The Tweezer Times

By Lisa Golden Schroeder
I’ve been lucky enough to be a stylist now for 25 years. Paying my dues as a staff food editor donning the caps of prop and food stylist as needed. Assisting a cadre of venerable trailblazing stylists as I built my own skills. Keeping track of where the food was in a mile stretch of rental refrigerators on location TV shoots. Shopping for a case of perfectly ripe avocadoes, hoping to please the head stylist. Washing trailer loads of greasy sauté pans, standing out in the cold at 6:00 am waiting for the bakery to open. Then becoming established enough to have my own assistants to run the pre-dawn errands or do a bit of late night prep work. And I believe I’ve been a good boss—trying to be clear, give good direction and appreciate (no, being down right grateful) for the extra set of hands to get a job done. I’m only as good as my assistant on a complicated food shoot.

So I was recently asked by a highly regarded and gifted colleague (and long time friend) to take up the slack on a tough shoot. Basically assisting him because he was unsure of how the day would go. I was more familiar with what needed to be done than an assistant he had previously booked. So I showed up, rolls of Bounty paper towels in hand, to be an extra set of essential hands. But as the day began it became clear that I needed to ask a lot of questions. Or I was expected to read my friend’s mind. His style of working with an assistant consisted of a few words, expressed as passing demands. I couldn’t tell from minute to minute what I needed to do, so I asked or just tried to keep up as each shot unfolded. I felt a bit like a fifth wheel, unnoticed but for when I was suddenly summoned to the set. At the end of the day, as he packed up to leave for the airport, I received a perfunctory hug and good-bye. No thank-you or other acknowledgement of the favor I did. And I was left to clean up (as a good assistant should). My appreciation of what it’s like to assist was renewed. As stylists we often talk about good vs. bad assistants. But it’s really a two way street. A stylist needs to be proactive about what they need. A game plan, direction, and good communication make the relationship effective–and I was left that day feeling unsettled and questioning my basic abilities. We can’t diminish our studio team members, no matter their role.

Magazine publisher Haymarket Group, Ltd. has recently combined three of its titles, Chocolatier, Frozen Desserts and Pastry Arts & Design, into a new bimonthly “super-magazine” it’s calling Dessert Professional.Aimed at pastry professionals, but also of interest to the serious food amateur, Dessert Professional incorporates features, tips, techniques and recipes for all sorts of sweet goods.

Dessert Professional is also sponsoring a Web presence, www.dessertprofessional.com, which offers those in the pastry and confectionery fields a place to build an online community.

For information on subscriptions to Dessert Professional, call (386) 246-0139.

By Hugh Robert
Reprinted from The Republican (Thursday, August 28, 2008)

An enduring - but true - cliché is that we eat with our eyes. Since the first test of a dish’s ability to satisfy is whether or not it looks good, food presentation has long been the obsession of every restaurant chef worthy of the title.

Contemporary food presentation practices represent the culmination of contradictory ideas.

Up though the 1970s, “presentation” meant “garnishes”; it was the heyday of parsley sprigs and radish roses.

In the 1980s chefs discovered “verticality” as a presentation dimension, stacking elements of the dish into teetering towers.

“Dusting” plates came into vogue in the 1990s, with every square centimeter of the dish covered with minced, powdered and chopped elements.

Today, the fad in presentation is in the dishware itself, which now comes in strange shapes and dramatic colors designed to have visual punch.

All of these traditions co-mingle today, but the real secret of effective food presentation is simple, clean and uncluttered. Food, after all, should look like food, not be stacked, sprinkled and arranged until nearly unrecognizable.

Editor’s note: Today anything goes in the return to real food, with a more casual attitude and individual artistic expression. Future plates are sure to shrink with concerns about nutrition, the environment, and more “responsible” eating. Back to the basics?

Welcome back to The Tweezer Times™! We’re back in business and have all sorts of great content to post for you. In particular food styling technique articles from colleagues worldwide. The purpose of this publication is to offer many professional viewpoints about the work we do, from actual photography methodology, tabletop propping, cooking techniques, to really good business/marketing advice specific to creative entrepreneurs. We can’t forget that we need to stay inspired, keep learning new things, concept innovative ways to problem solve, and stay solvent!

Please let us know if there are any topics you really want to read about…and don’t hesitate to drop us a note if you’d like a personal response to a question.