Lessons

Lesson Info

#WFHCafé with Andrew Scrivani, Episode 3: Polenta and Sausage

Hey, everyone, welcome back to the work from Home Cafe. So I would be here. That's my opening line on my instagram story all the time. So I have to do to be consistent, right? So everyone to the work home, Okay. And we are still here, and we're still working from home, and I'm still cooking a lot, so I'm gonna I'm gonna do some cooking for you today at Previewed a little on my insta story earlier today, and ah, I think we're gonna do some polenta with sausages. It's a really simple prepped, really easy. And you probably have most of the ingredients in your cupboard already, with the exception of maybe sausages, which were in your freezer. So I'm excited to make this because it's something I've been craving and I've been wanting to make. So the sausages were staring at me from the freezer, so they had to come out and play today. All right, Well, I am extradited last week, we made risotto from, so we'll just do a little rewind of what we've been making and you guys can catch up. Um, we w...

ill be adding these to a replace that you guys can follow along, but first we made are NT, which are homemade rice ball that were in your grandmother's recipe If I were told correctly and then you had a little left leftover rice. So last week we use that or boreal rice to make a little bit of risotto. And people really loved that dish. I actually I didn't have broccoli. Um, so I threw in some chicken into mine, and I just overheard my co worker. He did the same. So each week, we're going to continue to be bringing awesome recipe from you, and we're at least us co workers are taking full advantage of it. I've been getting some pictures online to of people who have been making the work from home cafe recipes. So if you do make anything and you wanna show me that, um, then you know, absolutely send it to me and I'll put it up on my story. So, yeah, that's pretty cool. So the the theory behind the polenta with sausages today, other than me wanting it is another kind of rescuing some stuff out of the pantry. So, you know, a lot of us have the ambition of making some cornmeal or were using polenta for something else. Um, and I want to basically make it clear that corn meal and polenta, or exactly the same ingredient the differences that grind and that sometimes when you buy a product that's labeled as polenta, it's because it's the ideal grind of the cornmeal Teoh for cooking it when you do it a traditional polenta grind, which is a heavier grind. It's, um, takes a little longer to cook. Um, what I'm going to use today is what I had in the fridge. So it's I'm assuming that a lot of you will do the same. If you will find some cornmeal in your cabinet and you'll say, Oh, I now I know how to make a little bit of, um, polenta with this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make the polenta with the cornmeal I have, which is a little bit of a finer grind. They say sometimes that gets a little pasty, eh? So what we'll do is make sure we have plenty of fat to make it taste better, and also give it a little creaminess, so there will be some cheese, and there and some butter. And if I find that it still needs a little help off throwing a little splash of milk, that will help a little bit. So what we're gonna do first is I'm going to step over here and light my stove. So I want to get this row pan hot because that's going to start our process with Thea with sausages. So I'm gonna shoot, Um I mean, I'm gonna cook. Mostly gonna shoot some, Uh, spicy Italian sausage is I have about three big links, so it's probably, you know, close to a pound. I'm going use a cup of, uh, ground cornmeal, half a cup off, um, Parmesan or Locatelli. Romano cheese, salt, pepper, butter, oil and an onion. The onion. I'm going too caught up in a minute, and I'm going to show you, um, just basic some basic knife skills just so that when you're cutting an onion, you can do things safely. If you're not used to handling a knife, I'm going to do some more stuff. Coming up on 19 of knives and knife safety on one of the things that you might not know, or maybe you've heard it before, is that the sharpest knife you own is the safest night feel, because the worst thing you could do is have to force a knife through food, and then you slipped and cut yourself. So if your knife is good and sharp and you and you practice good technique with your knives, you'll have a lot more success and a lot more less band aids on your fingers. So, um, I caught myself this week, but I did it with the coffee maker. I have an espresso maker, and I, um I was cleaning the filter and I slipped. And the nozzle of the filter cut my hand. So, like, I luckily you know, you in your kitchen, you're going to get cuts on your hands. Hopefully, it's not from your knives. So I'm gonna be down in a sec here and do this cut up as I'm getting all my other things off cutting board. So hang in there. Watch this. We're going for the big flip. Okay, There you go. You're now having board now. I could see that you see here is the rest of our ingredients are cornmeal, olive oil, salt pet. That better see all the things. We're gonna use a lot of water in this ditch too. So, um, I will show you how we're gonna get through that as we go. I'll also post the ingredients the amounts on my story after this. So this onion, I'm gonna cut off both ends. Some people leave that little top end. I'll never hold it together when they cut it. Because they do it the way I'm going to do it right now. So I gotta give it a little Let's give it a little. It's a little slice so you can get appeal on it to peel off the outer onion skin. We'll puff anyway. And the injuries this the way Cutting onions when? Regardless of your dicing, slicing minutes. Regardless, this this is gonna be a little different, cause I'm gonna I'm not gonna dice this onion. I'm gonna slice it cause I want to um I wanna have, um, ribbons. So if you could see this here you see the grain of the onion. So normally, when I'm cutting an onion to dice it, I would cut slits down this way like that and then go this way to make a dice. But because I