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#WFHCafé with Andrew Scrivani Episode 10: Pesto

hi and welcome to create a live TV. We're back for our episode of the work from Home Cafe with Andrew Screw Bonnie around everyone you're tuning into creative live TV on. We have across all of our platforms on our website at creativelive dot com backslash TV were streaming on based look YouTube, Twitter. Uh, and we are excited to have you all joining us today, So make sure you're leaving us comments and telling us where you're tuning in from, and we'll me an injury will talk to you throughout the show again. My name is Kate, and I'm excited to have Andrew back on the show. Hi, Andrew. How's it going? Great. It's summer, it's hot. And, uh, we're not use the stove today, so that's Yeah, and you could see if you could see what I'm wearing today. I've left. I've abandoned the apron. I mean, my roots. And as soon as we're done, I'm taking this food and going to the beach with it. So this a thematic in a way about kind of no like low heat kind of situation, we're not going to use the stove t...

oo much. A lot of this is sort of cold ingredients. We're gonna attempt Teoh make something from my balcony garden. It is so fun recently doing an interview, and the interviewer asked me a question. He's like, What's your earliest food, memory or food like taste, memory or smell? Memory. And, um, and I had to think about it for a second. But I always end up coming back to, uh, the little garden at the side of my grandmother's house when I was a kid, because she would be mostly basil and rosemary and herbs out there. She had some tomatoes and other things, but it was the basil that just resonated. It was just so powerful. And every time you came out the side door of the house, this wave of based still would catch you in the face. So now that I have a balcony because living here in New Jersey during the pandemic, um, I started growing my own herbs, so I I decided, you know, let me grow some basil of my own. And between the basil and the rosemary, I just like sitting out on the patio smelling the smells that just kind of brings back all that memory. But the other thing about pesto, which you know most people use the fresh basil four, which is what we're going to do today. It's really, really versatile. So I'm gonna make, like, sort of a classic pasta pesto for the beach. So it's a cold pasta pesto. I've already cooked the pasta. It's cooling on a sheet pan, which is a little bit of a stylist Trek, which we'll talk about a little bit. And, um, and then we're gonna use it on a flatbread that I've made flatbreads on a grill before outdoor room going to try it on the stove top, and we see if we could make like, a pesto flavored flatbread on the stovetop. So that's where we're at today we're gonna make some beach food, and, uh, we're going to use some of that fresh herbs from the garden and, uh, and try not Teoh get overheated. Well, I'll tell you so. I just planted my first garden this year, and one of the first things that I printed was Babel, And then I have some cherry tomatoes and onions and smother herbs. But I love going out there because the basil so fragrant I think you're throwing in a little bit of tomato into your, uh, passed up I saw. Right. Uh, you get some tomatoes here. Nice s Oh, my, my little dog actually discovered are cherry tomato plant. And I had no idea that she would actually like tomatoes. But now I have to keep an eye on my tomato plants cause she'll just go out there and pluck them all ofus soon is that she has no interest in the green ones. As soon as they get ripe and she can start smelling them, she's the 1st 1 because get to the and dog it knows how to. Yeah, Good. Cool. All right, well, I'm gonna were gonna get started here. The the the the the past. I was a very simple sauce. It's a very simple, easy sauce. It's got very few ingredients, but the ingredients that user all rather fragrant and powerful. And you'll notice that in this recipe there's no salt, because salt is something you could always add. Leader and the cheese called Army John or Marino. Uh, I used the pecorino, which is a little bit even saltier. I think all of the salt will come from the cheese. But if I do feel it needs a little extra, I will add a little extra. And I use a little bit more garlic than most. I like it a little bit garlicky. So most recipes call for about to close. I'm gonna add one extra. So we're gonna go a little extra. The first thing I want to do. You used the stove just for a quick few minutes, because let me show you my ingredients. Let's get you into my into my table top here So you could see I got my fresh basil from my outdoor garden. But I also have the pine nuts. I think I'm a little askew here. Hold on. One second. We straighten you out. There we go. Okay. All right. So I have some pine nuts, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna toast them now. A lot of times you buy them and they're already toasted. But quite honestly there never really toasted enough for my liking. And the more you toast them, the better they become. So, um, I can actually it doesn't really help you to see that, but that can put you here like that. So