Square One

I realized that as I have been attempting this project of cooking my way through Giada De Laurentiis' Everyday Italian, I never really fully explained the book or how it's broken down. There are six main chapters, and each one is then divided into sub-chapters. They are:

Everyday Antipasti: Fresh From the Pantry, Everyday Seafood Starters, Everyday Frittatas, Tricolore, Olives and Olive Oil, Bread and Sandwiches, Prosciutto, Roasted Peppers

Everday Sauces: Everday Tomato Sauces, Everday Pestos, Everyday Classic Sauces

Everyday Pasta, Polenta and Risotto: Fresh From the Pantry, Everyday Stuffed Pastas, Everyday "Sauceless" Pastas, Everyday Indulgences, Leftover Pasta, Everyday Polenta, Everyday Risotto

Everyday Entreés: Everday Grills and Sautés, Everyday Cutlets, Everyday Roasts, Everyday Stews and Sauces, Everyday Leftovers

Everyday Contorni: Everday Stuffed Vegetables, Roasted and Baked, Quick and Simple, Everyday Salads

Everyday Dolci: Everyday Fruit, Everyday Creams and Puddings, Everyday Cookies and Cakes

Yes, I realize this list raises some questions. Aren't "fresh from the pantry" and "everyday indulgences" both oxymorons? Why is there a whole chapter on sauces and then "Stews and Sauces" in the Entreé chapter? Or did she really mean "soups" instead of "sauces," as that is a more accurate description of that sub-chapter? Why even bother with any other part of the book when you have a section devoted entirely to creams and puddings?

All good questions, my friends, but we must save the answers for another time, as I have something even more important to get to.

What is up with the food photography on the Food Network website?

Not that I want to bite the hand that feeds me, as most of my food pics are courtesy of the website, but it's just so weird. The food shots on the show can literally be mouth-watering, as are the pics in Giada's book. So why do so many of them just not get it quite right?

Let's take a look at this one for Pizza al Spaghetti:



Is it a) an alien b) a turtle or c) an alient turtle? Those straggling noodles look like tenctacles ready to come to life, reenacting War of the Worlds with alien pasta pods and spaghetti legs. Not that this is such a great dish to begin with, but if you look closely you can see where they cut out a wedge. Clearly they were aiming for the cross-section view, so why not go for it? They could have arranged five or six wedges decoratively on a platter to showcase it as a party snack. Not that you'd find it at my party, but nevertheless, it would still make it somewhat more attractive.

And there's this weird proclivity toward extreme close-ups, like this:



Granted, it's still a mound of grilled pineapple with Nutella sauce and hazelnuts, so you can't really go wrong. But this looks like some big landfill of discarded fruit and chocolate and the whipped/mascarpone cream looks like popcorn. A more sparse, minimal setting of just one or two pineapple slices drizzled with the toppings would have been much more elegant and effective.

The same is true of this shot of Fusilli with Tuna and Tomato Sauce:



Why so close? It completely renders the ingredients unrecognizable. See that random little chunk of meat in the upper left corner? Oh yeah, that's the tuna, I guess. If they had just pulled away a little bit, you'd see a rich red tomato sauce flecked with green capers, neon lemon zest and nuggets of meaty tuna. This close and it's like the Discovery Channel digging inside some underground pasta colony where they're crawling all over each other to mate with the queen.

On the other hand, this shot of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce and Olives doesn't really do the dish justice, either:



It's so far away it looks like any other undistinctive spaghetti-and-tomato-sauce dish. There's no character, nothing special. If they had gotten in a little closer (but not too close), you'd see the purple and green and black of plump olives and maybe even the red pepper flakes sprinkled throughout. From this far away, the dish, while perfectly pleasant, has no texture, which is exactly what makes it special.

Sometimes they do get it just right, like with this Spaghetti with Arugala Pesto and Shrimp:



Close enough to see the vibrant green sauce coat the noodles, topped by perfectly plump shrimp, yet not so close as to render the dish generic. This looks simple and beautiful and it makes me want to try the dish, which is really the whole point of the Food Network accompanying its recipes with photos in the first place.

The same could be said of this shot of Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries:



Fresh, bold berries floating atop pillows of cream. Sure, the glasses are a little too dainty-grandma-at-a-tea-party for my taste, but hey, it's still purty.

I don't know if the inconsistency is due to photographers who don't really understand the recipes they're taking pictures of, but there's so much good food photography out there, I would think the Food Network would want to stay on top of this. After all, it could mean the difference between someone trying their recipe or Googling to find another one.