Recent Client Work: Meridian Meats

I have been excited to share some work I did a few months ago for Meridian Meats. Meridian Meats is a chain of full service butcher shops providing quality meat and seafood. Recently I helped them with some photos to showcase the friendly staff and thoughtful service in one of their new stores, Meridian Farm Market in Tsawwassen.

© 2013 Helena McMurdo. All Rights Reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Along with the great meat and seafood that Meridian Meats is known for Meridian Farm Market brings a beautiful selection of fresh vegetables in a wonderful space and friendly and helpful staff.

© 2013 Helena McMurdo. All Rights Reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

This was a super fun shoot to work on. I was excited to hear that Meridian Meats have opened a brand new location for Meridian Farm Market in North Vancouver. You can find out more about them here.

© 2013 Helena McMurdo. All Rights Reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Out from the Fog

Recently,  Vancouver was covered in a blanket of fog. It made me very nostalgic, reminded me of my time in Ireland. Here in Vancouver fog does happen, but not that often.

It stayed for about a week and so I enjoyed many early mornings in the still and calm. The thing that struck me most, was how quiet the city became. The fog seemed to suck all the noise of the city into its folds and hold it there breathless.

One one morning when I was out at Vanier Park, the fog was moving quite a lot and the light was changing fast. I took this shot at about 8:45. I like how mysterious it is.

By 5 minutes past nine, the fog burned off for just a brief moment and I shot this with just a peek of the city.

Finally, the last few ones have been big ones for me as I finally launched my online food photography portfolio. It's been an interesting journey to work through the images and to decide what I would include. I think I've managed to put together a collection that best represents my food photography style. I hope you'll check it out.

I'm also working on a new look for this blog. When I started this blog 3 years ago, I didn't know where it would take me. It's been a very eye-opening journey and I've been fortunate through this blog to be led in paths I didn't even imagine. So now I feel the time is right for a bit of a revamp. I'll keep you updated and hope to reveal something soon.

All the best to you until then.

Client Work: Cloud 9 Specialty Bakery

I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to work with B3 Communications recently and to style and shoot some work for Cloud 9 Specialty Bakery. They are such fun to work with and we had a great collaboration. Cloud 9 Specialty Bakery is a local bakery specializing in gluten-free products. They have developed a special gluten-free baking mix which takes the hassle of making gluten-free treats at home. Used just like flour, it can be substituted cup for cup in any of your favourite recipes with really great results.

We wanted to capture the beauty and simplicity of the ingredient, so we selected a very simple tone-on-tone colour palette that reflected the contemporary sophistication of the brand while acknowledging it's traditional roots.

Here are my favourite images from the shoot of Cloud 9 Baking Mix and Cloud 9 Gluten-Free Bread.

If you are interested in gluten-free baking please check out Cloud 9 Specialty Bakery.

If you are interested in my food styling and photographic work and would like to know more about working with me, please don't hesitate to get in touch at helena@myendlesspicnic.com

Wordless Wednesday: Granville Island

Wordless Wednesday: Meyer Lemons

Pulpo a Feira

One of the classic items to eat in Galicia is Pulpo do Feira. Translation: Octopus-"Market Style". In my grandmother's local market, the women working the Pulpo tent dip their sticks rhythmically into the huge copper pot, their hands seemingly immune to the scalding water below. Then using scissors, they snip the legs into pieces so quickly it's amazing that any of them still have fingers. You take your seat in the covered tent and someone plunks down a bottle of wine and a huge loaf of bread and you order your ration. It's drizzled with olive oil,  and sprinkled with salt and pimentón. Y ya está. (That's it!) Meaty deliciousness.

Galicia : A Preview

So if you've been wondering where I've been, I'll tell you.  I'll skip the usual excuses for not posting earlier and just say here's a bit of a teaser for what's to come  in the next week or so - a recap of my trip to Galicia. I hope that for the meantime, you enjoy these.