that's actually that's perfect. I always get nervous. I'm gonna burn my my pine nuts. So you say, like, pine nuts, like because they're so expensive. I get a little nervous that I'm going to ruin them if I get them to toasty. Yeah, I really don't leave from ever. You don't walk away from them. Yeah, OK. And just kind of let him once you start to see them color, then you could turn the heat off because in the residual heat from the pan will continue to toast us and you want to push them. You know, like there's a lot of things in cooking where the further you push it toward the edge, where it's really not good anymore. The Ferdi and there, before you tip over, is makes it that much better. So, like, I remember talking famous off the son of a famous chef in New Orleans, he was talking about how his mom, who was the famous chef her name was Maude and Soleil. Um said that she would push that the room. She would make the room t build all of the Cajun food on push it to the absolute edge before burning. And just knowing that you know where that edge waas was Gift. You know, that was the thing that was the heart. So you could see that I put him in there letting the heat build. But I'm also continually moving them around. No pine for a lot of nuts Have a lot of oil in them. So as soon as that oil starts to heat up, it's gonna go. They're gonna go around out really fast. And they were really easy to burn once they burned there. Don't. Yeah, exactly. I've done that a couple times. So this is like, Maru is something that you can't be doing too many things at once. And that's what something I end up doing and cooking a lot is trying to get everything going at the same time and then inevitably burning something in the process. Yeah. This is the only thing for this dish today that we're going to use this stole for going to focus on just this, and then we're gonna just kind of move this over to the side, so we're ready to put them in to the food processor or blender I'm using. I'm going to use a vita mix blender today, but I also sometimes uses. You could see Now we're getting color. So I'm gonna turn the in, turn the heat off and just let him keep moving in the right. Smell it. You could smell it right now that they're really getting toast. If I keep moving them around, you could see that they're kind of catching some nice color now. Oh, yeah, those look great. So one of my favorite things about Pasto is I was interested to see what type of pesto you're gonna make. Uh, and you're going a very traditional style pesto. I love pesto because you can kind of throw with pesto with just about in green and nuts. And so, um, I I'm interested to see what other people you know I wanted I wanted to ask people in the comments tell us what kind of monster you guys makes. I was gonna throw together some Dangel, Ah, arugula and I was deciding between pine nuts and walnuts, depending on what I could find that I found some pine nuts. But I would love to hear what what other people like. How other people like to make? Yeah. I mean, I've donate. When I used to do the recipes for health column for the Times for many, many years mark the row Shulman would very often do pest owes with all sorts of different greens I've done with arugula, parsley, Basil. Um, what did you just say? Hi. Uh uh. I said a rubella I saw this winter. I saw carrot tops. Okay. Yeah, carrot tops. I've seen asparagus. Oh, really? I e a combination of things, right? But I think I'm going on strength. Great Italian. Kind of traditional. So, um, I'm gonna get you down back on the table top, so I need about two cups of, um I need about two cups of of leaves. No stems. I mean, if you get the little tender parts in there, that's OK. And when they say two cups, that usually mean two cups attacked, packed tight. So I would say probably more than I need. And I would like to save a little bit, maybe for garnish for when we go and photographs. But, um, I think you know, it gets taken on one cup measuring dry measure and, um, lost and, um, kind of start just packing them in until I get about two cups and my basil was flowering. You don't want to eat the flowers. Um, you see this part here is flowering. Yeah. Yeah, that's I don't think you want to eat that. Okay, I wouldn't have known that. Yeah, Yeah, this I think when they start flowering is it is a an indication that you really should trim them back. That's a lot of time. Toe start to cut them down a little bit so that they can regrow. And do you like? So one big stock gave me close to a cup here, and I have seen here are some more with the flower on it. Take that off. That might be nice for garnish. So maybe we hold on to that. Could be pretty. Yeah. Unusual. And it's said, essentially inedible flower. Okay, so, God, that's about one cup packed. Dumped that into my food processor and go for another cup. See how we're dealing. So I didn't really grow up eating pesto. It was something, actually that I think growing up, I always thought, was much fancier than it ISS. And then my my husband's mother makes an amazing pesto and, you know, I started making it, but it was always something that in my head was fancy. And then, you know, you you grow up and you learn more about food. And, uh and it's just funny the things that you just because you didn't have them growing up, you assume were new or Mr Like, you know, reaching some some compact there some reason you didn't have. And it was really just cause, you know, my family is not Italian. And so it wasn't a normal thing for us to dio. