Drop the Beet

Click on any of these images (or right here) to see my first spot!

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that the crickets have been chirping for most of the past several months. I suddenly found myself with nothing to say - or nothing I haven't already said or that someone else has said. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. Meanwhile...

I love my work but I'd become restless and had a yearning to change things up. Food Media has gone through a cataclysmic re-design in the past five years. Everything's changed and with change comes opportunity. I just didn't know what it could look like for me. I've functioned as a creative director but I'm not a creative director - in the traditional sense. I've designed productions and stories and shoots but I'm not a production designer - in the traditional sense. And as a food stylist, I've long gone beyond the traditional role of a food stylist, concepting stories, developing recipes, designing sets and writing words. What could 'change' look like for me? It was when I began working with the brilliant brand strategist and change guru Beth Taubner (thanks be to you, Kelly Montez). that an angel landed on my shoulder.

Becky Donahue from the production company Taste in Motion approached me with a crazy-sounding proposition: Would I be interested in directing? DIRECTING. Taste in Motion - or just Taste - is in the business of producing top-tier broadcast commercials with food as the focus. Despite the fact that I'm not and never will be a photographer, (that's what the DP is for, Becky reminded me), she believed I had everything (else) it would take to make me into a director. So for the past several months, they've tucked me under their wing and have very patiently taken me through the process of making my first film, from making storyboards and board-o-matics, meticulously designing camera angles, shot lists, schedules, sets, wardrobe and food through editing, colorizing, compositing, animation and these words you're reading now. It won't happen overnight - and I'm still as in love with what I do as ever - but now I'm only restless because I can't wait to start directing!

Here's my first spot.
Hey D.J.: Drop the Beet!

Don't Mess With the Stuffing

My breakout job as a food stylist was for Bon Appetit Magazine, when both it and I were based in Los Angeles. I had been assisting a brilliant stylist who was nursing a rough drug habit and for whom the phrase Holding Cell was not unfamiliar. I know because part of my job was picking him up from them. This was when cell phones were as large as bricks and mine was kept under the seat of my car ICOE.

Bon App was one of his regular clients and I'd worked with them plenty of times as an assistant. This one morning, I showed up to set to find that the brilliant stylist needed me to pick him up from the Gardena Courthouse.

"Leave him there. You can do this." the editor instructed.

Bon Appetit eventually moved to New York and so did I, and our collaboration continued. Fun fact: I've been with B.A. longer than anyone working there now!

Of all the food editors I've seen come and go, Miss Carla Lalli Music is my fave. I like her style. I love that she mixes things with her hands and is unafraid of salt. Her food tastes like you want it to taste and most of all, it has soul.

Thanksgiving is coming. I'll be snagging all the crispy bits and end pieces from the stuffing and capon. (Yes, capon. So shoot me.) You can experiment all you want with the poor turkey; cook it low and slow or hot and fast; dry rub it, brine it, inject it with butter; jam things under it, in it and all around it; roast it, boil it, fry it, cook it upside down or right side up or spread-eagled on a grill but DO NOT MESS WITH THE STUFFING. It should be fluffy on the inside and crispy and buttery on the outside and it shouldn't have any weird interlopers like prunes or oysters. (unless you're from New England) One year my sister got creative and put prunes and olives in the stuffing, neither of which she felt obligated to pit. KEEP IT SIMPLE.

A few years ago I developed some Thanksgiving recipes for Bon Appetit and one of them was my Simple is Best stuffing, which is really a dressing since it's cooked outside of the bird but I'll give in to the colloquial stuffing. (However I will NOT give in to the idea that "no problem" is the same as "you're welcome"). So here's Carla, making it in the Bon Appetit test kitchen. And here's a link to her new book, which I guarantee you'll love as much as I do.

Giving thanks for small things,
Victoria