want the grains and I want to use this. I want to use the length of the onion. I turn it sideways and I'm gonna cut it against the grain. And you see, I use my index finger here as the guide, and you keep all your other fingers behind the night so that if you are cutting like if you're cutting in your front thumb is out here like this, you're gonna hurt yourself. But if you use your index finger as your guide, and then you can also measure like you're the with that you want. So I want sort of like an eighth of an inch with on these, so have a little substance to them. But you could see that all my fingers are behind the knife and I just rocked the knife up and down. And when I get down to the end of this, it gets a little bit harder to cut, so I'm gonna pinch. It may be very careful. Make sure that my fights first, so I had not slipped and caught myself. So I get that little bite on the knife on the onion, and then I kind of just slide down and you could see I'm getting these, like, half rings. And this is exactly what I'm looking for. Diesel cook. Next. Later. So the same, I think my sausages, they're ready to go in. And I know you could see that on R B Can or cook Cam, So I'm gonna put those on. And what kind of sausages are these? Are they Italian sausages? Are they spicy? Yeah. These are spicy Italian sausage. It's already so that's what they look like from here. Yes, and they are. And they're not super spicy, but they're nice enough where this is. The part I always have trouble with is the very end getting so close and that that technique that you have there fore end of doing what you're doing right now, which is kind of taking that one of the pieces of the skin and then kind of cutting it down. Exactly. So as those grill, they should take about 10 or minutes to grill. I'm gonna fire up the other pot, and we're gonna get this going with the couple polenta. I'm gonna put this back up so we can talk. No. Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna put this in here with my first cup of water, and I'm gonna stir that until it gets I'm gonna put the camera on my chest in about a minute. I just want to get started. And that was justly on him and water. Know what you're Oh, yeah. The onions are going to get grilled on that grill pan once the sausages air done. Now, I put them on their without any oil, which is okay. I'm probably add a little oil after once the sausages are done, and then I'll cook the onions on top of that. Okay, that's pretty low. Incorporated. We'll let that go for a bit, and I'm gonna put the camera on my chest. So we can, uh I'm gonna go that way. One second. Dive. Oh, my God. So I'll remind everybody that this is creativelive t he. This is our weekly show with Andrew Screw Bonnie being work from home Cafe Andrews, taking us to his home and upstate New York to teach us a recipe, uh, that he likes to make at home. And then afterwards he's gonna show us how to take mouthwatering photos of what we're learning how to make so we can share our photos and ultimate something delicious each week. So today we are making Italian sausage with polenta. Andrew is setting up, uh, the sausages. Right now we're grilling up, and he's just getting the polenta boiling. Okay, I'm gonna take this guy over here and I put him on my chest. And second, what happened? Yes. Did you see me on this cam right now? I can just steal on one cam right now, but there it is. Okay. Uh, sorry. I have to flip it around or else it doesn't work. I can't see what I'm cooking through the camera. This is super high, so we're gonna turn that down a little bit. Those sausages cooking quick and get this docking the holder. Right. Okay, good. Thank you for your patience, everyone. It is the wonders of live television. No good technical difficult piece. E b often get a lot of questions about the cameras were using Teoh for us to create this little show that we're doing live and scandals, actually, just setting up his IPhone on. And what's the Mount? That you You were injured, William. It's a modified GoPro mount. It's a chesty they call it basically meant for a I home. It's how it will hold an IPhone in place. Like like a chest mounted go pros. So now you can see where I'm working up stole and I Look, I neglected this for a bit, not to add some water, but you could see how it absorbs the water really fast. Yeah, you know that the work those lumps out now? No. And this is something that I often view. Uh, I'm sure a lot of people it's like you get into doing one thing you're cooking, you forget about the other things. Often I get nervous that I'm gonna ruin it. You just kind of made me feel like, OK, it's OK if you could call it a lumpy work through those lungs and it's not foregone to post forgot about it for a human. It Yeah, you know, not always. You have to stop in the middle of your cooking, just your chest camp. But there are guns when you know you get distracted by other things. So this happens and it's OK, a little lump isn't gonna kill you. So I've heard about this going here, and I'm gonna add to salt, so I should have put a little bit in the very beginning. But it's OK, because again, it doesn't change the rest of speech by putting the salt in a couple of minutes later. So you could say I'm getting a nice consistency here, but as it thickens more and more, I'm gonna make sure I'm continuing to add water. And I'm going to continue toe. Keep moving it. Because if you let it sit, it will stick to the plan. You get around the edges and get down. I'm using a heavy cast iron. I think I'm sort of stuck ovens, but you can use anything you got to this. You want to keep the heat sort of medium. And as it kind of keeps going, maybe even a little bit lower than that. Um, making an adjustment here. Don't You don't need to cook with a rubber spatula. I am just grabbing whatever you can close in front of me getting a nice consistency. Excuse me? Those spicy sausages air getting to me. And so when you're using, you know, regular cornmeal versus blunt. Uh huh. Style for male are you looking for? A slightly different consistency in your plants. Are what What is what are you kind of looking for? If there is any