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, the kind of aromatics like Diesel, you know, where in Indian culture it's more like car police. And then I was sort of that was sort of foreign to me for a very long time. And then once I started to get in touch with that flavor as as an eater, it really, you know, open my mind to the kind of options with that flavoring that was really now have really I gravitate to which wasn't something that was true, you know, years ago. And it's just about becoming familiarized with new things. So we get those little flowers. I got about two cups. Okay, so first thing I'm going to do is see if I could bring you over here. Can you see that? You kind of see that a little bit. Yeah. Here we go. I kind of lost my airpods. I don't know why, but they're gonna take you can still hear you just fine. I don't know why they lost them. Uh, okay, So what I have here is my two cups off, uh, basil leaf. And then I'm gonna dump in the, uh, pine nuts that we and remind me, Hammond, how much pine nuts partner was two tablespoons of time nut on a dump in garlic. And I'm gonna do a little grinding pepper. Okay, So then what I'm gonna do is get this in there, put it on a low setting, grind it up a little, and then I'm going to start adding the oil. I have about 1/2 a cup of oil here. Okay? And this is just olive oil, right? Yes. Do you have a go to olive oil that you like? No, not really. I mean, I like olive oil from Cumbria when I have. Yeah. Okay, So don't do that at home is not a lot of stuff in here. And I think that's probably why we're having a problem. Yeah, this is Sometimes when I'm making pesto, I go for my little, like, bullet ninja bullet because it's smaller and yeah, the big glass or something stuck. Do you? Okay, you know what? We're gonna make an adjustment on the fly adjustment. All right? Let's see where did that go? It iss many, Many chop there we go out of many chopped, and we're gonna plug it in right here, and we're gonna transfer everything into the big job. Ah, the joys of live told e Usually when you I'm making, like, a sauce something. Sometimes the vita mix is just a little too big to get everything, uh, created up the right way or blended up the upgrade unless you have a lot of ah, liquid. It's not as good. Yeah. I mean, it did give me a nice, chunky, kind of flavor thing going on here, so All right, so we're gonna do this. It's a lot. So everyone out there watching if you have vita mix, you know that their work is just gonna decision. Okay, Probably. Okay, many chopped. Now I'm gonna add in my cheese and then give it a world in this mini job, and that's that's pretty finely grated Cheese. Doesn't need to be that group did or did you buy it? Great. Pre graded. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Okay, now that is That's what we car gets. I mean, that was about a three minute preparation without the error, the unforced Arab on my part. So, Jake, if you I want to get that a little creamier you can. It's a little It might be a little chunky for some people are gonna give it a little bit about the world. Yeah, that's pretty creamy now, Alright. Looking good. So, you know, little pesto goes a long way. So I made this one last week. I only used about half of it on the pasta, could side, but I wanted to ah, reserve some of it for something else. Now, like, what I was saying are here when you have some pesto in your fridge, clearly you could use it for lots of different things. Have used it for dips. Uhm for, like, veggie dips and things like that. Put it on pasta. You put it on, Ah, fish. I've put it on chicken. It's really nice and sort of Ah, you can even actually, if you add some other ingredients to like we were talking about earlier, you can use it like a chip dip. It's a little garlic, but that the way I made it might be a little garlicky for that toe. Hold up two chips, but absolutely, it's an option. And what once a good fish that holds up the pesto, I mean, I've used dampen your soul. I think pretty much anything that you like the flavor of I mean something that has a really powerful, distinct flavor like blue fish or something like that might be too much. Okay, think that out like a neutral flavored fish is pretty nice for that. So let me get a bowl here. Now, this is what I want to talk about. We could see this when, ah, when we work with pastas in, ah, food styling setting very often will cook the pasta ahead of time, toss and put olive oil and spread it out on a sheet pan like this now for today. I did this for two reasons. One, I wanted to give that lesson that this is always a very good option when you're working with pasta because you wanna have the opportunity tohave it, not stick together. Um, for today, it's It's nice because I'm also trying to cool the pasta down because I'm making a cool dish so you could see all this pasta is gonna come. And it's