nerd’s eye view

Fish Wednesday: Damned Food Photography Workshop Edition

August 1, 2007 – 6:35 pm | by nerd's eye view

Welcome to Nerd's Eye View. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Want to know more about this site? See the Meet the Nerd page. And thanks for reading!

While at the blogging conference last weekend, I attended a food photography workshop. So this week, when I set out to cook Fish Wednesday, I felt a little pressure. A little workshop hangover. A little “you were supposed to have learned something and now that you have, you’d better be able to show it, dammit.”

Well, carp, I thought to myself. Yes, Carp, it’s not a typo. And I fussed with my ingredients a little, and messed about with camera settings and angles and composition. I’m pleased with the results. Not bad for a novice.

The white prawns came from Seattle Fish Company, of course, and the beans and basil from B’s garden, about two miles from the Fish Wednesday headquarters. I had the tomatoes in the fridge, they’re vine ripened and not bad, they’re fine for this. I sauteed a few cloves of garlic in olive oil, then tossed the diced tomatoes on top. Then I threw in the prawns, a splash of white wine, some fresh ground pepper, a tablespoon of capers, and let it simmer. I steamed the beans - very breifly - then tossed them in olive oil When the prawns were bright pink on the outside, I tossed in the basil and, voila.

According to this article, the chef at Ray’s Boathouse, a rather swank seafood restaurant here in Seattle, serves Mexican White Prawns because - he says - they’re from a sustainable seafood source. Mine were farmed and there’s good news about sustainable fisheries and seafood farming out of Mexico. Apparently trawlers are required to use TEDs - Turtle Exclusion Devices. I’m not completely convinced and I suspect my enchantment with the local fish market has weakened my stridency around sustainable seafood.

This week is the last lazy seafood shopping week, I’m going back to doing my homework at the fish counter. It does hit the lesson home that finding sustainable product is up to us and that it’s really difficult to trust the retailers. I won’t deny the it’s hard to make sure your fish is earth friendly, nor will I deny that I have eaten some remarkable fish lately.

All that said, my meal was, if I may say so myself, spectacular. The prawns were meaty and sweet, the beans had lots of snap, the sauce was near perfect. A little saffron would have been a nice addition, but then I’d be insufferable. I washed the whole thing down with a very cold white wine and went to sit in the backyard to enjoy the evening light.

Related

• La Tartine Gourmande spoke at the workshop.
• As did Cook and Eat.
• Italian Woman at the Table and I traded some email about what I learned.
• I made a prawn risotto here and a seafood stew here.

[tags]Fish Wednesday, prawns[/tags]