differences, I think in the end product should be the same. Your end product to definitely feed to sort of creamy. Um, you know, not to pick This is a little watery right now, but this is gonna cook down even more. But what you're doing is you're infusing the cornmeal with water, fruits swelling, getting picker as you go and read. You realize that you get once you get to a thickness that he's gonna work for your gift. You sort of, uh, let me. It's like a heavy oak meal, like would be. Maybe oatmeal is probably, you know, like a creamy oatmeal that sort of about the right consistency of a good polenta. Now, in northern Italy, they have the polenta and they form it into cubes. And then they cut a strange That's not the kind of pull under we're making today. Now you can do it that way, and you can base your polenta, make it into cubes, and then service one of the dishes that people like to make with that is with mushrooms. So you get like a sauteed mushroom Ragu and put it over like a brick of of ah, polenta. Very classic northern Italian discs. Really good. The one my house makes me good. Sir, I was gonna say this technique very much. Reminds me of, you know, the risotto we're making last week. It's just kind of keeping an eye on it, adding water and making sure it's not sticking to the bottom. Yeah, and I haven't even gotten into pasta yet. Maybe next week. Polenta, risotto, pasta covering all the Italian? Um, little did I know my comment right there. Whoa. Yes. You do make mistakes. You have to do this. 50. I think we do, right? Yeah. You, uh, don't know what's either bubbling. Yeah, Yeah, that's really bubbling right now. That's great. But my sausage, you know, about ever make you ever make Pullum toe wick chicken stock or something to add some more flavor Is that something find recommends I have in the past and it's definitely something you could do. I chose not to do it this time because I know that sometimes when I do, these recipes are trying to be mindful that if you want to make a minor adjustment to make it vegan or vegetarian, you can do that. So, like this fish isn't necessarily vegan. But it would be vegetarian if you only added the cheese, um, on the butter. So and you are cooking for meat eaters and with experience in your house. If I remember yeah, well, I wouldn't call. I think everybody here is an Omnivore, but they definitely some people prefer are a little less meat. I don't know why I keep doing that. I called at that time, but I made a mess. So my sausages, they're almost there. You can see we've got a nice brown. They're going them. I would say these are probably another three or four minutes out. And my, what's your type gone sausages, like, at least for this recipe on the stove like this versus grilling them on your grill. I think however you want to cook your however you want to cook them for this will work because they're really kind of two separate. It's almost like two separate additions here, right? The polenta in stand alone. You could put all the things with it. You could eat it just by itself. Which, you know, if you want to put the keys and and butter in it like we're going through at the end. But the sausages are sort of been a accompaniment, so you can cook them any way you like. Um, And then Or you could add something else. You know, you could have You want to put that people's on top. You absolutely can do that. You grow up, you know, some zucchini, or you can put whatever you think that's avoid that you're working with. You can put it on top of point. Why not? Like you couldn't with pasta? Yeah, same deal. So I think I'm gonna end up cutting these anyway, So I'm gonna cut one in half to see how cook it iss You could almost there, so I'm gonna let that cook a little longer. Now that I have that one cut, I can actually, uh, look at that and they'll tell me when the rest of them are done because we're going to cut me a little circles anyway, to put on top of the deck. Okay. And I think what I can do now is sort of share the pan at a little oil. But now, because it's gonna be you couldn't use a little bit of flavor from the pork fat from the okay, use the bench. Break or not, Your knife, but my shopping, my knives all the time. So I'm allowed. Yeah, My polenta is looking really good right now. Got a nice texture and maybe let it cook a little longer. When it Sprinkle a little bit of after a and a little bit of salt on my onions, you get back here. And, you know, we were talking just a minute ago about in northern Italy. How they kind of mold the polenta and then bacon and use it kind of in the as, like, a bread or a tractor type of style after. If you have leftover pointed like this, is it reasonable to say, like you could mold it after the fact and then do a play on that with Yeah, you know, sometimes you don't even have to bake it. I mean, if you put it in a form and let it set, it'll it'll firm up and you could have use it, just like God. I mean, if you wanted to bake it, you could. But I mean, this will. This will be hydrated century and keep swelling and firming up the longer you leave. So you saw what happened earlier When I when I kind of neglected the pot for a minute, yeah, evaporated all the water and got really firmed. Now I've made this in the oven where that's exactly what happens, right? You put the water in, or the chicken start for whatever you're going to use. And you are. You put it in the oven and you just let it cook at a lower attempt until the water evaporation gets into the polenta. You start maybe once or twice along the way, and then you take it out and let it sit, and it gets nice and firm. So Shekhar consistency? Yeah. See, that's sort of almost there. I think it's still a little liquidy, but I want I want to make a little firmer. But the bulls term up as I when I take it out. Like I said, I don't think I'm gonna add a lot more water for this. But at the end, we're gonna add are she's in our border to the heart. You getting me getting any questions about your end over the case thrown? Just think that looks delicious. Right now, everyone's getting hungry. Well, that reminds me that's in my job for a long time, making images that