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#WFHCafé with Andrew Scrivani, Episode 6: Chickpea Stew

How are you? Everyone like a excited the have. And we already have people excited to join joining the stream today DDS here A zoo? Well, as a few people from around the world. So I'm excited Toe have everybody joining us again. People have been loving will work from home cafe and getting arrested. Very cool. I'm glad that you here today s so I'm making something that is very versatile again. I try to gonna use, um, pantry items. Been thinking a lot about making sure I can make things that are versatile for both vegetarian and vegan eaters. You could also be an Omnivore and add different things today. So I'm gonna make the base recipe that I would normally make. But I will give you tips along the way as to how you could incorporate different cooking styles with different eaters to make this dish either vegan or vegetarian or Omnivore Ian or press Secretary in order that you wanted to put it in it. But I added state. So it is a vegetarian recipe. I use a little flavorings that you can no...

t be a vegetarian friendly, but they're easy to leave out If you didn't want them. So I want to tell you that this is also a recipe that you need to either. Planned ahead for like I did, Where if you could see my stovetop. I have a simmering pot of, um, chickpeas that are still sitting there for about an hour and 1/2. And there were about ready. Ah, if you don't have the time or don't have the patience to make your own chick piece from Dr Chickpeas and ones of perfectly fine and they're absolutely ready to go and you throw them in your pot so they're soft enough and they still have enough bite where if you cook them a little longer to get there, we soft so like if you want to make homicidal, but you would probably need to cook them a little bit. But if the ones in the can are you using this recipe, you would only need to cook them through. You wouldn't even need to worry about how long it took, so long as they were warm enough to eat. Maybe good, but I want the full nine today, and I took a pound of Dragic piece. Soak them overnight until they about doubled up in size, and then I cook them in a pot of water with, ah bay leaf for about 90 minutes, and now they're about ready. I cook them without the lid because that will keep them a little firmer. If I closed the lid or left delayed half a jar, those would get much softer. So if you wanted to make home us, you would use that the lid method. If you want to make a stew or something where the chickpeas retain their size and shape, you would do it with the lid off. So that's one little trick that you might want to kind of keep in mind when you're cooking chickpeas that you know you want him to retain a bite and their shape, you cook them with the lid off. So let's talk a little bit about soaking beans overnight in general. Why? Why is that something that we should always do? And is it different for the different types of beans? Are chickpeas like, you know, ultimately, they you show them and they get they plump up a little bit. But why? Why do we soaked, Um, beforehand that we're using dry beans. Well, because if you're cooking them from just the dry ah, lot of the bigger beads, not lentils or or ah, little, you know, split piece. But bigger beams will take much, much longer to cook if you don't soak them. So I think ultimately, if you're looking to, you know, eat dry beans, you would want to soak them just so that you're not cooking them for 3.5 hours. Because ultimately, that's what would end up happening. You would need to simmer them for a very long time to get them to be where you want them. Uh, but doing it this way, you can have your dish ready in about an hour. Cool. Yeah. So, um, do you have any more questions about what I'm doing today? Because I'm gonna also bring it. I brought some toys for from the studio to show a little bit about light, redirection and light filtering. So I also meet them the phone core, all parents cards that I talked about last week. I actually made them to about the razor knife, and I cut them up and I showed a couple of different techniques. And how to use them. So I'm gonna use those today and then I have one, um, styling tipped that once the food is ready, I'm going to show you that we use this a little trick that I've gone over and some of my creative live classes. But I think now we have opportunity with fresh food. Teoh demonstrate. So I'm definitely gonna go do that. And what I'm gonna do is get you guys down onto my table top here and show you what I'm up to. So check this out by. Here we go. Okay. Yeah. Lots of collars. We got some fresh spinach. We have some plump of plum tomatoes in their sauce. We have some anchovies. This is the part that you could leave out if you wanted to be one of this dish to be vegan right away on making it today. The only thing you would need to do is leave this out, and then everything else that we're making would be vegan friendly. Um, and vegetarian friendly, obviously. Garlic. This is cumin through the adding later, and I'm gonna cut some onions for you. Break out the Big Nice and you see me before I know that it's always exciting. Thea, the onion cuttings is a fan favorite. Uh, like I said, I used a very sharp knife. Get this. And then I used out methods that a lot of people who work in kitchens all the time use is that sort of I score the whole onion before I chop it. I'll show you in a second. One of retain as much as the onion as I can without while I take the skin off. I actually have a little knife stops. And the other day it was very unusual for me. Now, little where is it? This one which, which hand this one. You see that little scar right there? Yeah. I was just doing something that technically, probably shouldn't do. But almost everybody, because it anyway, being used, uh, 80 clear their nice offering, That which is pretty safe, Except if you're clumsy. And when you bring your knife back. My knife just touched me here. Just touched his. I was bringing my handling shark. Nice. It's just a It was literally just a touch. And if don't like a paper cut, it