dinner party

I was able to photograph a few things earlier in the day but after people arrived and the party started there was no time to concentrate on photographing food. Actually, there was quite a lot of food, a veritable feast. My technophile nephew did pick up the camera and shoot photos of the party but his interest was the camera, the computers, and people, not food. He did get a few shots of food as subject but those are of plates in process of assemblage and finished plates piled up as you can imagine but none of a clear full plate that conveys the whole shebang. Credit where it is due, the guy did a great job when you consider he never before used such a camera. The camera was already rigged with an 18-200 mm zoom lens mounted and my nephew managed it adeptly shooting on automatic before I even noticed what he was doing. So all those photos were taken without the advantage of manual setting and speedlights and are therefore marred with that high ISO grainy saturated weirdness. The photos are also saved in RAW so they're salvageable but I'm busy right now and I can't be arsked. Automatic. Hahaha, that kills me.

None of my nephews and nieces have the slightest interest in food that I can see. This is apparent by their many food-aversions and their hard and fast rejections. A little bit sad really. When a young person says flatly "I don't eat any seafood," without offering any support for that decision apart from the decision itself, my mind boggles and I feel a tinge of pity for the self-limitation. Otherwise they're rather creative.

The pie shell was made the old farmhouse way by rubbing cold fat into cold flour and adding ice-cold water by the tablespoon until it pulls together. It was rolled out on a cloth with a covered rolling pin, careful not to stretch. It contained 50% butter 25% lard 25% Crisco. It also contained lemon zest of two large lemons. Pre-baked, the extra was cut into tiny cookie squares. It was flaky and delicious. The pie contained a pile of tart fresh raspberries and piled with heavy whipped cream flavored with sugar and vanilla.

The rest of the food shots are the sequence of fasts feuilletée puff pastry shown here twice previously. Here, the processor was put to use to shred the freezing butter and the chilled cheese. The folds of the feuilletée pictured above were rolled out six times. That's excessive. It's probably only needs four.

There was a regretful lot of waste from this party. I could have gotten by with a lot less. A lot is stored too that will eventually be wasted also because there is simply no way to get around to it all and I don't want it here for long. Oh well, live and learn, eh?