many people do. You what it's Ammon wants to capture while they're actually cooking. What type of shots, right now, Would you maybe recommend some over the top? Or how how do you or do you ever, you know, shoot while you're so if I'm shooting this fish right now, I'm definitely capturing it in this spades, right? The phase of this beautiful swirling off the polenta with the steam rising off of it. I would love to take this shot. I would shoot this, like, kind of level with the, you know, maybe a 3/4 sort of like I could show you with the camera down. Kind of getting here like that, right? Yeah. This, too, would be really nice over the top. So if I'm looking straight down on it, you could make some really nice process shots here. Maybe even be better than the final shot. Or really nice compliment to the, uh, you know, to the final shot. You know, this could be really nice. So you could see I'm getting a nice caramelization on my onions. My sausages with just about ready I'm gonna take goes off in a second and like the onions keep caramelizing, and I'm keeping scraping of lg's off with the wire whisk. The'keeper's getting picker straight. The bottom two don't make clean up later. A lot easier. Okay, I'm gonna take the sausages down. I feel like there's a firmness to them that makes even if I didn't know they were cooked through because I caught one. There's just firmness to them that you can kind of sense right here. Feel. You know, we could have had a reason. They got nice from this. I mean, that's typically in general, how I I gave my meat is based on the question steel rather than I mean, It depends on if I have a amount thermometer, but that to the easiest indicator for me personally. Yeah, I did something on the work from home test A about steaks, probably in, like week two, where you have hand method where you use your hand, and as you're touching different caters that affirm this obvious. The muscle under your thumb. It's a really good indicator of like doneness, and I was teaching people how to be used out. If you want to check that out, that's on my instagram story highlights, and it's or on my you tube page about doing, um, sort of attempt passed on when you cook steaks. Yeah, this is something you have to get used to. Being able to do at the stove sometimes is sort of this ambidextrous two handed cooking technique. It definitely helps when you got things like this that are both aspiring your attention. These are not the kind of recipes where you just kind of put stuff on the stove and let them go. Um, you definitely have to watch the pot. And that whole idea that the lock pot never boils. Now that doctors, the pot will boils, it'll boil over, and it will make a big mess in your kitchen stuff really nicely caramelized here. He's looked great. Getting really close to being done may actually just turned that pan off. Now, when you're using this type of cookware, these pants stay hot. 10 minutes on. It'll wanted these things to keep cooking, even though that you don't want them to burn. You just turned that need off and just let them sit with the residual heat in the past and that will keep going. And the 10 that you're making the sausage and onions and is also cast are yes, There's old cast iron cookware. But stop is a company that I have a relationship with. Six. And they have some beautiful cookware enamel where actually division, factory and France has got to see how to make anything glass cloth. That was very cool. Right outside of power. Terrible work trip, you know? Oh, yeah. You see the thickness? Think what is 12. 30 on the dot Well, so I think we probably around done with this. So not take that down off the heat. Gonna let that come up a little bit more. That's a beautiful steam going now. Now I'm going to go and put my butter in Klink and my cheese. And how much butter and cheeses that kind of Ah, personal preference Or do you have ah amount you? Typically, this recipe calls for two tablespoons of butter and between 1/2 and a full cup of cheese. So I went with the two tablespoons off butter and about 3/4 of a cup of cheese. I just put a little salt and pepper, and now I have, um I have a rubber spatula look, and the rubber spatula will help me scrape those sides down and incorporate all of that. Amazing this into that. Now, this is definitely gonna take a taste test when I'm done deceit for saltiness because I want to make sure it hasn't assault. Now with that kind of cheese, both Parmesan or pecorino both have a high salt content. So you wanna watch out so that you don't over salt This food cause over salted polenta is really kind of It's really this dish is really about the balance of flavor. And if you over salt that it's kind of terrible, so you could see I got a beautiful, creamy texture. Yeah, I think my worries about using a finer cornmeal was sort of unfounded because I think it really does of the right. Look to it total. And I think that if I let that sit for a minute while I cut the sausages and get the plate ready. I think that's probably gonna be perfect. Yeah, I'm gonna let that sit for just a minute, okay? So you could see my cutting board, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think I'm done with water, so I'm not worried about that. So now I'm gonna cut these. Um, we'll let that sit before it tasted it. I'm gonna cut the sausages into Ah, this is interesting, because I can't see my hands. Um, until little wheels, he's gonna be really nice on top of the polonco and the and you're proving them The finger trick works because you can't even see your hands right now. Yeah, awesome being cutting my field. But if I come like some off, you wouldn't even tell because it looks just like that. Mm. Giving the word the meaning. New meaning to sausage hands. And so I know in this plant. Oh, you were using pecorino or Parmesan. Is there any other cheeses that you think work well and plunges specifically? I think you know any hard Italian cheese will work. I think that you know, most of the time we cook with Parmesan or pecorino, which is a sheep cheese. Um so think we're over here now, and I think these kind of by color, they look really nice. I'm