felt like the paper plate. So I start by having them, and then I scored them. So something I've noticed over the last few weeks of cooking with you is that you tend new mostly with white onions back just a call for wider than a different type of onion. No, I cook for them I and and and I don't react to them the same way. So I'm not crying while I'm doing this in is Ah, that's always good. When you're on, you're on TV at the last thing you want. Todo you don't crying. So, as you see, I use that technique where use my fingers as the guide with blade and then when I get to that last bit, just chop it up. This has got a lot of onion in it because this is sort of a double recipe. I made this recipe of the day the quick way with the San Chickpeas, and it was a lot faster. But I felt like it could be better with with the dried chickpeas and then also by doubling it, I had to double the onion and the garlic in it, which obviously time you get to double the onion and the garlic, you're gonna have some really good stuff. Way most. A little there. So by doing this, you know, the onion is already, you know, kind of, would you say, like, perforated? It's got that shape. So when you cut along the the grain of the onion and then when you just chop through it, it just makes that perfect based onion thing. Okay, so what we're gonna do is lines to follow onions. Once you start getting on that, like maybe getting into no Niceville onions air? Yes. So for sure. So while I'm eating up some about two tablespoons, maybe a little more of oil, I think maybe I'll go a little heavier than that today because I'm using a lot of money in here. So maybe it's more like three or four. The more the better. As far as unconcerned. And we're gonna be starting for a little bit. So I would think I want to do is show you about my garlic message. So usually just kind of give it a little shot, and that loosens the skin also like to take off this little hard edge. One of the other things that one of the chefs that used to work with did was used to open up and take a small paring knife and take out the ah stem and times that stem is green. This them is still Wait. I don't technically do this. I just show it as an option. Because apparently if there is any bitterness at all to your garlic, it would come from this little stem that I just pulled out of here. Yeah, and that usually comes when it starts to turn green, right? That's right. But my my garlic is not, um my garlic is not green like that, so I'm not gonna really worry about it, But I will take out that hard piece at the edge because I think that ultimately doesn't cook the same and to speak to what we were just saying. Just because there is that little brain stem in the middle doesn't mean that your garlic has gone bad because you could just take that helped your garlic. It's still good. A lot of people I see things just might assume as your vegetable start to change color that that indicates their shelf life. Yeah, no, this garlic, Aziz, long as garlic. It's still hard You can always tell when garlic is going bad because it starts to ferment and it starts to smell like, you know, like it's becoming like tickled, and it gets kind of sweaty. If you use the garlic that you buy in a bag or garlic that, you know, garlic that ah comes, you know, like pre peeled. You could always tell when it's starting to go bad by that kind of alcohol fermentation smell. Okay, so we're going into the pot and e still have some cooking to do before chop this up and then I'm gonna switch you guys over to the best time. So I got got onion in there. I'm gonna add a pinch of salt and a little bit of pepper and turn that beat down a little bit. That's really high right now. And you're using another nice cast iron pot there, Right? I am. I am introducing a small but JOVEN, which I use to make skews pretty and stoops pretty often. These are obviously also often see. Let me just chop up this, uh, this garlic and then we'll go. We'll go to chess camp while I see them. The rest of this park. Those onions gonna take a few minutes, so we still have a little bit of time. I'm gonna happen when you're boiling or simmering. Your chickpeas is just so water should be there. You ever putting any other spikes? I actually don't put soft. I I only cook that you could put other flavoring in there if you want, but I try and have to solve the that because you don't want the chick piece to come out of the water being too salty. Eight, because you could always add salt later. So that's one of those. Don't do that. What? I just did Whoever is paying attention to that little but little taking the garlic across my hand with a with the knife. Like Like that. Don't do that. Do as I say. Not as I do parenting one or one. Okay, I'm gonna bring you back up for a sec and hi. How are you? Yeah, I'm gonna get the chest can on. Um, we're gonna go through the rest of this process right now. I'll show you where the onions there at, and then we're gonna season the rest of the pot and get it ready, So sounds good. I'll remind everybody you got there watching creative live TV. It's our live stream that's going to be home. Studios and kitchens, in this case of our favorite creators were here with Andrew Scheer. Bonnie. He is a world renowned food. Pataki a store, and they create a live instructor, one of my favorite CREATIVELIVE instructors. On each week, we're coming to you on Mondays at noon to teach you a new recipe and to show you how to keep a mouth watering photos of it. So today we're making chick piece, dude. Yes, we are. I'm here we go. You going for the circular ride? If you watch the higher things, is how I take you guys off one tripod and get you have attached to my chest. Yes. And everyone always has questions about this chest cam. So remind me it is a GoPro amounts on your chest, and then you're just going right now. Well, is the housing for it is made for an IPhone. And, um, let's say we we want to know you're looking at me. Hold on. I didn't flip to Can your hold on. Here we go. All right, we're gonna flip the camera again. Enter this. Okay, so I'm gonna put you back in the holder, and here we go. Now we can