February 2010 Desktop Calendar

The first month of 2010 has passed and February has come and so Food-0-grafia offers you the new desktop calendar, alas a wallpaper for your PC screen with a photo and the calendar of the current month.

The image that I choosed this month will also be the cover of the blog and depicts the main theme for the recipes of February: spices!

To set the image as your desktop click on the link at the end of this post with the image dimensions that suit your PC screen and, after the image will load, right-click on it with your mouse (or press ctrl while clicking for some Mac users) and select "Set as Desktop Background..." (or something similar depending on the web browser you're using).

Also this month you can also download the same image of the calendar as a wallpaper for the iPhone. Browse down for the link.

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iPhone Wallpaper

Orange and Tuna Risotto

Do you want to bring to your table the freshness of the summer? Try this unusual and delicate risotto recipe that successfully mixes together the taste of citruses and seafood.

Ingredients (serves 4)
2 cups rice (Arborio kind)
10 oz. natural canned tuna
2 orange fruits
2 shallots
3 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup white wine
pepper
parsley leaves

Preparation
Peel the orange fruits, keeping apart the zest, and squeeze the juice out. Put the zest in some boiling water for a couple of minutes to soften then slice thinly half of it, keeping the rest for the final decoration.
Warm the oil in the a large pan, pour into the sliced shallots and let them cook for some minutes until golden, add the tuna, the sliced orange zest, the rice and the white wine. When the wine is absorbed add the orange juice and then some vegetable stock every time the risotto becomes too dry. Cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the stock absorbed and the rice is cooked but with grains still well separated. Dust with some pepper, decorate with the remaining orange zest an the parsley leaves and serve.

The other articles of this month report - Citruses:
Citruses (introduction)
Orange Pudding
Lemon Jellies

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Food Photography: Light Modifiers (part II)

Softbox: the magic word that in the photography world means smooth light, soft shadows, blurred reflections, the trademarks of so much professional imaginery.

In the last article of this series I talked about the simplest light modifiers, the scrim, which works in a very similar way than the normal curtains hanging from the windows of our houses: it diffuses light making it softer and less harsh.

The softbox is an elaboration of this concept: its sides are made exteriorly with black material and interiorly with a reflective one (usually silver colored), so light can bounce all around, while on the front side there is a diffuser material, named "baffle", usually white nylon or other fabric, very similar to the one used in professional scrims. Most softboxes have a second layer of diffuser material in front of the light to further diffuse the light and make it softer.

Even with softboxes you still have to remember and repeat again and again the two main laws about hard and soft light about whom I already talked in the past articles:
- the nearer the light is to the subject the softer the light will be.
- the larger the light is, compared to the subject, the softer the light will be.

Softboxes exist in various size and shapes: squares, rectangles, octagons are the most commons and each one serves to mimic a different light source and gives different results.

 Square and rectangular softboxes are used mainly to mimic the light coming from a windows. The reflections on shiny objects are indeed squared, the light is pretty soft but still directional so you'll have blurred shadows on the opposite side.

There also are gridded squared softbox that are used to have a more directional light with less "spills". Spills are when the light scatters around in (usually) unwanted places, as you can easily guess the grid helps a lot to give a light a linear directional while continuing to keep it softer because it is diffused inside the softbox and not on the set.

Another type of softbox is the so called "striplight". It consists in a pretty elongated rectangular shape and it is used to light edges or create slim reflections on the subject.

The other very diffused type of softbox that doesn't belong to the square type is the octagon softbox. Its shape has been designed not to mimic the effect of a window but of a circular point of light, like a spotlight, but still keeping the classic soft effect of the softbox. They are used mainly in portraiture because its a kind of light that can be easily controlled while its softness helps to hide skin imperfections (or at least doesn't accentuate them like a hard light would do with its strong shadows).






Softboxes are available for almost all the type of lighting: flashes, hot continuous lights and cold fluorescent continuous lights. Just remember that hot lights need specifically designed softbox, made with heat-proof materials able to withstand high temperatures, don't put softbox designed for flashes or cold lights on hot lights or they will burn (btw, it's also pretty dangerous!!!).

About every company that produce lighting system has also a range of softboxes to be used with their devices (flashes, hot and cold lights). They usually aren't interchangeable, they use proprietary systems to connect the softbox to the lighting device. There are also third party manufacturer that produce softboxes (usually at lower prices) that are compatible with most of the systems but check them out carefully so not to risk to have a practically unusable item.