gonna take them off and keep them aside. So that when I assembled my Saiful later remind everybody this These onions got this color just purely from a little oil. And the residual grief from the sausage is correct. That is correct. So there was a little bit of, uh, pork fat in here from the sausages and the little spiciness from Thea Pepper because it's ah, it's ah, spicy sausage. So it was really nice. And then I added just a tiny bit olive oil, probably only about a table spoon. So here the component pieces. I'm gonna taste this now and see how it's looking. I'm a big chef's tasting spoon. Oh, uh, the creamy We should come up just a little more toe like more like, uh, maybe a little bit less than mashed potatoes. This is sort of like almost like the puree at this point. Not too salty. We're gonna add a little salt a little more that at the one to blame on right now. Are you just using the residual heat that you turn it off? I can't remember idea. They turned it off just using the residual heat now and worked in a little bit more salt and pepper scraping up the bottom and thicken it a bit. But you know, people before, like everybody prefers their polenta like like way. Um, people prefer their oatmeal in a way like different textures. Different. So I might put this on a little flame just for a minute, because I feel like it definitely has a tiny bit more liquid that I want. And this is also a good indication of how forgiving this fish is. Me. Get that taste. Make sure the salt is right. Yeah, Seems like quanta is fairly hard to mess up. Even if you forget or turn off the heat too much, uh, you can come back to it and then rework it, which isn't a nice thing to do when your work. It's also something that reheats really well. So if you make it and put it in the fridge and and take it out, it's gonna be clumpy and sticky, and then you add a little liquid to it. Put it back on the flame and they don't get creamy again. Okay, but like, this is the stage where a lot of people take it out and put it in the mold and then put it in the other arm and let and let bake. You could do it that way now to so All right, so I'm gonna take this and put it back on my tripod so I could talk to you. So you taking this off from this second every rain and I'll remind everybody that we This is creative live TV again. This is our new live channel. It's at creativelive dot com backslash TV, and we are going to the homes and kitchens and studios of all of our favorite creators to see how they are staying creative, motivated and inspired. In this strange time today we're Andrus Cavani who will be coming back every Monday oclock to give us a weekly recipe from his home in upstate New York. And then he's gonna do you just have to take a beautiful photo of it afterwards. So today we are making ah italics Spicy Italian sausage with polenta. He is making polenta right now with some cornmeal, and we're almost to the point where we're getting ready to plate. It's Don't forget the onions. Oh, don't forget Gaiman's You are right. Excuse me, and in terms of So it's just this is just like pretty much a three ingredient. I mean, I guess we have a little cheese and butter, but sausage, polenta and onions are the three main ingredients which most of us. They're probably gonna have at least some some variation of those ingredients at home. So it's really great. Yeah. Uh, variation. What's nice too, is ah that, you know, if you don't have corn meal at home, this is one of those kind of ingredients you can get pretty regular readily, either even online. Yeah, you're not doing a lot of shopping and in the stores right now, you could probably border this. And you know, if you have enough other things like staples like, you know, oil and butter and cheese in your house, you could definitely make something really delicious with with just those ingredients. So, um, and that's at a little meat. If you hop sausage or you have some other meats that you want to use, you can do that, too. There's nothing wrong with putting whatever you like on it. This is just the more traditional pick Rock Rocks Productions made polenta last night, and they click shrimp on there. But Bell says a thick. They love making their point a little more firm because they like to put eggs on top and that you know that sunny side up eggs gives you that kind of liquidity so they look like to have it a little bit more firm to complement that some breakfast dishes, which is a really good, yummy sounding thing to dio. Yet Clinton eggs is great. I said earlier. Polenta and mushrooms is delicious and and shrimp is delicious. I mean, these are all things that you know we've had in restaurants. But this is the kind of stuff you could make it home super cheap and really delicious. And it photographs really nice, too, because we're gonna have this beautiful yellow color of the polenta on our plate. And then we're gonna kind of set it off with reddish brown of the spicy sausages and the kind of caramelized onions on top. So, um, I kind of took you guys away from the stove a little bit, but I'm basically firming this polenta up a little more, cause once I added in my facts, um, it sort of felt a little too liquidy to me. So I kind of put it back over the flame, and I'm cooking off a little bit more liquid, and I think I'm gonna like that result. Um, getting a little creamy are, and I'm getting a little bit stiffer. You could see that. That kind of almost stands up in there so you can see me on the side on. And so again, this is created live TV. We're here with Andrew Score Bonnie Andrew eyes doing his daily work from home cafes. And on Mondays, he's coming to creative live TV. Give us a peek into his kitchen. He should follow along. He is Andrew Screw Bonnie on instagram and on YouTube is Well, yes, you can find me pretty much anywhere on social with just my name. Ah, Andrew, Screw Bonnie has one word. I think on YouTube. It's actually separated on, but I am just at Andrews Kobani. In most places, Uh, and I tell people if you could spell my name, you can find me so and it's spelled the way it sounds. Spell the way it sounds, even though half my teachers couldn't pronounce it. But which kind of backing sneak is Everybody I went to school with was either Irish or Italian. So, uh oh, man school in New York. Yeah. All right. So let me ask you just give you an update. It I took off the flame, and now I'm letting that kind of residual lease it. So let's see how that looks in about a minute on. You have a question? Yeah. I just got a question from Andrew Crane on Facebook, and he's wondering, Are grits in point of the same thing? Yeah, it's also cornmeal. Grits are also cut. