Grilling a leg of lamb can be a lengthy chore; cooking times can reach two hours, and you can’t wander off too far in case you need to turn the lamb or extinguish flare-ups. Once the meat is cooked, you have to figure out how to carve the lamb.
The paparazzi target wasn’t hard to find: The star smelled distinctly of fish.
Camera flashes cut across the softly lighted downtown Los Angeles restaurant, as the crowd at Ludo Bites jostles for the coveted photo – of the Columbian River king salmon confit.
A few minutes later, as a server walked past with a plate of foie gras terrine, 18 food bloggers aimed their cameras and prepared to fire anew.”This is the game we all now play,” chef and owner Ludo Lefebvre said through gritted teeth. “We cook, we smile – and the people, they don’t eat. They get their cameras.”
Not so long ago, diners, hungry for a memento of special meals, would pull out a point-and-shoot at a restaurant for a quick picture of sliced birthday cake.
No more. Taking a cue from Twitter and Facebook cultures, serious foodies and casual consumers alike are using digital technology to document each bite, then sharing or swapping the pictures online.
Chefs call them the food paparazzi, and these days, no morsel is too minor.
Flickr, the photo-sharing website, has seen the number of pictures tagged as “food” jump from about half a million in 2008 to more than 6 million today, according to company officials. In the group “I Ate This” on Flickr’s site, nearly 20,000 people have uploaded more than 307,000 images of their latest meals, from a 7-Eleven hot dog smeared with mustard to the butter dish at the Michelin three-star restaurant French Laundry in Yountville, Calif.
Camera manufacturers are joining the trend. Nikon, Olympus and Sony sell cameras that offer “cuisine” or “food” settings, which adjust to enhance colors and textures on close-ups.
“I’m sharing my experiences with my friends,” said Hong Pham, 33, a Los Angeles radiologist who runs the food blog Ravenous Couple. “Why shouldn’t I share what inspires me?”
But what is documentary fun for people such as Pham is souring the gastronomic set.
Maitre d’s regularly face diners demanding to be moved away from camera flashes and the sound of firing shutters. Waiters find themselves tongue-tied as customers thrust voice recorders at them to capture a recitation of each course. Some chefs have had enough.
Chef Grant Achatz allows only non-flash photography in his tony Chicago restaurant, Alinea. He, like many chefs, finds himself torn between being flattered by the public’s enthusiasm and aggravated over the effect the picture-taking is having on the restaurant’s operations.
“They’ve paid for the meal, so they think they can do whatever they want with it,” he said.
Some consumers now believe food should be consumed visually as well as physically.
“What happened to the enjoyment of just eating the food?” decried Andrew Knowlton, the restaurant editor for Bon Appetit magazine. “People are losing sight of why you go out.”
The trend has flourished as social media have converged with the rise of the so-called foodie culture, in which chefs have become celebrities and the Food Network has rekindled the public’s appetite for all things edible. Blogger gourmands began reviewing their favorite restaurants and posting snapshots to illustrate their experiences.
“Now, (eating) is the entertainment,” Knowlton said. “It’s like if you were going to a theater or a sporting event, and taking a photograph of your favorite performer or athlete. But now, your favorite star is the plate.”
For Linden Goh, who runs a Los Angeles entertainment production company, the practice appealed to his fascination with how food looks. “I’ve always been a visual person. I’d rather watch the movie than read the book,” said Goh, 39, who shoots what he eats at least once a week and posts the photos on his blog, the Gastronomnom.
Goh first pulled out his cellphone last fall at the grand opening of the Gorbals, a restaurant owned by Ilan Hall, a winner of the Bravo cable TV series “Top Chef.” He said that as he sat down at a long communal table, he glanced around the dining room. He felt self-conscious over what he was about to do.
The server put down the first course: a slab of Manischewitz-braised pork belly. He took a deep breath as he aimed his cellphone. Looking up, he realized other people were too busy taking pictures of their own plates to notice him.