watch the cooking show. Okay, there is. Oh, so I bought this. I bought this, um, this housing to attach to my GoPro chest mount. And, um, it also fits on that little tripod, which you could see on shows there. That's how we flip you down to watch the overhead shot and my onions air getting nice and soft on. I'm gonna let them go just a little longer. Take you over to see the part of beings is ready. I got the little leaf and there's you can see and what I'm gonna do is a while, like onions air finishing where I'm gonna take that heat up a little bit. I'm gonna take you over to the sink and we're going to strain out these beans, so give myself looks. It's a little message. Thats what happens when you're looking on the it's it's really life. Yes. Since real life is right. Barely reminds me of Have you seen recently There's been some outrage at thinking that there was, and I think it's there. I'm trying to think of what meat that they haven't in. But there is a lot there. Is this mean going around of people holding up elite being like I'm not gonna go to truly, ever again. They're released in here and then stick alleged politely respond to everyone and let them know that it's a bay leaf of a compare like they thought it was from a career. Some spring country that, uh, what's a little crazy? Okay, well, you know, you gotta find our Internet outrage somehow. Okay? I feel like since this onions are nice and soft and translucent and and plenty oily, I'm ready to add my other ingredients cell. I got my garlic put That in. Should use my bench scraper. But again, do as I say. Not as I do, uh, for an Toby's again. If you want us to be a vegan dish, it would leave these out. I leave. I put them in for extra flavor. They add a little salt and the ad Ah, little mommy and your anchovies from There's all sorts of thinking yet. Yeah, I get him in Italian store. They usually packed in olive oil and I'm also gonna add about two t two tablespoons of human. It's gonna give it a really nice flavor. All right, So what's my wooden spoon here? This so as I'm doing this, I'm gonna kind of mashed down those Ah, anchovies. So if you're not a fan of anchovy, but you are meat or fish, don't worry that this is gonna taste financially. You will absolutely, never, ever tell that that actually was ever in here because it's going to disintegrate. And I'm gonna cook and just basically become a layer of flavor that's akin to a meaty like a umami flavor, A salty flavor. But it's not gonna please speak she And it's definitely not in a case like an Toby. And you will not bite into a piece of Toby either because that anchovy is almost gone. You can't even see it now. So the tomato paste now is my key indicator and my space smell the garlic and the other. So I tried. You can smell the difference between raw garlic cooking and when garlic has actually started to get frequent. When garlic starts to be cooked through, it stops smelling sharp. Like it like it would burn, you knows, Like like, uh, the way onion would. So once you start to get that really nice roasty garlic flavor and your and your tomato police starts to turn a dark red. That's how you know this mixture is ready and you can actually start adding the rest of your ingredients I'm gonna show. So I think that human is given it a really nice flavor. And I haven't added any more salt yet because remember, I added its assault originally to the to the, uh, onion. And then I put in the anchovy. So I'm gonna Onley put in a tiny bit of salt after I've already added the tomato. That's my next layer, and the next layer will get solved. That has been salting every layer of this right. That's one of those key indicators for cooking is you should be seasoning every layer of what you put in the pot. And I already season this lay or twice because it's been two additions and the third edition ah, will be the tomatoes, and they should get some salt and pepper along the way, sticking to the bottom of the heart. Oh, sorry about that? No, that's okay. Let's talk a little bit about tomatoes. Crushed tomatoes first. Canned tomatoes. Do you know, I think there's a lot of Italian dishes that actually call for canned tomatoes? People assume fresh tomatoes are always what would always be better. But off certain types of canned tomatoes and certain types of dishes that you see and tomatoes make make more sense. Stitches. That is absolutely one of this is absolutely one of those dishes, because San Marzano tomatoes are not something you're going to be able to get at your grocery store unless it's in a can. So you see now I have these form tomatoes, and I'm just gonna break them up with my hands as I'm putting our men. And then there's this, also the use off in the can. He's going to go in after that. First, I'm gonna just break these up by hand and put them in. You can use a can of cal tomatoes to you. Don't result in there. Where you gonna get the same effects you're gonna put that in, and then you kind of like pop your from into it so it doesn't like scored older. The place thes Sort of like pop your plumbing, let some of that used out and then break it off. Or you could do it right in here. I think I'm doing like, the last few. Just break them up in here and then dump everything right in there. And in my life, I cook with my hands. I'm not just not, you know, we use my other hand. So I remember that my hand while you talk to me tell me like So you know, sometimes I'm in the kitchen and I run out of tomato paste. But I always have backup. Tomato sauce is what would you suggest if you don't have to make that kind of robust, concentrated flavor mawr tomato sauce? Or do you have any other tricks that you might use it? You're missing the tomato, please. You know, I think it's hard to replace tomato paste because it's that dehydrated. I think if you ADM or tomato sauce, you're gonna add more liquid and actually you just gonna end up with more of the same. What I would suggest is that those anchovies, if you didn't add them at some point, that's another layer of that sort of deeper flavor that you're catching some from some very good dishes. So I would say that if you're not afraid of