Sunset Near O Cebreiro © 2013 Helena McMurdo

BC Spot Prawns with Garlic Cream Sauce

It's officially my favourite time of the year. Spot Prawn season. It's short usually lasting around 60 days but this year it will be even shorter. So it's a get-em while you can scenario. I don't usually do much with them. Fry em up on a hot pan and I'm done. They are naturally sweet and a feast in themselves. For a change I thought why not try them in an actual recipe so I prepared a pasta with the little beauties. It's pretty rich but sometimes that's a good thing right?

BC Spot Prawns with Garlic Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

12 BC Spot Prawns

250 grams Linguine

20 grams butter

2 garlic cloves, pressed

60 ml white wine

125 ml cream

pinch of cayenne

salt & pepper

1 egg yolk

1. Prepare the prawns by dropping them in boiling water for 60 seconds. Take out immediately and plunge into an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

2. Peel the prawns, remove the heads and set aside the tail meat on ice or in the refrigerator.

3. Prepare the pasta according to package directions (mine was 11 minute cooking time). About halfway through cooking time begin your sauce.

4. Melt the butter in the pan and fry the garlic, add the wine and reduce to half the quantity.

5. Add the cream and thicken. Season with salt and pepper and the cayenne.

6.  Add a tiny bit of the cream mixture to the egg and beat so that it does not become scrambled.Pour the remaining cream mixture into the egg yolk beating vigorously.

7. Return cream mixture to the pan, add the spot prawns and warm through (a minute should do it).

8. Drain your pasta and add to the pan. Coat the pasta with the sauce and serve.

What's your favourite way to prepare  spot prawns?

Main Street Typography

With all things, I find I get better results when I have a theme or goal to focus on. Here's a few shots from a recent photowalk I did with a friend in Vancouver's Main Street area.  My friend smartly suggested we focus on typography.  I love the mixture and retro feel of some of these typefaces. I wish I knew the names. Anyone? Can you guess the locations?

South Granville Springtime

Here are a few textures from my walkabout today in our beautiful neighbourhood of South Granville. Spring is here.

Have a great Easter and long weekend.

St. Patrick's Day. Why not say it with cheese?

Well, here we are again. It's St. Patrick's Day. And while all of America is going mad, dying their beers and their rivers green, my thoughts are as usual...what to eat? And this year I have to admit, I have no grand plans. Sure I'll have a sneaky pint of Guinness later, but this year, I've been pretty lame and have no big Irish meal planned. In fact, what I'd really like is a bag of Taytos and a Galaxy Bar. But wait, then I thought, what's the fallback food of the picnic planner? Yes I could gladly live on cheese and crackers for the next millennium. Perhaps it's not the first thing you think of when you think of Ireland, but be assured Ireland has cheeses every bit as lovely as those in France, Spain or anywhere else.

Being very much a friend of cheese, where else could I turn but Vancouver's fabulous Les Amis du Fromage. I happily left the shop yesterday with two fine cheeses. Hailing from County Tipperary, Cashel Blue has all the tanginess of a blue cheese but I find it more creamy and rich. Buttery, even.  Coolea, from Cork is a new one to me. It's a semi-hard cheese, almost like a gouda, but to me it seems nuttier, almost like a Comté.

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And this being St. Patrick's Day, it only seems right to top it off with a small glass of whisky.  Here's wishing that the luck of the Irish follows you all year long! And to all my friends back in Ireland, a very special good wish for you.

Brown Bread & Nostalgia

The Irish are always accused of being overly nostalgic and maybe this affects all who visit there. It's cold and wet now in Vancouver. This time of year always reminds me of my time in Ireland. Not that the sun never shone when I was there. It definitely did. But when I moved there in mid-September 1995, I soon found myself in the middle of a dark, wet and windy October. I'm shooting Irish Brown Bread at the moment, the perfect antidote to cold and windy weather. I can't help think of that time, and of  the landscape, the people and the magic that inhabits the place. Here's a few detail shots from my current shoot.