Prop Shopping for Special Fork

Tempting shelves at Sur la Table

By Sandy Hu

Sunday was like Christmas, as Steve and I went prop shopping in the East Bay for Special Fork. Shooting at least two food photos a week, we needed to augment my personal collection of dinnerware with fresh props. Fortunately for the budget, instead of buying place settings, we only required one each of any given thing.

I admit I’m no prop stylist or food stylist, but I’ve worked with many top professionals to produce mouthwatering food photography for clients. So I’ve learned a thing or two that I can apply to Special Fork photos.

We went to Sur la Table, the Seattle-based cookware store that has several San Francisco Bay Area branches, the Crate & Barrel outlet in Berkeley and the Ikea store in Emeryville. And we came home with shopping bags stuffed with goodies.

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Advanced Knife Skills

By Craig Deppe

When you learn and apply some of the basic knife skills, working in the kitchen becomes so much more pleasant. I’ll never forget the first time I learned the easy way to dice an onion or shallot – it was an epiphany!

How could I have been so uninformed? I needed to learn more.

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Waldorf Salad is Like Eating a Rainbow

If you’ve ever wished your kids would eat salad, maybe the Waldorf is for you. Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel of the famed Waldorf Astoria, must have had his kids in mind when he created this colorful, child-friendly salad a century ago. It’s the perfect combination of crunchy veggies, sweet fruit and toasted nuts. Ben and Nick call it “trail mix salad.”

We’ve updated the ingredients and flavors of this classic slightly to appeal to our boys’ tastes. It makes the perfect side dish for lunch or dinner, and even a weekend snack. The best thing though, is how the boys customized it … they eat it in butter lettuce cups. It’s fun, delicious and healthy.

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Steak and Potatoes – Order of the Day

By Lori Powell

Well, winter hasn’t lost her sense of humor, but I’m really not getting the joke. We are expecting somewhere between four to six inches of snow.

Plants are going back indoors and my shovel is at the ready but at least this time, I only have to deal with a very, very short driveway and a garage! Livin’ in High Cotton!

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Non-stop to Frankfurt

By Katie Barreira 

For an authentic taste of German cuisine you could hop a direct flight from JFK to Frankfurt on Main or, simply stir up a batch of the city’s signature green sauce. Seasonal aromatics star in this fresh, creamy mixture traditionally composed of no less than seven spring herbs.

Hey Newbies!

Not only does this regional sauce bear the season’s characteristic color, its components provide green cooks the opportunity to get acquainted with a couple of key culinary techniques.

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