He was hooked. He quickly started shopping for a better camera.
In some ways, the culinary world brought this on itself. As public interest in fine dining has grown, more restaurants have been catering to those appetites in settings far more casual than those of their predecessors. Yet for all that was gained with such expansion, something also was lost: civility.
When Achatz opened his restaurant in 2005, he said he wasn’t surprised when a few customers started showing up with cameras. After all, his style of food is theatrical and unusual: He once interpreted a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich as a peeled grape, still on the stem, dipped in peanut puree and wrapped in brioche.
But in the last year, the food paparazzi have taken over. They videotape every course – as well as the restaurant’s ceiling, menu and table decor. They record clips of Achatz serving table-side and post them on YouTube. One customer recently booked a reservation for two, but requested a table for four to accommodate the tripod for his camera.
Each shot takes time and those delays add up. On average, Achatz said, people who photograph their food spend an extra five minutes per course. “That’s going to slow down our 13-course dinner, at best, an hour,” he said. “I have people waiting in our lobby for their table, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.”
Yet few chefs have banned such photography. A sluggish economy has made them wary of alienating customers. They also know the photos help generate free publicity, as does a positive buzz on social media networks.
Sometimes, chefs reason, it’s better to try to embrace the shutterbugs.
Lefebvre, for one, is grateful. The food paparazzi have let his wife, Krissy, use their pictures for free for marketing purposes. The online buzz helped him quickly sell out every reservation for his latest endeavor – a restaurant that will be open only for seven weeks.
So this month, on the eve of Ludo Bites’ grand opening, Lefebvre happily cooked a private dinner for 18 food bloggers. His wife set up a portable light box in a corner of the dining room.
Even before the bread plates hit the table, the crowd went nuts. As each new dish arrived, the bloggers rushed over to the light box to get the shot, then returned to their seats.
Lefebvre fought for patience. His forehead wrinkled in frustration as he watched the steam dissipate off bowls of escargot and plates of fish.
Finally, he broke.
“Respect the food! The salmon’s getting cold!” Lefebvre bellowed.
The crowd turned to stare. Six people pointed cameras at the chef. Click.
Prep time: 25 minutes
Serves 4
This comes from Raley’s Web site, www.raleys.com.
INGREDIENTS
one 10-ounce bag oriental salad mix
1 1/2 cups chopped, fully cooked rotisserie chicken meat, chilled
1/2 cup diced mandarin oranges
1/4 cup sliced green onion
1/4 cup Chinese chicken salad dressing
4 burrito-size flour tortillas
INSTRUCTIONS
Toss together all ingredients except tortillas in a medium bowl. Place equal amounts in the center of each tortilla. Fold up the bottom and sides to enclose.
Note: For a lower-carb option, forgo the tortillas and serve this as a salad sprinkled with toasted slivered almonds.
Per serving: 400 cal.; 23 g pro.; 48 g carb.; 12 g fat (2.5 sat.); 45 mg chol.; 550 mg sod.; 3 g fiber; 8 g sugar; 27 percent calories from fat.
Prep time: 25 minutes
Serves 4
This comes from Raley’s Web site, www.raleys.com.
INGREDIENTS
one 10-ounce bag oriental salad mix
1 1/2 cups chopped, fully cooked rotisserie chicken meat, chilled
1/2 cup diced mandarin oranges
1/4 cup sliced green onion
1/4 cup Chinese chicken salad dressing
4 burrito-size flour tortillas
INSTRUCTIONS
Toss together all ingredients except tortillas in a medium bowl. Place equal amounts in the center of each tortilla. Fold up the bottom and sides to enclose.
Note: For a lower-carb option, forgo the tortillas and serve this as a salad sprinkled with toasted slivered almonds.
Per serving: 400 cal.; 23 g pro.; 48 g carb.; 12 g fat (2.5 sat.); 45 mg chol.; 550 mg sod.; 3 g fiber; 8 g sugar; 27 percent calories from fat.
