Ice cream cone to the rescue!

How many bakers does it take to bake a pie? Well we know that it takes 3 culinary professionals to make 1 piece of pie for a photo shoot...

The napkin queens were back today, telling us for the "second" time that this was the "last" time that we'd be doing napkin fold photos. Uh huh. So in between the flying napkins we glorified fish stew and had a mini war with an apple pie. Whew! We did get some tantalizing shots of some mini tarts and after several tries we finally got two perfect citrus souffles to sit nicely for their close-ups. With a visit from the "potato boys" we remember that not all photography needs to be serious photography. Sometimes it's just fun to make silly pictures.

Things we've learned today, 1) That no matter what you do, stew still looks like stew. 2) Girls get even more girly when you get sparkly jewelry out. And, 3) Ice cream cones make people happy. That and a shot of tequila.

"I'm looking for a Fortune, not a Lecture."

Did you know that there is a difference between Chinese and Japanese chopsticks?

We hope that most people don't because we like to use what looks best in our photography! Our newest friends gave us the freedom to do our best magic and we took chinese chicken to a new level! I think that there was a run on orange chicken in the Los Angeles area with everyone from the shoot wanting chinese delivery for dinner. As a food photographer that's a huge compliment, when people are considering dinner even before lunch just because of the images that come up on the screen. Triumph!

I guess our fortune was right... "Keep your expectations reasonable". Do you want to eat that because of my picture? Expectation met. Goodie.

Say Hello to my little friends!

Ahhh... Old friends, old jokes and a whole ton of shrimp. No, I have not gone on vacation again (although the amount of shots we did in two days makes it seem like a vacation!), our long time friend Contessa was in studio today. We grooved to the 80's tunes while Norman played with his tiny friends, making sure they were all "picture perfect". Although after the 5th shrimp dish we started to feel a bit like Bubba. Tequila lime shrimp, alfredo shrimp, spinach and shrimp...

How many ways are there to serve shrimp? Well Contessa outta know.

Where would we be without Epcot?

It must be that time of the year; publishers are thinking about their Christmas sales already. Most of our days are spent shooting for commercial use, packaging and such. But lately we have been doing cookbooks! Tons of work but tons of creativity. And boy were we overwhelmed with "creative" people this week... We took the weekend to shoot some images for a proposal book for a Moroccan cookbook. It's the brain child of tiny Ruth, who every time we turned around she was trying to put food into our mouths. Literally. Filling the studio with tons of Moroccan props that they had collected, Ruth told us that most of the lovely, sparkling things they had brought they had found at Disney's Epcot Center. Who needs to go over the pond to find authentic ethnic housewares when we've got Epcot!!

There were other delightful discoveries, such as what the raw forms of almonds and garbanzo beans look like, that the camels weren't as silly as we thought, and that baba ghanoush tastes better then it sounds. We all giggled as we exclaimed "Fish Balls" and there were no takers for the candle sticks, even though Denise tried to give them away (a few times). Hopefully with the right book writer, some one will publish this colorful cookbook and we can say, "Hey, check out my baba ghanoush!"

A man can't work on Red Bull alone.

After some much needed fun in the sun with the family (and several vodka lemonades), it was straight back to work. To mix things up, we were shooting on location this week at the fabulous Tulalip Resort Casino in the chilly yet dreamy Seattle, Washington. Redbull, wine and the ching-ching-ching of the slot machines filled our four days of shooting. We slugged the Redbull, wished we had more wine and vowed next time to bring a set of earplugs. But we got some great shots nonetheless. My crew worked their tails off and I thank them! Although, they said next time someone else was in charge of the plane reservations...

p.s. It's always funny to see what people do when you're just doing "a lighting check".

Celebrity Alert!

Yes, we are surrounded by greatness. Adding to our list of celebrities that we've had the pleasure to shoot (wait that sounds bad...) is spectacular celebrity Chef Aaron Sanchez. He is the spokes person for Cacique Cheese, another one of our good friends. He was super cool and down to earth and it was our pleasure to meet him. I think some of the girls were a bit in love. We are all fans now. We chatted and sprinkled cheese, and got some great shots of the man himself. Hey Chef, next time you're on TV give a shout out to your friends at J.E.P!

Ceci, Jimmie and the Cubans

I know you've missed me, my loyal fans, but we've been busy busy working on several projects all at the same time. Last week we dove head first into our newest project, a Puerto Rican cookbook! It's being published in tandem with a novel written about life, family and food. All our favorite things. We had two days of cooking and shooting food in studio, where we met and found ourselves fascinated with, a large, smiling (although deceased) suckling pig who was promptly named Jimmie. Why we though it was a good idea to name the pig was beyond most of us. Brilliant food photography ensued. Then we took a day to do some environment shots of the author at the Central Market in LA. After roughly 4 minutes of shooting, security hunted us down and put the hammer down on our "professional" shoot. Luckily being the crafty Pros we are, we switched it up and had Diana shoot instead, telling those pesky guards that she was a "student" and doing a project for school. The pictures turned out wonderfully. Of course. 

Since this is a story about family as well as food, we spent our last day with the family at home. And I mean the ENTIRE family. At least three generations of parents and children came for a party to celebrate being a family, one of their owns success and to be photographed. We invaded their home with our cameras and gear and were treated with such graciousness and kindness that we felt just like part of the family. Even Jimmie got to attend. 3000 images, a mojito (yes, just one) and hopefully the cover shot to the cookbook later, we sighed a breath of relief and patted ourselves on the back for a job well done. Then a moment later we sucked a breath of panic at the "edit" now looming in our future. Yikes! 2 days later and we were handing the publisher countless contact sheets for them to go through to pick the images that will grace the pages of this breath-taking cookbook. We can't wait to see it in print!