: Canon 550D - shooting in RAW and JPG - As the photos are retouched in house we supplied both RAW and JPEG files on disk to the Art Director with minimal retouching, only a bit of contrast. No sharpening.

SHOOTING FROM ABOVE: Used the standard kit lens 18-55mm. ISO: 100 f:11 We always had an aperture of 11 as this is the best aperture to have everything in focus.

SHOOTING FROM THE FRONT: Lens Used: 100m 2.8 ISO: 100 f:3.2 plus tripod

Kingfish Tartare: Old enamel plates and boards painted white add to the seaside theme.

THE PROCESS:
We choose two dishes each and shopped and prepared each one at our own house - cutting up chillies or chives, cooking rice - anything that could be made ahead of the shoot. We decided to shoot at Vanessa's house, on her front porch as it was a bright but overcast day - perfect for photographing food.

As Vanessa is definitely the better cook out of the two of us -  she took over the cooking, and styling of the food whilst I went ahead and set up the different props and table settings, set up the camera, reflector board and tripod. It was a very simple setup, as the light was perfect. I did a white balance using a white card and holding it in frame and setting it in my camera, which I did at various times throughout the day as the light changed.

Mistakes made, lesson learned
We had some very 'blonde' experiences, and the wine wasn't even opened yet! We forgot the Avocado in the Avocado salad, we kept saying, 'what a weird looking salad', 'how bland', 'only broad beans?', 'not very appealing' and shot a few frames before it dawned on us what we had omitted. We also didn't realise that broad beans needed to be popped out of their shells - and again took a lot of frames with them looking grey and lifeless.


TIPS

• Prepare your table settings prior to any food being cooked, set up your plate/ dish/ cutlery etc
• Re read any recipe you are commissioned to style or photograph - if you forget anything important, your shoot is ruined!
• keep it simple, less is more, always try to remove one item from your table setting and see if it improves the shot
• Always refer back to your brief - there is a reason why you've been given it
• Be decisive. Don't take truckloads of photos of the same setup. Take three at different apertures, and move on. You will appreciate it at editing stage.
• Get it right in camera. Make sure your lighting is right and no random crumbs, spots or dribbles are showing. Again, you will appreciate at editing stage, not having to clone out horrible fingermarks you didn't remove when you could.

Best dish of the day: Thumbs up to Anna Tait - Jamieson (Life & Leisure's Food Editor) for creating this very exciting dish - a great blend of flavours and textures. We hope we did it justice in our photographs.

Kedgeree
Recipe extracted from The Insiders Guide to New Zealand

Serves 4
What you need:
milk to poach (about 2 cups)
500g smoked fish
2 tablespoons of butter
1 onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cream
2 cups cooked rice (1 cup raw)
1 tablespoon chopped chives
4 eggs
juice of 1 lemon

How to make
Bring milk to the boil in a large fry pan, reduce heat then add fish and poach gently for 3-4 min. Discard milk and when fish has cooled sufficiently, break into large flakes.
Clean out fry pan then saute onion, celery and garlic in butter until softened. Add ginger and spices, stir and cook for 1 minute then add cream.
Simmer for another minute before adding cooked rice and fish.
Heat through then add chives. Remove from heat and keep warm while poaching the eggs. Squeeze lemon juice over each serving and top with a poached egg.