not sticking together because it's all been cooled and it has some olive oil on the ready. Which, of course, for this dish is perfect meal camp. And then I'm gonna add a couple of tablespoons is to start, and I'm gonna mix that through and see how much coverage I get have. This is a little under per pound of pasta, and like I said, a little goes a long way, and it doesn't really have to be super powerful, so I feel like I'm getting decent coverage, but I would like a little bit more, so maybe I'll go one more big tablespoon, and that's really nice. And I used a ridged pasta. This is a CD with um, with Thea Lines in it and the reason that different pastas have different shapes and different configurations. It's really about how the sauce is gonna adhere to it. You can see I've got a nice coverage there. And I got these beautiful plum two main of cherry tomatoes. Grape tomatoes, I guess, is more like it. And I'm gonna put these in quarters. What is the difference between a great tomato and a cherry tomato? Well, Terry tomato was rounder and a plum. Tomato is great. Tomato actually looks more like a Greek like the shot. Okay, I know that we get him. So we go. We doing kind of interchangeably? Yeah, because But honestly, this is really more of a grape tomato than a cherry tomato. Okay, so when you add no, not so many. But And that's why I'm also cutting them in quarters because I want to have small pieces of tomato in here. I don't want it to be overpowering. And then I want to see if I need to add a little bit more pesto and then I'm gonna season afterwards. I want to see if it needs any more cheese. If it needs any more salt and pepper eso I guess I'm adding about out half the container. So maybe that's 1/2 a pint of of these. And what's something else you might throw in a pesto pasta besides tomatoes to freshen it up? Yeah. I mean, I think you could do a little bit of parsley, which is a nice touch. You put a little bit of fresh parsley if you want a little heat, a little red pepper. Yeah, an ad which is always nice in any kind of pasta dish. Um, so I think those are the two that I most commonly do. But honestly, I think also, I have, like, some grilled chicken in the fridge, and I may, you know, decided to add some of that. Or if you have some other if you want to put a little pancetta and that mean meeting, how can you go wrong with that, though? All right. So that I feel like I have nice enough coverage there. I do want to give it a nice grind. Yeah, and then I'm gonna take a state dissolved gluten free pasta because I need it. I am cooking for me today, so I'm gonna give that a little bit we get fork. And do you think this type of pasta fits pesto? The best or what? What is this? Your go to pesto pasta? Um, for the beach. Okay, Okay, That needs a little bit of salt. So I'm gonna add a little salt, start through, and I have a pretty salty palate. So, like, I think ultimately, it's good for me to do this. Because if I go right off the bat, um, I may over salt the food for other people I'm meeting with, so I have to be careful. Yeah, I have. Perfect. Okay, so I like my pasta al dente, too. So it's a little true. So we got that. And that's gonna be something we're going to take over there in a minute. But I also wanted experiment with this flatbread. So I took a piece of pizza dogs on the fridge, and I've done this all on a grill before outdoors where you take a piece of pizza dough and you put it on the grill, and then you can season a brush it with, you know, with a gun with rosemary oil, or done it with pesto or even tomato oil. Where you can kind of make, like, a little mini pizza on the grill. Um, or like a full kotcher. Really? More like that. Yeah. We're gonna experiment today. Let me show you what I did. Ah, a ball of pizza? No. And I kind of just stretched it out in the pan. Cries bring you over here, I'm letting that heat up a little bit. So I want Japan to get really hot. And I've already sort of soak this in oil. I'm going to give it a flip in a pan. And is this store about pizza Tower? Did you make this pizza dough? I made it. Um, it is, uh, my go to pizza dough recipe, which is from David Tanis. Okay. One of the authors that I work with at times show you what I'm doing. Oh, you're putting passed on before. That wasn't what I was expecting. Yeah, I'm gonna put this on here over first, and then I'm gonna flip it, cause I'm gonna put it on both sides, OK? I need you know, you have to cook it on both sides to get it to be, like, kind of chris crispy and puffy. So I'm gonna slide it right out of this pan and into not Pan. And hopefully it starts the puff club. And when I flipped it that that pesto will be, um, on there already, and then I'll put the other with the other one off. All right, We have a couple questions coming in from, uh, Facebook. One is. Would you ever use salon? Try to make pesto? You know, I don't I think you probably could, but cilantro is really kind of different fragrance, and I don't know that it necessarily goes as well. But honestly, I would try it. Why not? If you love cilantro, it's something that you know if you think about it. Um, cilantro goes pretty well with, uh, with garlic with That's the one part of