I saw “Julie & Julia” the other night and, although I salivated at the close-ups of chocolate pie and baguette slices sizzling in butter, one lingering question spoiled the film for me:
How did that couple afford all those groceries?
She’s an unhappy secretary who set out to cook 524 Julia Child recipes in a year. He’s a magazine editor who delighted in consuming every butter-drenched bite. They live in a tiny apartment above a pizza parlor in New York City.
So, are live lobsters really in their budget? Do they clip coupons for foie gras?
I know, you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief. One thing I can relate to is Julie’s schedule. She’d get home from work after dark, then labor over fancy French food for hours. The couple would finally eat, at their coffee table in front of the television, around midnight.
This is not so different from my life, BK (before kids). Now, we have a dining table and a steady supply of frozen pizzas.
One snapshot from the movie that stuck with me was Julie frying slices of bread for bruschetta in butter. Seems I’m not the only one. This image – it lasts only about two seconds – has spurred chatter on food Web sites. Everyone wants the recipe.
I don’t know why you need a recipe to fry bread in butter. But the scene did inspire me to choose this week’s dish.
I picked a simple bruschetta, one with a few, choice ingredients. I used tomato and basil from our garden. I bought my baguette at the farmers market.
No, I didn’t fry it in butter, but the dish still was everything bruschetta should be – crispy bread, juicy tomatoes, hints of basil and garlic.
It didn’t take hours to prepare, and it didn’t call for any expensive, hard-to-find ingredients.
I like to think that Julie – and Julia – would approve.
BRUSCHETTA WITH TOMATOES AND BASIL
This recipe is from Good Housekeeping.
Ingredients:
1 loaf (8 ounces) Italian bread
1 large clove garlic, cut in half
11/4 pounds (8 medium) ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into \-inch pieces
2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, slice bread diagonally into scant 1/2-inch-thick slices; reserve ends for making bread crumbs another day. Place bread slices on two cookie sheets.
Toast bread on two oven racks for 15 minutes or until crusty and dry, turning slices over once and rotating cookie sheets between upper and lower racks halfway through baking. Transfer bread to wire racks to cool slightly. When bread is cool enough to handle, rub one side of each toast slice with cut side of garlic. Discard garlic.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, gently toss tomatoes, basil, oil, salt and pepper until combined.
To serve, spoon 1heaping tablespoon tomato mixture on garlic-rubbed side of each toast slice.
Another tool in the parental kit: those small adult gadgets with touch-screen technology, so easy a child, even a toddler, can use them.
Parents are discovering that iPhone and iPod Touch applications, or apps, are a handy distraction and an engaging, even educational, way to keep young children busy. (Other handheld devices are getting in the game now, too.)
“It’s been a lifesaver a lot of times,” said Anna Friend of Westwood, Kan.
Life serves up some downtime for her younger son, 6-year-old Brady – waiting at big brother’s activities, at restaurants – and at such times he has enjoyed apps ranging from racing games to math practice. “It’s helped me keep my sanity and kept him busy,” she said.
And many apps are cheap (not counting the cost of the device). Here are five worth checking out for toddlers and preschoolers.
-”Wheels on the Bus,” 99 cents. Everyone raves about this one. When the wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish in the song, your toddler can make the wipers swish, swish, swish on the screen.
-”Preschool Arcade,” 99 cents. Pinball for counting practice, a claw-crane for shape matching and a rocket ship for letter recognition.
-”Peekaboo Barn,” $1.99. Touch the barn door and learn animal sounds and names, in English and Spanish.
-”Toddler Teasers Quizzing,” $1.99. Correctly touch the letter B, say, or touch the yellow rainbow stripe and the crowd roars.
-”First Words: Animals,” $1.99. Spell the animal pictured on the screen with letter tiles. Skill level is adjustable.