Archive for ‘work=food=work’

August 10th, 2010

What’s inside my handy knife bag?

On some days that I don’t feel like lugging my toolbox around, I use my compact Chefy Lite to put all my stuff in. This really comes in handy, especially for those duty days where I am needed in the kitchen. So here’s what I stuff in mine:

my full chefy lite

Because I designed it to be like a knife roll with handles, it can easily accommodate the essentials, plus a little of the extras. Right now I have a Henkel’s honer for easy knife sharpening, a 10″ Henkel’s Pro Chef’s knife (a 12″ is too big for my hands!), my trusty red Microplane for fine grating, my set of red Le Creuset silicon rubber scrapers, a large wire whisk, food tongs, a white rubber scraper, measuring spoons and a pastry brush. In the pocket, I have my mini-first aid kit containing my Garamycin and my Boots band-aids.

I also use this for vacations and picnics. But most of what I really like about this bag is the fact that it holds everything in AND gets a whole lot of compliments from everyone since it doesn’t look like something you would keep knives in (=usually the boring old toolbox or the generic canvass knife bag).

If you’re thinking of purchasing on of our knife bags, I have new designs up in our e-store at www.chefystore.com


August 8th, 2010

Left Over Grapes = Grape and Wine Jam

Because of my shoot the other day, I had a major surplus of different colored grapes and I didn’t think we could consume it in time. And so I made and impromptu home made grape jam. So this is what I used (approximations):

3 cups Grapes, cut in half, seeds removed
1 cup sugar
1/2 Tbsp gelatin, mixed in hot water
2 cups wine (left overs mostly)
3 tbsp honey (or more), i used our home-infused lavender honey
a dash of salt

1

Put the grapes and sugar in a non-stick pan and set it over medium heat. I used a wooden spoon to stir this occasionally till the fruit juices come out. You will notice that after the sugar has melted, the mixture will start getting watery.

2

Then I added the wine. And I let it simmer for a few minutes until the mixture reduces and the wine and juices have become syrupy.

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August 6th, 2010

Ham Project with Photokitchen

shooting at photokitchen

Finally, something to get me out of the office and the puppy nanny I’ve become. Months after our last email, I finally met Mylene Cheung of Photokitchen (which is conveniently located sooo near the school!) or LivingRoom Photography Studios, for a test shoot…and finally our actual shoot. I instantly had a great feeling about Photokitchen, I think this a place where I can actually exercise creative vision with a studio that wants to achieve the “look” I want to develop for myself.

i blurred it sorry

Photokitchen specializes in both food photography and production design. They get inspiration from one of my favorite food photog & blogger, Lara Ferroni, who has perpetuated this wonderful, shabby-chic french look. And they are actually younger than me which is great! The shoot was long but light, I totally loved working with Mye since we seem to have the same eye for stuff…even if the ham began to misbehave a little, which is something I expected since I felt so nice and comfy already, I just knew something was going to go wrong.

But alas, we have come up with great shots. Still, this won’t be out until maybe Christmas so I guess a blurred teaser would have to do for now. The shoot was fantastic, and I think the client was happy with the outcome! Hopefully their consumers will too. :)

I blurred the product pictures by the way. You will just have to wait till December :D

April 12th, 2010

Top 2 of our Mandarin Sky Lauriat

laway chicken

Our CACS alumni Samson Ching, opened up a restaurant with his friends called Mandarin Sky. We were invited to this ultra-stuffing lauriat, but because we had maybe over 12 dishes, I think I’ll just write about the 2 best must-eats in this place instead of writing about each and every dish (sorry I’ve got maybe 10 other blogables pending). Mandarin Sky is in Banawe, a haven for chinese food…but for some reason, this was definitely not your typical lauriat:

Top 2 Mandarin Sky Must-Eats:

mmm laway chicken

1. “Laway” Chicken – laway because the memory of eating it already makes my mouth water. The chicken came smothered in sauce and peanut toppings, it smelled of roasted peanut and sesame…it glistened in the light because the skin was nice and moist. This warm chicken dish had a deliciously rich peanut, sesame – chili sauce, which reminded me a bit of Vietnam. The chicken was properly steeped, the bone was still red and the chicken, you can tell, was steeped in Chinese wine along with other spices. The cucumber served along side it was exquisite. Just when you think you’ve had enough richness, you just pop in a cucumber and you’re ready to go for more.

prawns

2. Sweet Chili Prawns (I’m not sure if this is the name!) – This was fantastic. The prawns were wild prawns, which are usually red even before cooking. It was plum and the way it was cut gave a popping sensation in your mouth. The sauce was a sticky, sweet chili, with a hint of pineapple bits crushed into the sauce, so you’re not quite sure where the tang is coming from but it’s there.

mandarin sky

I’ve been to a helluva-lot of Chinese restaurants, and there are always surprises. These dishes take the trophy during this dinner. I am still dreaming about them chicken & prawns. Yum!

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March 24th, 2010

My First Photo All-Nighter: Sneak Peek

luscious-KR-brownie-cake

It does come with the job. I am proud to say that I pulled off my first photo-all nighter with a smile on my face (Thank God for that 2nd wind!). My first video was also an all-nighter but this was extra challenging considering that at first I thought it would be a relatively short shoot. But that’s the reason why you block off an entire day for this job. It’s times like these when you’re glad you took that extra dose of vitamin C that morning.

midway-to-finish-line

Kenny Rogers will be opening a few new branches this year and one of which will be their Newport branch near NAIA 3. I’m pretty happy that I was finally back from Thailand for this project since I’ve just been dying to get out of the office cubicle the past couple of weeks (and believe me, even if I love my office desk and I love my stuff, cubicle work is pretty bombarding after a while). And tada! a food styling project!

sir-francis-and-ms-leila

I was especially excited for this one since I was working with familiar people. I always find it a challenge to see how long I will take to get what the client wants, for this project, it was pretty difficult, although I managed to still keep smiling. I was just pretty amazed at Sir Francis, our photographer, who had just finished a car shoot that very morning at around 6am (and we started at 10am). All-in-all the final good take was taken at around 3am. Oh I do hope to get a copy of these pictures, because this shoot was a very special one!