it that I'm not quite, but we contract selection has a little bit more of a sour instead of bitter flavor to it, it feels like you could try it, but it might be a very unique pesto. All right, so far, so good in there. And so you switch from the cast iron. This isn't something you would do on a cast iron. You the birth. That's all right. Doesn't have to be around. No, I switched to the western because the cast iron would have been like if I was gonna put it in the office, right? She of course I mess that off, but But you could see it's already puffing up a little. And once that, um, I'm gonna check underneath it in a second. And once it's really brown and nights on one side and flip it, see what I got. I dont be the big test. All right? Now we watch paint dry. So do you make a lot of pizza at home? I dio I The only way I can really eat pizza, quite honestly is cooking it at home because I make either I make it either with bread with the dough. Is that I know I can digest or making gluten free? Yeah. The gluten free pizzas you buy at, you know, at the store or at the pizza shop are not really ever. They're always, like, kind of mass created. They make him and then the pizzerias have them. Yeah, for never really does anything for me. What are your thoughts on cauliflower crust pizzas? I've had it before. It didn't particularly agree with me, so I wasn't really wrong. Um, I don't know what it is, you know, but I don't really I don't quite understand all problems I have with my stomach. Anyway, so it sort of I'm a little bit of enigma. Why Certain things? I don't agree with me. Yeah, looking pretty good. Oh, look at her, Brown, That is. Yeah, that's looking like a flatbread. Me? Yeah, a little nicer than when you do it on the grill. When you do it on the grill, it's not quite, it's not quite. It's got the grow marks, and it gets puffy. But it's not quite a rich because the oil is what's really making that beautiful. Yeah, that's true. And you just put a little bit of olive oil in the pan before you flipped it over. Well, I had quit the olive oil in the pan with the dough, so that was getting in olive oil like soaking in olive oil through it in the pan. And it was already pretty well in terms, you know, it's pretty well, uh, well failed. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna cut up some tomatoes while we were doing this Could do employees doing close to tears and see my hands. Um, I'm gonna cut up some tomatoes so that we can kind of scatter them on there. And then maybe some fresh diesel for a little all right way. Have a couple of little things we could photograph today. How about questions? Anybody have any questions here? Okay, So what if you don't have pine nuts? What is your go to? Not your cast, Walnut. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so that's we got that on a decorate that right there. Take that off the stove and I'm gonna bring this over here at all. While you're doing that, I'll remind everybody you're watching creative live TV. My name is Kate. I am the co host with Andrew Screw Baki. And this is the work from Home Cafe were streaming into our site creativelive dot com back slash tv and across all our social media platforms. Today, Andrew is showing us how to make pesto pasta and a little easy at home flatbread. All right, so I got I'm gonna add a tiny bit more pesto to this tomatoes, OK? And then just kind. I added a little olive oil. We're gonna add a pinch of salt, and then I'm gonna just kind of scattered these on here. My flat bridge have some kind of fresh basil left. Probably that new, but it still makes everything more, more pretty. Did you just come down? They Oh, wow. She must smell it. Okay, so here's our flatbread. Timoner, we're on a little plate. That looks great. There's a little flatbread that I made and then our pastas over here, and I think it's time to go over to the window, so right, get going over there. Um, I also want a photograph. Um, I also want to photograph the pesto in a bowl. So, like a macro shot of the pestilent bowl. So I'm gonna get that ready to. So let me get this over to the table, and so I'll remind everybody I'll tell everybody what we were talking about before we got on, which is that you're actually taking this dish to the beach with you right after, because there's some amazing ways, actually. Yeah, and so we're making a good, simple ah, summer dish that is portable. It's a great beach dish, and I'm gonna test out this black bread. I just happened to be making. Andrew texted me this morning, and they told me he wanted to make pesto. And I have all the ingredients for pesto at my house. So I'm gonna be following along tonight and test out this black bread too. So, uh, I have a number of photographs that I have made over the years of No, I'm talking about Cameron. I apologies. Uh, this isn't nearly enough to fill this up. Okay, that's why do you do to get after. But I was putting it in a bowl for dipping. Okay, Be there second only camera over that. Thanks. You know, that's a bit all right. So, pasta, I said pass. Usually downsize my plates for things like, I want everything to give me a more space shot. Uh, small. I noticed that most of the plates you use