the anchovy, that that might be a way to go to kind of add something if you're missing a layer of flavor. So now I'm gonna put in probably about a teaspoon assault to go with those tomatoes and another really good around the pepper. So the way I go rule of thumb on the pepper grinder is 25 turns is about a T store. That's sort of about what I think is about right, But it's pretty close. So now I'm a store that through, and this doesn't need much because it's gonna all cook together. So this is the trick that I want everybody to pay attention to, so I'm gonna add about half of the chickpeas. Now I'm gonna mash them with a potato masher. I want to make these sick, and so it's gonna sick in this up. So these is still a little firm, but they're getting mashed. I'm gonna mash these through, and this is gonna become like a really sick Stewie thing. And then what I do after I'm done with this is I'm gonna add back the rest of the chickpeas hole. So now they have, you know, enough of the actual mashed of three piece to thicken the sauce. I might actually add a little water to this, too. If I'm feeling it's too thick, there's no harm and adding water because it's gonna mostly cooked down anyway. But you see how that's going to sort of all broken up? Yeah. So I think we got enough thick not picking on. And then when I had the rest of these on, I'm feeling like I am putting an awful lot of food in this pot. So I think I'm gonna add some water. It's super thick. It's super yummy, but it's definitely needs a little water. So I'm gonna take the pot. I just took them out off. Actually, you know what I could do? Uh, I can take some of the chickpea water that I saved and I got back. I had a little bit of the chickpea water back, maybe a cup. You can reserve that. I think if I need it. When things I wanted to tell you to about when you're making chickpeas from scratch. You know, from dry is they build up this weird foam on the top, and you just have to scoop it off. Don't be afraid of it. Okay? But you see how the consistency now with that added water yeah, is really perfect. Now, is the water kind of like pasta? Water it cultist picnic or Jack twist? Coincidental that you had some chickpea water left over? No, I see that I do that with pasta water as well, because I think often it lends some extra flavor to what? We're okay. So it's definitely something that you might think you do need some extra liquid to add in. The other thing you could do is add stock. Now, if you want to keep this vegetarian, you could eat. Add vegetable stock. If you wanted to be whichever flavour you wanted, you could have chicken stock. You could add any kind of liquid that you want Since we had to take tea Water on an we definitely had the opportunity to just throw it back in there. It's all married together. Now the flavors are all gonna work together. So I'm gonna let this similar for a little bit. And then the last edition will be the spinach. And then we'll just let that sit in the stew until it until it all breaks down and you know, wilts and then it's ready to sell it. But I'm gonna get you back up on the tripod for a second, cause I want to tell. Talked about some of the other things you could do with this recipe and give me a second. I will get you off my chest. And is is it ever acceptable to use frozen spinach? Insert a freshman injured? Would you always Oculus birth bet rush spinach? In this case, I would always, uh, go for whatever you have available. You know, I try not to be. I don't think you should be an ingredient snob and something in these situations, because the reality is that a lot of people live in places where certain things are just not available and you're missing out on a dish is you can't make something because you're afraid you can't make it without a fresh without fresh ingredients. So ah, I'm struggling with my test mount today. Won't come, will come off, get it? Well, we are. Actually Zubin from Mumbai is watching. Asked, Do you feel like the GoPro is? And it is a good tool for this, you know, it's a stable is it's going to get when you're working with when you're working with something attached to your body. I mean, unless I had, unless I had, you know, something Gyroscopic. You know, like like a Steadicam. Yeah, but the reality is I mean, we're doing this sort of on the fly, and we're trying to be ableto make the most of most camera angles we can. So the likelihood off trying to attach something steady to my chest and do this all at once. Now, if we have a full production crew and we were, you know, doing it absolutely rig me up, put put it, put a steady camera, gardening or whatever or something that's got, um, stabilisation on it. But for what we're doing with it is anything the fact that we're using a phone in the laptop and we're making a four cameras. I'm pretty. I'm pretty satisfied with all that. So let me let me go over a couple of things about this dish that he could absolutely um, improvised and do a little differently, which I'm gonna I wrote for you on the written recipe. Um, now, you can use greens on using our spinach, which would always had different greens that you know will break down in the stew. You could put string beans. You could pre cook something you could like parboil or blanche, some vegetables that are heart. That will be a little hard to be there, but it was in that start your you. Can we start this fish like you do a traditional stew or stoop with celery and carrot as well? There's absolutely nothing wrong with putting those in, I think if you have to decide if you wanted to use if you wanted to use some diced chicken that you've already sauteed up, you can throw that in this and make it a little harder, a little bit more protein in it. Not to say that all these chickpeas are not protein cause they certainly are, Um, and you can. Like I said earlier, you can get that subtract ingredients to make it vegan by not having the anchovy in the sawtek. So there's all sorts of options when you come and deal the stew like this. And then if you prefer to have a little more Mediterranean flair, you cook the way I cooked it. But if you wanted to have a Middle Eastern