Recently I saw around some pretty smart designed softboxes to be used also with small flashes (speedlights) like the ones produced by Nikon, Canon, etc to be used on the hot shoe of the cameras. To be used effectively though you have to put them away from the camera, usually on their own stands, and have to be triggered remotely just like they were studio lights. This is a huge topic and it would deserved its own article just to scratch the surface but if you're curious have a look at the Strobist site which is one of the first to propel this pretty new way to use speedlights in such a creative way.

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Walking...

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Lemon Jellies

Everyone has some sweet memories of candies coming from her childhood. Mines are about fruit jellies especially lemon ones, I loved them. So for a long time I browsed through a lot of recipes trying to find those almost forgotten flavor, so different from the plastic one of the industrial produced jellies.
After some tries I came out with this recipe that doesn't use animal gelatine and that really works.

Ingredients (for about 8-10 jellies, 1 inch sided each)
1 whole large lemon fruit
½ cup lemon juice
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon grated ginger
fruit pectin (to taste)

Preparation
Cook the lemon fruit in some water until it becomes soft. Rinse and open and take away the seeds and put in a food processor together with the lemon juice and the sugar. Process until smooth, put on low heat and add a some pectin if you want the jellies to be thicker, but sincerely I didn't use it as the whole lemon is full of natural pectin. Let the mixture cook, stirring continuously, and bring it to a slow boil. Test its thickness over a wooden spoon, when stay firm it's ready.
Pour the mixture in a square recipient lined with waxed paper and let cool it down, then cut it in 1 inch sided squares, roll in some granulated sugar and put in the refrigerator until you want to serve them.

The other articles of this month report - Citruses:
Citruses (introduction)
Orange Pudding

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Food Photography: Light Modifiers (part I)

In this article we're entering the huge realm of all the instruments used to modify the light for a shot. I'll try to keep the notions the more related to food photography possible, but as many of you could rightly guess, food is a subject just like others and those notions are indeed useful even if you want to take a portrait or get a decently illuminated shot of your dining room.

In another article I explained (also with visual examples) the differences between hard and soft light, so here I assume that those concepts are clear, if not go back to read it ;)
A further concept is that no matter how the light is produced the various ways to modify it are very similar, just the instruments could differ. I'm starting soon in the first part of the article with a practical example that it's very easy to understand and to put in practice: the scrim.

Westcott Scrim Jim: one of the best commercial scrim systems available 

(Image by Claud Jodoin)

Scrims

The scrim is a very light and translucent textile, usually made of cotton or nylon fabric, very similary to many curtains we all have in our houses and its purpose in fact is precisely the same as the one of those curtains: to make the light less harsh diffusing it.
There are countless industrial produced scrims, purpose-made for photography and filming, but you can also make your own scrim, the difference of course will be in the practicity of use (and how it behaves with wind outdoor) and on your DIY abilities.
Scrims are simple, effective and real savers when you have to mess with harsh lights that ruins your scene. For example you have those wonderful dish and you want to get a shot of it on a sun-bathed terrace. But it's almost noon and the light is too strong, the shadows are horribly dark and sharp and your beloved food looks like it's coming from a terror movie and not from a cooking magazine. Ok, just put a scrim between the sun and the food and you'll have most of your problems solved, the light will diffuse more gently, depending on the distance of the scrim from the subject. Yes because, as I explained in the other article the source of light will become the scrim and not the sun anymore, so the nearer the scrim to the subject, the softer the light will be, and the opposite. Of course scrims aren't used just to shot food, but also if you want take a nice shot of a person under direct harsh sunlight, and can also be used not just to soften the sunlight but any other light, from flashes to normal iridescent lamps: whichever light, just pay attention that it won't burn near to hot lights like bulbs.
But the scrim doesn't just diffuse light, it also reflect it back, depending on its woof and thickness, contributing to further softening it.

Lastolite Standard Translucent TriGrip: here used both as a 

scrim and a reflector.

You really have no excuse now for having your food shots lit like they seem coming from Frankenstein Jr with deep, cavernous shadows and horribly burned highlights. Just use a curtain from your dining room, put it in some way between the light and the subject and see the effect. Play with distances, play with positions, experiment and you'll understand so much more about how the light behaves than reading a thousand instructional books about photography.

Snow in Bologna

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Orange Pudding

Orange fruits let us taste the taste of summer even in these freezing cold, and this pudding recipe really delivers the full taste of these wonderful fruits, despite being very simple to prepare.

