Monday, January 19, 2009

Exploring the pasta-bilities

After last Friday's freeze-out, my wife and I sought some warmth for body and soul. We found a measure of it in the kitchen. For some time, she had wanted to explore making homemade pasta, and, in the aftermath of getting our funky furnace fixed, it seemed as good a time as any.

Let me just insert a note here to say that I like to cook. I liked the Food Network before they added all the pretty people with marginal cooking skills as hosts. I enjoyed the movie Ratatouille for the kitchen scenes, which kind of made up for the sappy storyline. And, because a certain food blog I read every now and then also features some excellent food photography, I decided to document our fun with farina.


We prepared some dough according to a recipe my wife found online (dark spots in the dough are basil flakes), I did the rolling and sliced the dough with a pizza cutter into 1/4-inch strips, then into a boiling pan they went. I grabbed the camera in between steps to document our progress.


Photos taken in available light (a mix of daylight and incandescent) with the camera's white balance set on incandescent. Images layered with Soft Light, shadows lightened, unsharp mask and warming filter applied in post-processing. 50mm 1.8 lens.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great use of natural available light here. Such a great thing to do when you are stuck in the house.

We went to a neighbor's house once a few years back to do a marathon pasta making day. It was great fun...we made everything from Lasagna noodles to Fettuccine to even homemade meat and cheese Ravioli. It was really fun but also a lot of work. The payoff at the end of the day was so tasty and worth it!

Wanda said...

I only have one question James. Why wasn't I invited??? (smile)

It looks wonderful... I think I can even smell it!

I love cooking too....the kitchen is and always has been my favorite room.

LOL:Wanda

Anonymous said...

So how did it taste?

My mom used to make homemade noodles for noodle soups. The hearty taste and texture of those noodles was wonderful. I've attempted to make noodles, but they've not really turned out like I remember.

Anonymous said...

Very nice photos and that pasta looks wonderful! You've officially made me hungry. lol