ah, still have, like, a bit of a lift. And they're like, they're very flat plates. And is that did you buy these plates that you use, uh, specifically because they're good for photographing, or was that just coincidental? Uh, these plates are the ones just for a home. They in terms of how are we gonna do photography here? Because I don't really shoot here professionally that much. So there wasn't really more just for eating, but if I us work really well, I don't usually like stuff that has too much of a lip on it. Catcher have worked out. Okay, so, yeah, I'm gonna work on here. Got the pasta. What? A little bit. More cheese from the fridge. Basil leads varnish and little flowers before prep everything right on the table as working. And I see said he was worried I played the food. And I always have chopsticks with me to, uh, to re position the food. That what? I want it So you can see here. Yeah. Gonna kind of start to get the food going on for this plate. And they're going to do like, a multi dish shock here. A little different. Yeah, we haven't kind of seen. How do you position, you know, multiple dishes, and that would be great to watch. Oh, okay. So we got I'm gonna keep the food toward the center of the pleats. I'm gonna try to give a good balance off the colors without making it look too contrived. And then if I need to fill in a spot, I can just do that with individual pieces off pasta or tomato. I wanted to feel like is here organically. But I also want to have good balance knowing I'm gonna be shooting this from the top. Yeah. So Rick Van Cleave from Facebook has a suggestion for you for your diet and was wondering if you've ever tried more probiotics to your diet such as keeper kimchi or Cleveland Kraut and seen it? They've helped with digestion. He says his wife has been introducing them to hiss diet, and it's been helpful for him. Well, it's interesting. My wife is Korean. Every as we've established on a number of occasions here on I do absolutely eat things like that are fermented foods because they help me with digestion. So, yes, that's a great a great suggestion, and I really appreciate it. Um, so you're getting a good enough? You Are you okay? I can. I lost your audio. I was muting myself. Okay. Okay. Oh, house eyes. That. OK, we're OK with that. Okay, this is gonna come off this clean now because I think it will look way more night organic on that. And then I have some fresh basil for garnish, which I don't normally do. Like the big leaf off Basil. I feel like that's a little bit precious for me. And I tear the diesel, give it more of ah natural feel. I usually soak my greens in ice water before I put the wood. But today, the this is literally cut from the garden, like half a Knauer before we started. So it doesn't really get much fresher than that. And And ice water just makes the colors of the greens old, brighter and more vibrant. Yes, about these little flower guys there. I'm not gonna do that yet. Get smaller. Go So which I have right here. Are you gonna utensils here or you just gonna leave it as as all the dishes? I'll say that again. Are you gonna add some utensils to the shot? Well, I already put a fork in. Oh, I just didn't see it yet. And I'm gonna added Sprinkles, right cheese And I'm a had a little of you too. Why not? What arm in it? I accidentally turned pleasure. Well, so something I'd notice about a lot of your photography is that you're not too precious with the messiness. Like, you know, you're okay with a little grind of pepper lay ending off the plate. Same with Parmesan. I've always You know, when I take a photo, it feels like it needs to be so queen to feel professional. But, you know, you do such a good job at making it feel authentic to actually cooking and making it look beautiful at the same time. Thank you. And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish in what I do is that feeling that you're there in in the moment, in the space and Oh, boy, I'm happy with that. Oh, Young, that looks so good. We have some It's really pretty. We should hire. I'm gonna get school quick. So you're gonna unfortunately see my back here. All right, well, this is a great shot of food, so I'm gonna get up a little higher up with this and the nice surface. So when you have ah, dishes like you have two dishes, how are you deciding what the focal point is? Are you finding your focus kind of in the middle? So both dishes are somewhat of a focal point. Are you focusing on one of the dishes and then letting what the other one fade to the background? Well, from the top, basically, everything's going to be in focus as long as I focus on the high point between the two pictures. Right. Because with the aperture set, as long as I'm focused on the high point, everything else underneath will fall into focus. If I'm here shooting this way, I'm thinking about the pasta dish first. Yeah, then bringing the other stuff in to the background a little bit. And you could see that even though I picked up a little bit of a tripod, you can still see. Oh, there you go. You can still see that. The front? Yeah. Ah, Okay. So I'm gonna get a few shots of everything here. Like, I feel like I'm getting this whole tables, work my way around