The "trick" is basically to use a whole fruit instead than just its juice and some grated rind. Believe me, it's a completely different taste, so don't spare money on some sub specimen, buy a large, great looking and good smelling orange fruit. Anyway, enough talk and we have to cook, so let's go to list the ingredients.

Ingredients (serves 6)
1 whole large orange fruit
1½ cup caster sugar
1½ cup milk
½ cup softened butter
½ cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
icing sugar

Preparation
Put the orange in a pot filled with water and cook it on medium heat for about 2 hours. Open it to eliminate seeds and other hard parts then put it into a food processor with all the other ingredients except the icing sugar. Process until you have a very smooth mixture. Grease a 5-6 cup capacity pan and pour into the mixture then bake in a 350F preheated oven for about an hour or until the surface is golden. Before serving dust the pudding with icing sugar.

The other articles of this month report - Citruses:
Citruses (introduction)

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Citruses

The cover story for January won't be about places and traditions like in December, but about some of the few shards of summer that still shine in these freezing months: citruses!

Those sun filled fruits will play the starring role in every recipe till the end of the month and also on some photographic works, starting from the image of this article.

Just like the past month this post will collect the links to all the related articles that will be published, so come back to check it!

The other articles of this month report - Citruses:
Orange Pudding
Lemon Jellies
Orange and Tuna Risotto

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Tales from the "Bassa" (Flatland) - part III

Leaving Pieve di Cento we continue our trip following the right bank of the Reno river till the town of Galliera. Here the river curves abruptly to the right while a very large channel starts here running further to the north and ending into the Po river. Actually that was the original course of the Reno which was a tributary of the Po, then in the XVIII century, because of the continuous floods, it was deviated to the right through a channel 30 km long, the Cavo Benedettino (from the name of the Pope Benedetto XIV under whose rule it was dug)



Here we can also found the "Bosco della Panfilia" (Panfilia wood) which is pretty famous for the white truffles that can be found here (and the yummy truffle festival organized here every November). Thanks to the Reno flood I found the wood completely submerged in water which was a very unusual view, probably very similar to how these zones looked in the past when meadows ruled these lands.



Galliera originally was a castle built by the city of Bologna in the XIII century to control this strategical zone. But in short time the castle felt under the control of the Ghibellines exiles from Bologna so the Guelph army of the city razed it to the ground an just a tower survived to the present days.
While I was there I took the occasion to have a very good lunch in the Trattoria Galliera where I ate cappellacci di zucca (the recipe is here) and polenta col somarino (mush with young donkey meat).



Continuing to travel beside the Reno river we met the town of Malalbergo and a bridge crossing the river (which was menacingly high) that would bring us to the gates of Ferrara but we took instead an eastern direction toward the hamlet of San Pietro Capofiume (with its sister hamlet of Santa Maria Codifiume on the opposite bank) which is under the municipality of Molinella.



Molinella is a fluvial town whose name derives from the huge number of water mills that were built here to exploit the waterways. It was a border town between Bologna and Ferrara since the Middle Age and an important trade center but also a place of bandits and exiles. An important battle was fought here in July 25th 1467 between the army of Bartolomeo Colleoni (captain of Venice and allied with Ferrara) and the army of Florence, Milan, Naples and Bologna. The battle became famous because it was one of the first were firearms were widely used resulting in an impressive number (for the times) of kills, about 600-700 soldiers and about 1000 horses, the sign that knightly days were almost over.



Leaving the town and heading further east we enter the hamlet of Marmorta (literally dead sea) which, as the name implied, is a marshy zone still today and protected, because of the unique flora, vegetation and fauna, by a huge park named "Valli di Campotto" which lies at the borders with the municipality of Argenta, under the province of Ferrara.



Here in the iced marshes of Campotto ends our travel following the Reno river in the province of Bologna. We met medieval towns, wild nature and huge engineering works together with food and recipes that dates back to the Middle Age: the never ending charm of the plaind lands called "Bassa".

The other articles of the reportage: Tales from the "Bassa" (Flatland):
Tales from the "Bassa" (Flatland)"
Traditional Sourdough Pork Fat Bread: the "Coppia Ferrarese"
Pumpkin Tortelli
Quinces and Plums Preserve
Fruit Preserve Filled Pastries (Raviole Bolognesi)
Tales from the "Bassa" (Flatland) part II"

The travel map by Google Maps:

View Larger Map

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