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Uh, is grits white cornmeal? I think grits might be wiped from you. Brits are white formula. That that sounds and they basically are, like, thinker of a grind. Right. Course. Very coarse. So, um, I'm sure if I got that wrong, somebody will correct me. Um, but I'm pretty sure that is definitely because I know that I can't eat week. So I know that when I eat out in the south, I can get like a start with my breakfast other than potatoes by getting grits. So it definitely agrees with me Better eating breads. Well, so and so I just bread. Being an Italian lover and not being able to eat wheat must be hard. But you found lots of ways to still feel like you're, you know, eating authentic Italian food. Without flour, you find lots of different ways to, you know, listen, Italian cuisine is really versatile. Um, I have a friend who is a restaurant in the East Village. It's called Postal a canto. It's my favorite place to eat. They do appoint the dishes well. Um, and she consistently says that you know, Italian food could be vegan. Italian food could be vegetarian. You know, the time through could be passed it Terrian because you basically start with e starchy ingredients like possible polenta or rice, and then you add whatever it is you're gonna add to them, and whether or not you add meat to them is your choice. But they don't lose their Italian. This they don't lose their flavour profiles because it's onions and it's garlic and herbs, and it's olive oil. And when you mix those things together. You have this sort of beautiful combination. Excuse me. All I do is talk. Um and they have this beautiful combination that's sort of a baseline for all Italian cuisine and monetary Mediterranean cuisine to I'm working with the with the young woman who was photographing and teaching people how to work with Greek food. And, um, it's very much the same. You know, you're working with these beautiful basic ingredients, hasn't food for the most part, and then you can either upscale or downscale it based on, you know, from your ingredient list. So how's my learned to do it? It's getting there. So if we have a couple more questions that have come in first you have there is agree that Brits are usually white, but there are yellow grits out there. Okay, so I don't know. That is exactly the differentiator, but typically there. And, uh, they are white corn grits, but you can find yellow corn grits if you're looking. Michael from Facebook asks ah, question for you. He says he usually uses a cast iron pan, but it starts to burn pretty fast. Should one slow the place up for cooking in a cast iron pan. Yeah, I think I cooking Cast are in a lot, so I'm used to it. And I have a commercial grade stove, so it has very high beat to use. So once that pot gets whatever vessel using gets up to temperature, you're smart to just dialect 10 back a little bit because it's gonna hold heat really, really well. So you may very well end up burning. And it's not like using, like a non stick or some other piece of cookware. Kasten really holds heat. Well, so, um, try to get your thing up the temp once it's boiling, or once it's sizzling. Whatever. And then just temperate down a little bit, because it will definitely ah, prevent you from burning your whatever you're doing. And, of course, whatever you're working with, if you have toe, move it or just it or start or whatever you're working on. But definitely cast iron is tricky. But once you get used to it, it's second nature. Oh, God. All right. So how we doing on time, Kate? Uh, it's just about 12. 45. Okay, so I'm going to give this a shot. It's still little bit loose, but I think it's still okay. I think it's OK. No, it tastes good. That's the most important part. Yeah, it's really good. Okay, so I'm gonna use a little plate. And I talked about this a little bit. Last creek crude for camera have a tendency to scale it down a little bit so that I can use a macro lens and get close and still see the edge of the plate. So that's what that's my hold on. Not walking away. Getting the little okay. Similar to our, uh, result. Oh, dish last week. This is heavy and thick. Right? So if you get it on the plate and you could see on the side cam here, how nice that looks. You want to kind of get it piled up in the middle? And I bet you this firms up even more now that it's this cold plate, right? And then if you want to move it around a little bit, you just kind of tilt it, get it like this. I'm gonna flip you down again so you could see I believe the food. And let me ask you, is it just a coincidence that you mostly have white plates at home. Or do you? Typically, when you are shooting food, look for lighter, brighter plates. I usually like neutral, so whatever is neutral, um, works for me, and I think that using ah white slates or great plates, I usually use black plates, although that's not as much in the trend right now is to use black plates. But if I'm using ah White at home, it's because I like the aesthetic of that in my kitchen. But when I'm shooting in my studio, I have a large selection of plates. But I do tend to go lighter, uh, currently and neutral and usually not shining. See this place a little shiny? Yeah, this is not something I would normally shoot on in my studio. I would tend to either use a neutral plate that's low shine or Matt. And if I can achieve that, especially if I mean like a commercial setting on, I have a plate that I need to use that shiny. I will spray it with going spray. Unfortunately, no. Once you hit a pleat with going spray and put food on it, you can't eat the food anymore. So that's usually more wanted. That's more