flair or an Indian flair, you know you can add those spices because chickpeas are universal. You know, it's it's It's something that is eaten over the whole world. So if you decide to make this okay, a dish that is a little bit mole are sensitive to your cold. Sure, or your flavor palate. It absolutely would take that. So you wanna make it spicy. Add some heat. You want to add it. You want to make it a little bit more savory. You want to add coriander. You want to add curry all of these things. If you add the symbol that I put in with the cumin, it's really not much. If you're looking for a chana, masala are something like I you know, the ingredients are sexually the same. It's just switching up the spices. That's right, and it's It's just it's the technique of sort of building it flavor wise from the stuffed hey to the studio and then adding layers of flavor and layers of ingredients as you go, and that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. And what I hope to do is if I'm teaching people to cook here on creativelive. What I'm hoping to do is build their confidence to where they feel more instinctive when they're cooking. Yeah, say, hey, you know, I liked it with the cumin, but I think it would be better with if I asked coriander and curry powder. That would be Excuse me, that would be better than I should never drink What I'm talking. But you know this is this informal? We're in my kitchen, Um, so this is kind of that universal distant go many, many ways, Depending on the things that you want to put in your stoop, you want to meet you wanted fish. You want to add different seasoning you are. All of that is, you know it's so forgiving. And it's one of also one of those things that you put in your fridge and at last week's and taste great, the longer it's in there, or you can freeze it and break it out when you need it. So that's the kind of dishes I've been making. Like while we've been home during the and that I've been trying to make dishes make a nice there. But then I have three people who are working from home here myself, not included. Who is rusted bum rushed the kitchen at 1 30 every day, and they're looking for stuff in the fridge to eat so they can get back to their to their work. So I'm making dishes like this often be something that really helps everybody who's working from home, which, you know, sort of was the initial kind of. He thinks of why I started doing this in the first place because I found myself making dishes consistently. That would be good for reading, good for leftovers. Good to re combine into a new dish. So all of those things seem to work. And you have wanting people wandering in to, uh, looking for something. Yeah, it's looking for something to eat in the work from home. So that's what happens. You know, your this is this is a working kitchen. We're working, and they guys might I got my people upstairs and where we're working, so I'm gonna just give you a little 12 year so I could make it look down on the stove. Alright, while I see like, Oh, this is our fifth camera. So I'm gonna add this in. You're going to see it Looks like a lot, right? Probably could use the bigger bowl a bigger pockets with feces. All gonna will really fast as a as a working through. And then it's gonna add so much nice color to the stick. I'm, you know, spending. She's takes up no space. Once it's all wilted. So is asking it. This beef stock would be a good off. Absolutely any stock you like. I think the only limitations here are your choices that you would like to make. Like if you want to use the beach stop Absolutely. Uses beef stock or veal stock. Or, you know, any of the stocks that you feel comfortable you have in your pantry and you want to use, uh, this would definitely take any of those you know, you want to use your vegetable stock. We didn't want to keep it vegetarian or vegan or you want to use your chicken stock. I've been making my own stock, so I made some ribs about a week ago, and I I had I had parboiled the ribs before BBQ bun in the oven on, and I had basically a gallon off pork stock that we've been using to make dashi broth for Rahman for the last week and 1/2. So that's been amazing. I actually think e next week. Yeah, great e show everyone now. Well, my wife is Korean and, you know, I learned how to eat ramen at the A's in way where they, you know, the Rahman 98 in college. That's what we're doing, Rahman, that, um, I learned how to make from my wife is, uh where you add a lot of different ingredients. Now I've made the doctor brought from scratch, but even when you used beyond the store bought ones there obviously different layers, levels of how good those noodles are and how get broth becomes. But then also understanding how to add things to it. To Dr it often make it fun. There's like, infinite ways to do it, and it becomes, really I mean, obviously it's delicious, but it's also a lot of fun, and it becomes really beautiful photograph so in our family, we do a lot of, ah sort of Rahman nights where we'll kind of do a mix and match Roman with hard boiled eggs and really nice cut scallions and kimchi and other other sort of, Ah, um, what do you say? Oh, I'm having a brain meltdown right now. I'm thinking of the Korean word a bunch and start thinking about the Korean War. Word for all the little appetite is just but on time. So at this point, are stew is done? It's beautiful. Our, um, hold on. I'll bring you there. Okay, we are. So it's got all that nice color. It mean it's got the thickness of a stew. Now when you store this and if it feels a little too thick because maybe a lot of the broken chickpeas absorb a lot of lick, you could always add some liquid back and make it Stewie again. So it's not that there's no harm in adding some stock, some chicken stock, whatever. All the things we talked about gorgeous water and then read and then tasted for flavor to make sure that it's what you want. That's what I'm gonna do right now. I got my chef spoon and I'm gonna keep it a little. You will taste. There's right on. We're really happy with that. So that looks great. I think we can do a couple of things with this. And here's one of