the table a little bit and get different shots off both a side lit and a back lit Look. I really like what? I'm getting affected shots from here. Recorders. Yeah, and then we already have the overhead. That's a little book, right? I was wondering if you have any, uh, cleaning, you know, recommendations. When you're getting greens from the grocery store right now, there's anything special you're doing. I know these green specifically heard from your own garden, but, you know, in terms of washing, um, you know, sometimes you feel like you shouldn't wash things too much. Um, when they're, you know, delicate greens. But now given co bid, you know how How rigorous are you cleaning your greetings? Well, I do. I always everything but one of the ways I washed my greens is I soak them first. Okay, Soak them in hot in cold water and let them sort of like whatever grit or anything that we have. Settle to the bottom of the bowl, rinse it out again. I think that's a really good practice in general. Yeah. So I'm doing the reverse of what I just shot because I want to see if I could make the flatbread the star and pull that passed away a little bit is our extra now, one of the things I do for you with any sauces or anything that working. I like to make it look like the sauce is being incorporated into the photograph. So I take a little sauce. I put it on a spoon. I might drip a little right outside the hurry, Ole, you know, then sort of leave the dirty spoon there like that. As if we just used it for something. And I'll show you that shot. Damn, We're repression from you two. Coming. And what's the harm? NIST hope down just a little bit more. There we go. Yeah, they were going. That looks great. Oh, yeah, That that pop of ah, green on the spoon is really nice. So what if I did this this way? Um, and eliminated the pasta from the shock. Still have a really nice year off the flatbread that Oh, yeah, that's great. Yes. And you're beautiful opportunities with the lighting with what's going on with tabletop. You know, I could move myself around a little bit. Get close. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Oh, young, That looks so good. And then, of course, you know, you can start doing this kind of routine where you start removing some of the food. Yeah. Do you ever play? You play with, uh, stop motion where you are, You're You're kind of taking bites of the food and it's disappearing. Have you ever thought any stop motion with food before? Yeah. Oh, no. Sorry. You actually took those bites. That's that's one of the perks to being on at home Food Photographer. Right now, Yeah, what's available to you know, though, moving around a little bit, just kind of getting a sense of that. Some of this isn't eaten and see if that works better. It's okay. Flatbread is actually to start today, and we're feeling like the versatility. That's thing. And I think showing like if you're talking about narratives, which we haven't really spoken as much of about narratives in terms of telling food stories. Yeah, if we're talking about narrative. But in this particular sense, what I really want to portray here is the versatility off the recipe, right? So we're making a pesto. The pets so has a lot of qualities that you can use in a lot of different ways. And by showing it laid out with two different recipes plus the actual master recipe all in the same shot, you're selling the idea visually, narratively, that this one dish can be very versatile. So you know, like you think about planning out your shots. You think about planning out your your your menu and how you want execute it in a visual way. And then what is the story that you want to tell? So ultimately, my my major narrative today was that pesto sauce is super versatile, and it's really good to make things that you can kind of take with you on the go, you know? So I think, like having it look a little picnic e might have also been a way to tell this story. Yeah, so, you know. But, I mean, showing food packed up to go is usually a problem. But if I had, um, like sometimes I have, like, a redwood, like a barn door that looks like a faded picnic table. Okay, slatted wood. And you kind of get feeling through the propping that we're in an outdoor setting. You know that we're sitting in the park or were sitting at a picnic table, and we're enjoying this food outdoors. So that's you know, there's lots of ways to layer in the narrative for food stories that go beyond just making the food look pretty. So in that same interview that I referenced at the beginning of a show. Um, I was talking about the fact that layering the narrative is more important than ultimately the beauty shop in the interesting. It doesn't only, you know, the beauty shot is there for has a purpose, right? The beauty shot is there to draw in the reader. The reality is, if you really want to tell the story, there are shots that come before and after the beauty shot that have a little bit more resonance in a food perspective in terms of Catholic people's emotional reservoir off what they remember about food, you know, in a lot of the things we've talked about, relax three or four weeks is the personal connection that we have to the foods that we're