commercial. Yeah, kind of setting. Okay, so you see, I have chopsticks when I'm plating food for camera. I have I like to, um, use chopsticks so I can place the food exactly where I want it. And here, because I have this small plate and I want to sort of work. What? My see how Fermat that it just bounced? Yeah. Yeah. So it's definitely the right consistency now. And I'm kind of just trying to make a non artful mess. Not necessarily something that is perfect, but definitely a little bit of an artful mess. So I got the onions. Now I'm gonna but going off to the side and I'm gonna put another piece of sausage so you can actually tell it's sausage. There we go. So if I'm going to eat this, I would again, like last week, he saw that I am pulling the second. I get some more cheese right here. I'm gonna give this a little Sprinkle of cheese like they did last week. A nice little artful mess and another little Sprinkle of pepper to give a little contrast and feel like styling wise. We're kind of where we are at. So now is that pointing our presentation where I have to move you. So you were gonna go for a walk, and you're gonna come over to the table with me where I already have my camera. Look, I don't know if it's loaded, but it's definitely here. No, as you can see, if I turn you around, this is a lot of light, right? Yeah. So you could see I got a lot of light coming in this room, and I'm gonna set you up right here on the table in class time. Here's the camera. Tilts down a little bit. Right? Okay. Only get B cam. I'll be right back. All right, So if you're just tuning in with us, this his creative live TV, our new life stream that comes to you on a daily basis today we are here with Andrew. Screw Bonnie is coming to us every Monday at 12 o'clock to teach us a new recipe and then teaching us how to take beautiful photos of it so we can share with our friends and make them jealous of what we're eating at home today. We have we're making polenta, sausage and grilled onions. And it is a beautiful dish that and you're just finished plating and he's gonna show us how to take a beautiful photo up. It's afterwards that he will be showing he will share with us the measurements. This is a super simple dish. It was literally just cornmeal and water. Then, after that came to a boy. Oh, he added a little cheese and butter to that. And then we just have some nicely grilled, not grilled pan seared sausages and onions. And then he just got it all plated. He's setting up his seem to show us how beautiful the plate is each week. Like I said, Andrew Cement coming back T O clock PM Pacific time to show us how a recipe hiring you to make the little stuff. What world? At home. Uh, Andrew is a world renowned food photographer. He shoots for the New York Tottenham's as well as many other publications. And right now he's setting up the plate to show us this beautiful dish. So, um, just taking a test shock. OK? So you could see me over here, I believe. Yeah. Hi there. And, uh so I'm set up here, and I have I will explain my attire. Ah, I am wearing shorts in cold weather and sandals because I had the misfortune of walking through some poison ivy. So pants are not an option at the moment. So, uh, this is not just This is not a fashion choice. This is definitely a necessity. Um, okay, So I have I placed this on a charger, which, which basically, if we were doing this in, um, let me talk to you down here. Here I am, Okay. And so I put it, I put a bigger plea underneath my small plate. So this is an undersized plate. So this is a dessert plate with that? That I played it the polenta on. And then I took a dinner plate, and I'm using the dinner plate like a charger. So basically, I'm doing, like, normally, a charger would be about that big, and then the dinner plate would fit on top of it. So I kind of created the same situation, except with, um, a dinner plate and a desert place. So it I just want to see it and see what it looks like. Um, I know we have nice color and contrast with everything that we've already created in plated. So I'm gonna take a couple of shots and I'll show it here, and then we'll do it without the without the charger as well and see what we get. So hang in there. Okay? So I'm using my 50 millimeter standard lens, and my settings in here right now are 1 25th of a second at about 56 at, um, 800 I It's so so. I want to see how that looking the shoot straight down, I get these really nice circles going the circle of polenta, the circle of the first place in the circle of the second place. And that's a really nice right off the path to check it out. You could see Hold on. I gotta come back this way So you can see I got those sort of concentric circles working on. That was my thought when I saw the polenta kind of settle in my circle in the middle of the plate was that I would like to kind of continue that motif with this circling. So I'm gonna keep going with this. I'm gonna just get a little closer because even with a song as I have all of my get a little tighter, you could still kind of get the sense of Hold on. Where's, um, Rezulin's know? Very. Here we go. So even when you get closer, I still have the full circle of the yellow polenta in the middle. But you still have the the circles, and they're creating a little bit of shadowing. So it's really dramatic and nice. And, you know, I always shoot a little bit under exposed so that I can push those colors and I could push the ah, um, you know, the the light temperature and everything else a little bit in post. So I have a little bit of freedom and flexibility. I'm I'm also gonna shoot this sort of standing back and just looking, letting that light recon on the left. It's not as dramatic with this lens from that perspective, so I'm gonna slop it out going about this because that was your mackerel runs cracked. No, this is the Mac Roland's. So I was on a standard 15 which is what I usually use when I shoot overhead on, and then this is the macro, so help to take the lens. So the area Yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna get a little tighter here because I felt like I lost context a little bit. Yeah, and that's nice. It's a little