19/365: Bite Me.

Sometimes you just have to play with your food. I'm no chef, but I do love to cook, and to eat. Tonight's photo is dedicated to my friend Joe Kwon, who IS a helluva chef, and even has his own food blog: www.tasteontour.com which features some stellar imagery as well.

I call Joe for cooking advice (he had some recommendations for tonight's pizza toppings) and he calls me for photography advice. Sometimes we even work in the same room, which is much, much more preferable to cooking yourself, and then trying to light and photograph the food while its still hot...

Which is what I did tonight as the wifey and I came up with a delicious pair of pizza pies. As I slid them into the oven, I figured it was as good a time as any to add some food porn to the 365 Blog. The Recipes, and more shots, after the jump:

Making pizza dough from scratch is easy, and very rewarding, both in terms of your self-satisfaction (I'm the man), and the taste in your piehole. I'm not gonna give you that recipe, but if you have the original Moosewood Cookbook or the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, its the calzone dough recipe. Get to it.

Any combo of toppings is fair game in my book. Often I'll try to emulate my all-time faves from restaurants, especially anything from Pepper's in Chapel Hill. Tonight there was a lot of available ingredients at the house, so much that we had to decide NOT to use some things. That's rare. Usually we are find ourselves scrounging to find some sort of topping to add to the cheese that we DO always have:

"Hmm. We have these dried olives and some cornstarch. Also this seaweed paper from when you tried to make sushi."

"OOh, can i get extra seaweed?"

Not tonight, Friend-O's. Pizza One, in the foreground, is a bastardization of something you can get at CPK. Thin crust with olive oil sauce, thinly sliced pears, a smattering of shredded mozzarella, gorgonzola cheese and carmelized red onions. Baked on a stone at 400 degrees for 18 minutes, then brought out and covered with the rest of the gorgonzola and raw baby arugula. Let it sit long enough to get your light right and a decent picture made ("Its just for a blog, not a book, jeez") and then enjoy. This creation was Joe's idea, he just rifled off the potential ingredients over the phone, and that was it. All the tastes that happen in your mouth! Sweet, salty, and that blue cheezy pungentness on top. Oh, it's a scene man. In fact, you at home may need a bit of a closeup to see what's going on here:

Maybe that didn't do it. Maybe one more step closer:

 If that wasn't enough, we also came up with a new recipe, one with a name even: "Pescatarian Pesto-Pocket Pizza." Olive oil base brushed on the dough again, then completely covered with a layer of paper-thin sliced zucchini (thanks Rick and Amy for the Mandoline). Thin layer of baby spinach on top of that, then a just a few translucently thin slices of the raw red onion, in the end its really just a hint, because then you toss a generous portion of mozzarella over all that. Over the cheese, we added little 'pockets' of homemade pesto, some pockets of goat cheese, and feta as well (we always have cheese, I told ya). Now for the part that will only appeal to some: calamata olives and...ready for this...sardines, kinda shredded up. I may have lost most of you there, but for those that are still salivating, YES, it was THAT good.

Strobist info: Notice this: most food photos, the good ones in books and such, look like they are taken in natural light. I'm sure that's not always the case, but the apeing of natural light is still important. Not that I nailed it tonight, but I made an effort: one speedlight zoomed to 105mm, high on a stand outside my house, pointed back into the window, and filtering thru all the plants and the chairs between it and me. Inside, one speedlight is in an Ezy Hotshoe box, behind and to the right of the pizzas. Finally, a large silver reflector to my left, held by the lovely Vanna Wife. Fired with PWs.

PS- if you have been coming to the site regularly, give me a shout out in the comments so I know who you are! All 4 of you!