the things I want to show you about the food styling part. So let's say I want to use this bowl that is bulls pretty deep, and this is all I have. I don't have a low, shallow bowl to show this in. Um what what What do I want to do here is on the show you something. Let me drop you down on a table top so you can see. Okay, so in here is very deep. And what happens with soups and stews and stuff, especially ones that have a lot more liquid than this one. This one's probably gonna hold up just fine, But a lot of times the ingredients will sink to the bottom, and what we do is we prop the bowl. You put a smaller bowl inside the bigger bowl and create a platform so that some of those ingredients are going to stand up through and break through the surface of Ah, of the liquid on the top. So whenever you see a soup, an upset commercial or really nice editorial, uh, photograph you realize that Why were those noodles on? And carrots and everything. Clothing on the copper there. How did that? How did they get that to happen? Well, this is the trick. Take a smaller bowl, inverted quickly inside the bigger bowl and create a platform. Teoh, you make a star of your of your carrots and your kid, please. And whatever else is gonna float today bottom if you don't. So we're going to see how this looks when I played it. But, um, do you think that use just rice if it's not necessarily a soup? But if I'm looking to, you know, you know, put something more on top of a bowl, I might just use dried race on the bottom. And then, you know that ad Cem fills up the depth for you in a hole. But it when it comes to a steuer soup that that's probably, uh yeah, maybe. I mean, because the liquid within this soak into the rights, so it wouldn't probable exactly the same way. But I mean At the end of the day, if you use something heavier, like deeds or even tie winks, which I've done you by surrounding pie weights, you could line the bottom of the bowl with ceramic pie weeks than the liquid. Yeah, something liquid will go through to the bottom. But if you have a lot of liquid in it anyway, that's fine. And it actually filter some of that and leaves more room for the vegetables to kind of rise up. And and Ah, and rebel right, they rise up. Okay, turn the stove off. I think we can trust the moves. So let me get you moved over to the table. I could show you a couple of things that we, um I have a few things set up over here, so I'm gonna get you on the table, and I will look at the other camera where I could show you everything. So here is the table. You and the let's get the can find everyone. This is the work from Home Cafe. Me and Andrew, I am Cait are creating, uh, cook and photographer. And every week he's coming to us at a specific time. Did she just a new recipe and he just some photo tips. So to daily, I've just made a delicious looking a chickpea sink, and he's just setting up the table to take some beautiful shots. Last week he was giving up on lighting, and so this week he's brought he actually put together a little phone board. It has a black and white on either stuff on and is gonna show us how to use a really simple tool that you can get at pretty much any office depot target any any type of, uh, convenience store should help. We have a board like this that will allow you to use and reflects create a light reflected reflector for yourself. Okay, So you could see me at the in the wide cam, right? Because that's where I want you to see me here. So I want to go over some of the things. So I had this board last week that was basically all three of these pieces put together. Right. So I cut please to around the same size. So they're white on one side, black on the other side. You can stand them up this way, huh? Well, you could drop him down this way and then since in my my stewards a little taller here, I want to add some shadow. So I'm gonna put the black card on this side, and then I might want toe get the backlit part and put a little fill in the front side. So now I got light coming in. Boom hits here pushes light across the top and then dead. Is it on this stuff? So I end up having a managing my light in a very different way. Everything I didn't I created a book with this one. So by scoring the back of it, I just lightly cut through the paper on the back part of the foam board and then cracked it. And now this has created a situation where it will stand up all by itself. So let's say I wanted to add tremendous minor light in there, not just a little film I want to fill in the whole situation. Diet could do with this. Now this scales all the way up to eight feet. So they have that called V flat. You take two full eight by four sheets of foam core and you take them together to form this shape, and then you stand that behind your whole studio set up so that would be behind me, and we'd be putting all kinds of light into into my space. So these are the homemade versions that I use all the time. I keep them with me all the time. They're also very light and portable, and you take with you the other single one to show you today something I brought back from my studio, which is also very portable and something that's inexpensive and super versatile. And these are called road rags. So when you're in a studio setting, a lot of what they the things that we use are sometimes called flags. So this has a frame that's collapsible, and it taxes like this. Seeing all that, yes, so it creates this flame right, And inside the frame you have these little flags. This one is a diffuser. Eso I'm able to attach to the Fuser to the frame very easily. It's got the snap, so this is very stretchy. So there's bends, so it'll hold the hold. The flag really taught. Oh, once it's in. So we got and then these little snaps that wrap around the back part of the bar to hold the tight. So it's really quite versatile, like easy, inexpensive and eight. This is just one of many flags that I have in this kick to diffuse light doesn't light. Plus, it has this part where you could screw in Oh and Haston and hanging off of anything. But this is you could see. It's super light. I can lean it up against something. I could put it on a chair. I