dark, so I'm going to go down to 4.0, from 5.6, and that's a tiny bit bright. So I'm gonna have split the difference. And here we go. So that Yeah, that's people. So it's kind of, you know, it's it's a different look than the overhead, but still kind of working those circles around my frame. And I'm using the circles to create my friend. Sorry. Like it. But if I want to get in nice and tight here and get a really pretty macro shock, I still kind of need to incorporate the whole circle, or else it sort of starts to look weird. So even at the even, when I'm tight, I still want toe create a situation where I'm still capturing the the entirety of the circle of polenta. Yeah. You know, you're sure during that that that round shot from the roundness of the plate you see how that kind of got cropped. Yeah, that shot. And it doesn't work anymore. It just kind of starts to feel off because I'm my eyes attuned to this circular motif, and then when you chop off the corner of it, it sort of feels a little strange. But if I get really close, that no longer becomes a problem. Now check this out. I'm gonna get really close, and I'm gonna I got to get a little brighter because I done as I get closer, I lose some light into my lens one more time. I think it's maybe a vertical. I was right. It is definitely a vertical. So you check it out. Uh oh. Here we go. That looks so good. I'm getting so hungry. So I didn't have to use the full frame to make the, um, the circle motif on this. I got the little edge on the bottom of the yellow here, and then I used the to the two arcs here control you. Here we go. You say Yeah, and you know, if I decide to go from the top, I could do something very similar where I'm really getting down on the top. I'm gonna just make a quick adjustment. Now, when you're shooting top down, one of the things I want you to remember is you want to focus on the highest point in your plate because what's gonna happen is everything from the highest point on your plate down will be in focus. But if you focus down here, all of this stuff at the top is gonna be out of folks. So when you're shooting top round, focus on the high point and then let all of that aperture pull everything else into focus. Yeah, that's a great tip. Thank you. I'm gonna take away the charger. Now, you see, if we made the right choice from the beginning and see how that looks going to stay with this lens and could see how we get this is a full size dinner fork and it to me looks too big for this plate. And this is again why we scale down. Because this even though this isn't a gigantic Denna fork, it's still a little big for this plate. So what I could do is either frame it differently when I'm not seeing the entire fork. That's what I'm gonna do now. Yeah, so if I did that, I kind of just gave a kind of peak of it. Yeah. Yeah, and it doesn't feel as out of place there. And if I had a small fork, I would go to a smaller fork right now. But, alas, my forks are all the same size. Okay, One more macro shot. I want to show you how to pick up the corners and pick up some spectral highlights out of this kind of beautiful raked light in the corner. Yeah, I got this dreamy, dreamy look here. Yeah, yeah, that really, really works. Nice. Um, so we made some really pretty pictures here with, you know, very little on hand. You know, we made the polenta with the sausage and the onions, and then we got some really nice pictures with just what we had here. And listen, sing that you have to remember when you're shooting at home is that the light is the key. If you are able to find decent light in your space and you use neutral props and you have a basic, you know, you basically letting the the food be the star, you're gonna help him out. Come up with pretty good results if you have good light. Now, if I shot that with my phone, I'm sure I could still get good results because the phones were really good right now. So I think if you're at home and you're cooking and you want to capture, just remember if you the key things that I talked about downsize your caps, keep them neutral, uh, and get the best light in the house now, A lot of times, the best light in the house isn't in the kitchen. And that's okay. You know, like, go to the bedroom and set up a table in front of the window. Um, you want north or South Western facing light? So right now this is I'm facing them northeast or southwest. I want to be northeast or southwest in the corners of my my light space, because I'm gonna get diffused light most of the day. That's the That's the theory behind why we want Northwest or Northeast or Southwestern facing light because you're going to get this sort of rake light that comes through without being too harsh. So that sort of works best for me and my studio. I have Southwestern Light and in my home here. And, uh, I have, uh, Northeastern facing light. Now, I didn't want toe. I didn't want to correct you, but I feel like the shot that I made out the window with a dead giveaway that I'm not in upstate New York. I'm actually in New Jersey. Oh, because there is no in upstate New York. Well, because certainly no ocean work. Sorry. There's no ocean in upstate New York. But it was It was something that I felt like we could probably avoid until I showed the picture of the ocean. I'm sorry. You are so right. I better memory was wrong. No, it's OK. It's all good, because I'm normally in New York City, which, you know, the extent that my weekender would be in upstate New York. I've had to re tenders in my in my life. One was in Pennsylvania and the other one hits down here on the Jersey shore. Almost a good catch. Having a hard time figuring out where the camera is on this camp on this phone today. Okay, um, any questions about what we shot or anything about what we cooked? Any of it I guess the only question left this. How does this taste? Because I know the 1st 2 weeks I tried the food for everybody and interest. Grind does not make food that isn't that only looks good and all that it is good to This answers the question of the you shoot real food because if this Miss rubber and something else, I wouldn't be eating it. But, man, it is really good.