making, whether it be through my relationship or through my family or through your family. Um, we've covered a lot of ground here in terms of sort of the emotional components of food, uh, and how understanding your subject matter not just knowing how to make food or knowing how to plate it or shoot it, but also understand why we shoot food and what it is that people respond to when we present them with with really good food work. You know, when we tell good food narratives on why they resonate more than making me hungry, I want to make you hungry. But I also want to make you think, you know, and I think all good art is meant to make you feel something right is whether it's good architecture or painting or sculpture. You stand there in front of it, and it makes you ask a question right, or it makes you think of something, or it makes you angry or it makes you happy. But it elicits emotion, and I think that a lot of times we sterilize food photography in the beauty shot to where it doesn't feel like it's related to anything anymore. And I want if your learning from me to understand that my ethic is that I want you to feel something about the food, the picture, the story, the narrative, the emotional connection. Yeah, I can make the beauty shop, but a lot of people could make the beauty shot book and everybody tell the story right at the end of the day, where journalists were just happen to be in a medium that gives us something that is universal to play with, which is gifts. Amazing. Yeah, it's a gift to be able to have the opportunity to tell stories that everyone can relate to if you do them well, Yeah, that's that. Ultimately, that's sort of where I think I got in touch with that really early on when I started doing this work because it was very personal for me on I think that this is to come this particular show and doing it with you do has brought that full circle because we both feel the need to connect emotionally to the food as much telling the stories about the food, you know, showing the pictures of food or showing you how to make the picture of the food, you know? So there's all this technical stuff we do, We cook the food, we talk about that the aspects of what it means to make food on. We talk about the technical aspects of cooking it, but I don't want the aspect of why we do it to get lost, because I think that why is why we're good at it. Yeah, absolutely. and the why is why you know the story behind the food is everyone's had an amazing, delicious meal. But it's it's your mom's or your grandmother's or the story behind your friends. Grandmothers amazing lasagna that really makes you connect with food and play. Absolutely. And I think that that you think about how often we have those conversations, right? Think about how often we talk about a shared recipe. Yeah, reattached to food or an emotion and attached to food or a special occasion attached to food or holiday attached to food. And how everybody has those, right? Yeah. I mean, where were involved in a in a universal story telling seem. And I just think the mawr we access those feelings, the better we can be in telling these stories visually. And, you know, sometimes it's not as easy as other times, but I think you go in with intention. And I think as long as you go at it with an honest intention to tell a story, some of that comes through even though sometimes the food isn't as cooperative or the setting isn't as lighting isn't as cooperative. Um, you know that happens, But if you come at it with an honest intent to say, Hey, I want to tell this story and I think that it's gonna resonate with people. Then, you know, you you you're not gonna battle 1000. But you know what? You probably gonna have a good eye. 300 batting average. Yeah, I'll tell you a little story that So I subscribed to the New York Times cooking app. And now, now I seek out recipes where I confined photos of that you've taken because I have this like connection. And now when I look at the food and it's a photo that you've done, it tells a story. And I have this connection to you that, like what? I'm making that food. It feels even that much more special because I know that the story behind it or the person behind this story and it's it's really nice. It adds another level of of fun to the cooking because I feel like oh, like Andrew has gone through these steps as well and, like he and I'm trying t create this beautiful dish that I never remotely as beautiful as yours. But it's still this this connection that I have when I'm cooking something that I know that you've also cooked and created yourself and that that's a really fun thing to Dio. Well, that's not nice. And I'm glad you feel that way. I mean, I've had other friends or people that didn't know me from this life, you know, people who knew me from prior lives when I was ever who feel that they can connect again very similarly and no me differently because of the work. And I think that that's personal for me is that if you feel like you could know me a little bit through my work, that's really really I recall the very big compliment for an artist to be told that, um, you are reaching people with work, you know, and that's really cool, and I appreciate that.