Monthly Archives: March 2005

Cranberry Vanilla Almond Biscotti

I wanted to bake a semolina loaf tonight, but realized late in the evening that I was out of yeast. . . Instead, I decided to make Cranberry, Vanilla, Almond Biscotti. I made biscotti for the first time about 6 months ago and I am still amazed how easy it is. Craberry Vanilla Almond Biscotti […]

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Serrated Knife - Serrated Knife

I mean, generally speaking, if you’re going to pay attention

Food Photography

Since beginning this blog I have learned quite a bit about baking, cooking, and photography.  I still have a long way to go in all three categories, but especially the latter.  A few months ago I combed Google for some food photo advice and I thought I would share some of the sites I culled. […]

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Sue - Thanks for all the photo hints. I have become so much more interested in photography since I started food blogging!

paul - Good links there.
Check out my quick tutorial on correctioning color casts in Photoshop-
http://www.kiplog.com/food/archives/2004_12.html#000199
It’s the quickest way to get nice bright photos that pop off the screen. I believe the same steps are possible in Photoshop Elements.

gemma - Sue, thanks for stopping by. Food blogging has certainly opened up a whole new world of photography considerations for me. I’m glad you too will find these links helpful. It seems the largest piece of advice that I have found is to only photography in natural light, which isn’t so easy when I work all day. . . alas. Nice site, by the way. I too am a vegetarian so your ’10 things’ list was quite familiar!
Hi Paul, thanks for the link to the tutorial. Very helpful! I will add it to my list above.

keiko - Hi Gemma – I got here via your link to my site and I’m chuffed to know that you enjoy my blog… thank you. Your site is really lovely with beautiful pictures (your bread looks irresistible!), thank you also for the great links to food photos – I just started learning taking photos so they are really useful.

gemma - Hi Keiko, I really do love your site, it is stunning. Thanks for your nice words about mine. Whether a seasoned photographer or just beginning, you are truly skilled.

My first taste of publicity!

So, compared to folks like Clotide this is pretty negligible, but I received my first piece of publicity today.  Gapers Block is currently hosting a blurb in the Eating/Drinking section by Jesica Davis of Fuck Corporate Groceries.  I am blushing!

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Greek Easter Bread

Saturday night I took the train out to my parent’s house. My brother is on spring break from college and our family decided to host Easter. It was a small crowd, mainly just my mother’s side of the family. (Her two brothers and their families, my grandmother, and also John and his mother joined us.) […]

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peter - My grandma is Greek, and she makes this bread for Easter sometimes. It is very good. She uses a special Greek dye for the eggs so that they stay an extremely bright red-red, and don’t leak into the bread at all. Next time I talk with her (probably today, actually…), I’ll ask her what she uses.

gemma - That would be great to know what she uses, thanks. I figured there was probably a special dye once I saw my finished product. It would certainly be a bit more aesthetically pleasing to use one. While festive, perhaps, pink bread wasn’t all that appetizing. Luckily only a tiny bit turned though.

kasia - Your pink eggs remind me of the one traditional Polish thing I make every Easter – dyed red eggs. They’re dyed by being cooked with onion skins. It doesn’t affect the flavor at all. Actually, you probably don’t even need to cook them with the onion skins; it might be enough just to let them sit overnight in some water with the onion skins. Anyway, it might rub off less?
There is something unsettling about pink bread.

gemma - I’ve never heard of this. I will have to try it, thanks for the advice. Yes, pink bread is sketchy, though my grandma thought it was pretty.

Joy - I don’t know, the bread looks very beautiful to me! We would be thrilled if you brought some to our Easter dinner — pink eggs, red eggs or not. Fabulous. Thanks for the wonderful inspirateion. –Joy

gemma - Thanks for your kind words Joy. You should give it a try for your dinner next year. Perhaps by then I will have some advice on the bleeding egg problem. Kasia’s suggestion of using onion skins seems the most promising thus far, though I haven’t tried it.

Leni - Most Greek groceries will, around Orthodox Easter time, have special extra-strong dye so that your tsoureki eggs will get really bright red.
The bleeding problem is as far as I can tell a little more insoluble(they’ll at least look like the right color to be bleeding, though!)…presumably everyone’s Greek gramma has some sort of voodoo power to keep the dye from bleeding, I’ve never been able to do it but my yiayia just smiles when I ask her and says, “you just have to be a little careful, Eleni!”

Harold: Breadsmith Bakery

breadsmith is located squarely in the lincoln park yuppie-zone, at 1710 n. wells.  while i am normally loathe to countenance any bakery selling gourmet dog biscuits i meticulously prepared myself to make an exception in this case.  sadly my charity was misplaced. the premises were clean and appeared to be well maintained, but standing there […]

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John - Wow, Harold. You’re like the mean Homer Simpson critic. Chew-ey?

Too Many Chefs - Posts of the Week

A. Delicious Days from Munich makes a heck of a debut this week with a photographic summarization of the recipe for Mozartkugeln. They seem simple enough for even a klutz like me to make. The post also includes some beautiful pictures of Spring in Mun…