can diffuse the light coming in the window like that if I wanted to. If I went outside and I needed to diffuse the light, we could have it. Somebody can hold it for me or to put it on a stand. But it's obviously just a really light, easy piece of equipment, and you could see mine has all kinds of food stains on and drop it on the table. Whatever. But let me show you. A couple other things are in this click. They may come in different sizes, too, but these are like mesh nets. Yeah, that, um well, well dead and light diffused light a little differently, like direct sunlight or whatever. They're sort of like like net material. Then they come in different, different densities. See, that one was a little thicker than this one. Yeah, and then there's one that's completely black. So that creates that What we were talking about last week where this will be completely deaden the light on the flag. I have to have two frames for this, so I could use two of these at the same time. But if I wanted to use MAWR, I could buy more frames. I could buy more flags that could do a lot of different things over here. The steps that show you the stamp. So the stumps cruising here, and then this goes into the stand like that, You could also use a clamp and clamp this toe anything because it's so light. But it'll hold with the with the A club. So we're gonna set this aside for now And just to clarify that tool use light. So it is mention app. You know your ability at the light shine through versus or court your hardboard. That you haven't is it is meant to be a reflector. Fracked. Right? That white is meant to diffuse light. This white is meant to bounce light so you could probably get something like like a silverback or or gold back that could use this to be a reflector. Like the big sun disks that you could buy. They have, like, a silver backing they make that road rags to. So that's so that's definitely something that you can do, so All right, so we're gonna shoot. Now, Let me see if I can get you up a little higher so you can see what we're doing here. Because we have you sitting a little lower today because this Parton's Oh, yeah, this is our first time in a bigger pot. Um, let's see. That's going to get you hire. Hadn't thought of that one. I have something. Hold on. There's always something home rigging. I'm gonna put you up on top of a speaker. Harry. Go, I get I was doing a video call with a friend of mine who has not done video chatting very often. And I was having her put up her phone and it ended up being it was maker and her child used set of all, finding all sorts of new ways to mount our devices. Yeah, No kidding. I mean, everything has become Everything has become gripped. Everything we have is everything we have is grip. Now. All right, so this is sort of settling, So I'm gonna start through so I could take a shot. Um, I got the scene there. I don't think I could get a steam capture in this room right now. There's not enough contrast, but I know we talked about it. Yeah, we talked about the steam capture last week, so I want to get right in the pot here and see what I'm at. Where I'm at. Uh, definitely not 100. I s. So I think we should start a 800 work backwards, so let's see. Okay, Well, what's not bad? We definitely should be at 1600 though. So tell you my settings as soon as I figured them out, okay. I'm at 1600 s 0 125th of a second at 5.6 aperture. Right now. That's where I'm at, and I'm right in getting leading. Pop. I'm taking a balloon to the edge and trying to get along like seller in vertical. Yeah, that's not I'm not. I'm not happy with that because I can't get over the pots. I'm gonna pull back, which means I gotta move you a little bit. Okay? I needed to get a little higher and get over attack that had no room in the body of my frame. So from framing this, I need to have a little bit of room on both top and bottom. So this is almost kind of We're getting close. You see that, Alex? Nice. Yeah. So we got you know, I have something right in here that I could focus on. There's that little stem off green that could be my focal point for a macro shot. And I'm just trying to focus on that. Oh, yeah, that looks that with I gotta get my chopsticks, though, because I want to move stuff around a little. And every week you see me tinkering with the chopsticks because the distribution seems a little off or something is a little clumpy. Or maybe one of these chickpeas are broken in the wrong way or whatever, but you don't want to make it precious, but definitely want to make it so that it doesn't feel like Everything is kind of jumbled up in the corner. So beautiful. Everyone's happy with this, The way these turned out this time. All right, well, I'm trying to do an overhead shock here. I'm gonna t I'm gonna teach you the rial a real way over a shooting, going to the ground. This is really gonna bring you with me to Can you see that? What I need to be You need to be lower. Yeah. All right, let's say Hey, there we go. There. Great. Cool. All right. So I'm gonna stand right over it. My floor, Hopefully remembering I'm not burning my Florida. No. Good. That wouldn't That will not go over. Well, okay, so I'm gonna go straight over the top of that. The wood floor, which actually kind of looks like a tabletop. I'm were super bright because now we moved into the light a lot more, So I'm gonna readjust my I s o getting closer. That's pretty nice. Gonna go 800. I s o, uh, 63 at 120 15 seconds. So check this out. Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna back off just a little bit to fight. Go back to 56 I think I'm somewhere right in the middle. I'll tell you what, what I do in that case. So let me show you what I did so far, So Oh, yeah, that looks so good. So I would tend to under expose based on the look of the of What's happening on the back of the on the back of the camera. I like toe under exposed because I would prefer to bring it up in post, then worry about overexposing and then losing my whites in my highlights. Yeah, I think we're getting some really, really nice shops. Oh, yeah, that looks great. So, um, now you take a little license is the floor and your sneak clean? It's pretty clean. Okay, We're gonna pick up just like pieces of the bowl in pieces up. Just creating a scene so sad. That is a really clean light scene where you could see the handle of the Oh, yeah. Looks nice. You just got just a touch of the bowl in that corner. Yeah. So it's, you know, the bulls empty, but this is all that. And then if you want, we can just go from here. Yeah, and add something a bowl and that'll pick up will pick that up in the corner. So again, just a reminder that bull has another bowl inside of it. Upside down. Pull up. Oh, no, Not that I know I did. No, not yet. No, this one doesn't have it because I don't think we're liquidy enough to worry about it. Don't worry. I'm gonna wash the floor later. But what we do in the for the secret part, Yeah, we got a messy spoon that I'm just cleaning. And then I'm going back for the chopsticks to fix this up a little bit. Yeah, And back to the camera. Normally, I would just make a little drippy left tabletop, and actually, I probably still be active. Oh, yeah, that looks so good. Yeah, I love it with the little corner of the bowl. So I mean, what I would normally do at this point is clean that off first. Okay, Clean that off a little bit, and then I would do is take a little bit and dip it on the table top. Not the It's not the floor. It's the tabletop. Kind of give it a little bit of that this is really behind the scene Shoes. You really get to see what? What talk? Due to capture the perfect shot. So you got the big wide here. The light is beautiful. Coming in from the top of the frame. Oh, yeah, And it's really nice we got, you know, it's looking. It looks like a tabletop. We're We're taking it here totally shaking it. But it's OK. Um, I'm gonna make I'm gonna have to walk. I'm gonna have to mop the floor to this. Am I get a little closer? I wanted to get those elements into the frame a little more. We have jokes coming in about the five second rule. Oh, yeah. So I think they would eat this off the floor even. All right, I'm bringing you back over here. We've got moved around a lot today, Kate, and we did. Okay, here we go. Bring this back. Okay. Here and then let me just wiped the floor real quick. Oh, look at that. Good is new. Okay, so what I want to do now, You see if I can get, like, a super macro shot of something in the bowl, I'm gonna get my 100 millimeter macro out. How we doing on time? We're just at one o'clock right now. Let's make this our last shot. It's great. Leave people looking for more next week. Cool. So, um yeah, you could see you could see what I'm doing here. So I'm gonna just fluff this around a little and get a kind of Stewie and pick up a few of the pretty prettier elements and kind of make my spoon here, Okay? Because I want to get right in on the spoon, So I'm gonna kind of move this around the little I'm gonna get one. Really nice chickpea doesn't have stuff hanging off to see the skin that came off. Oh, yeah. So yes, you're moving that around a little bit. Are you that little splash on the side of the bull? But you're probably not going to really capture that. It's no, I'm getting right on the spoon. Yeah, so I want to see Whoa, I'm really dark. Hold on. I have to go back to 1600 because I'm on top of the table again. And so I just want to show how picking up a few of the elements in a macro shot makes it have better context. So what I have here is of the edge of the bowl, the handle of the spoon and the food all in the same shot, even though I'm really right on top of that. Yeah. So that's what making using smaller bowls will help you do that. But also the idea that, you know, you craft that one perfect spoonful that you know, looks like it's really But, you know, you obviously are tryingto eliminate anything really distracting from it. And then get right in there and get that and get that shot hoops. There we go. Well, yeah, that that's so good. It's I mean, Bale macro and the regular lenses is so significant, especially on the thing like this, where all the colors kind of melt together The way they do this, This the macro brings it out so well. So what I'm doing is a madding black because I felt like it was a little bit off too bright and less There wasn't enough, uh, movement in the in the, uh, the left to right of the light. So it was very flat is what I'm trying to say so I added the black just to see if that would help a little bit. It seems like it has. And when I bring it into post, we'll have a better sense of what I could do with it. But I wanted it adds more contrast to the frame. So I think that I'm moving you again all over, all over with. We have many cameras, many, many cameras of this shoot. But ah, that was an interesting sort of exercise in just D I y figuring it out with minimal gear. Just a nice light source. Ah, pretty nice floor and and some entity delicious looking food. So I think we we accomplished our rolls today, k, I think we did. And we I mean, every time we do this, it feels like it goes faster. We're just flowing through that our so quickly now, Yeah, it goes fast. I think we have our timing down pretty good, but I think I think my family would be happy with this different to be there all big fans of the Mediterranean, sort of well style of cooking that I do. So I have all the ingredients for this and I think I'm gonna make it for lunch. Oh, that's great. Because you could put it together really quick. I mean, I did it for lunch. I did it for lunch the other day. Um, in the you know, the easy way with the camp with canned chickpeas. And it was really delicious. That came together in minutes and we were ready to eat. So and then, uh oh. The other thing I forgot to say is that you know, if you wanted to add pasta to this, you absolutely could add possible to this to you if you just wanted to be a little bit more liquidy, so you might add a little bit more liquid. But then also put it in at the last 10 minutes and cook it with the pasta. So that's also a really nice with, ah, small like soup past that little elbows, orzo, anything small that you would use them Soup would work here so that that's what I would do if I were gonna add pasta to this