In a previous lifetime, I was extremely fortunate enough to meet, and spend a half day, in the studio of photographer Bob Carlos Clarke. Bob was looking for some sponsorship support for an upcoming exhibition. That single day stands out as one of the most amazing of my working life, Bob’s absolute, and I mean absolute, passion to the artistic integrity of what he did was mesmerising. And I can genuinely say, with no intentional pretentiousness, that that meeting, and his work, had a profound effect on what I now do now. During the course of our meeting, the conversation turned to how a household name photographer had “sold out” by endorsing, shall we say less reputable photo technology, (for those of you old enough to remember, there was a big TV campaign at the time) and Bob was so visibly distressed by this concept, that the industry (which was then in it’s very early stages of digital) could sell out in such way. I remember being quite taken aback at the voracity of his response.

Bob’s book “White Heat” about Marco Pierre White is one I frequently cite as being the starting point of my inspiration. Having done a number of photo shoots in working kitchens myself, the gritty intensity, heat, rush, buzz, adrenalin is so wonderfully captured by him, and to my mind spills out of the book. And it’s tandemed by visually capturing the ferocity and intensity of the young Marco Pierre White. I have never personally met Marco, but judging by Bob’s pictures, I’m pretty sure that they were kindred spirits.

As a commercial photographer (and a marketeer), I genuinely believe every commissioned picture should have a purpose, as the opening page of my website says “a picture speaks a thousand words”. For me, I explore artistic interpretation in my personal projects, but when you are shooting for a client the commercial brief always needs to be met. Today I received this sponsored marketing message which tipped me over the edge in favour of writing this blog entry.

I’m pretty sure that these pictures weren’t used without licence for such a high profile marketing campaign, but I can’t help wondering what Bob Carlos Clarke would have thought. For me, seeing one of his most iconic pictures with a commercial logo on it, made me feel very sad.

Today I suddenly had a desire to make some welsh cakes, the first batch in my twenty years of living the wrong side of the Severn Bridge, and it really struck me how many memories can be evoked from a humble food.

My nan used to make the BEST welsh cakes in the world and it really was standing next to her in her kitchen that ignited my love for baking. My nan and I had the same sweet tooth so sweets, cakes and bakes were a common love. Today in my kitchen, I was thrown back into my 7 year old self, desperately trying to rub butter into flour to make it look like breadcrumbs; it always seemed to take AGES and my little hands used to ache from the amount of effort I put into it. I can remember splitting the mixture in half so we could add fruit to one lot and leave the other plain so you could always choose which welsh cake you wanted, with “bits” or “without bits”. Nan used to roll out the mixture and then I’d jump in with a glass, ready to cut out the mixture into rounds ready for baking.

Her bakestone for cooking the welsh cakes was always a source of envy, a great big heavy cast iron thing which used to be her mums, and it took ages to heat up on her electric cooker. It was kept in the cupboard under the stairs which was screened by a curtain of plastic strips (you could plait the strips when no-one was looking!) and even though I could just about reach the bakestone, it was always too heavy for me to lift.

Even the cooking utensils are vivid in my mind, she used to turn the welsh cakes over with an old palette knive, it had a turquoise handle which was cracked and broken at the top. My job was to cover the welsh cakes with caster sugar once they were taken off the stone and still warm, and I used her sugar shaker; I think it was a victorian one and it was made of pink glass and had a silver top with holes big enough for the sugar to come out. I took my job VERY seriously. You can’t rush baking welsh cakes, if the bakestone is too hot, they burn and the mixture doesn’t cook through, too cool and they lose all their moisture. You are also limited in the number you can cook at any one time depending on the size of the stone. I surprised myself today by re-igniting a familiar sense of impatience and annoyance at waiting for them cook!

As I got older my nan and I struck up a deal when I’d go and stay. It didn’t matter how hard I tried I never managed to make welsh cakes that tasted anywhere near as good as hers, but I had perfected the art of making Victoria Sponges which she could never master. So she would send me home with batches of welsh cakes (much to my dad’s delight) and I would make sponges which she would put in the freezer, and then defrost and claim them as her own whenever she had visitors.

Welsh cakes always make me think of my dad as well. When my parents used to call me when I was staying with my grandparents, he’d ask what I’d been up to, and I could hear the grin on his face down the phone when he knew that I’d be coming home with welsh cakes in a tin. In latter years he would go down “the front” in Penarth (seaside and pier) every morning and would order, without fail, a cup of coffee and a welsh cake.

Sadly neither my nan and my dad are around now, but it’s amazing how such a simple cake can bring back so many vivid memories and make me smile.

Oh, and to my nan, if she’s watching from somewhere beyond; my welsh cakes are still nowhere near as good as yours!

Imaging Essence in the Bucks Herald 16th Feb 2011

Article by Sally Dorling at Marketing Foods, photograph courtesy of Jay McLaughlin

It is always a great treat when something surpasses your already very high expectations!

The Vanilla Bakery is a company based in Suffolk run by a friend of mine Gemma and her husband Mike. Gemma and I actually went to junior school together and after a 25 year gap were reunited via Facebook a few years ago. I helped The Vanilla Bakery set up their website when we were both starting out and having built the website, uploading lots of pictures of celebration cakes, and also my taking pictures of Gemma in “cup cake” making action, I knew that Gemma was clearly very good at what she did.

But it wasn’t until I commissioned Gemma to make a 40th Birthday Cake for a close friend of mine did I really appreciate the difference of a cake of being good and just downright outstanding – and it’s all about the attention to detail! The way that Gemma works is that every celebration cake is personal to the recipient, so after a long telephone conversation, I emailed Gem photos of Sue (the lady who’s birthday it was) and also a list of things that Sue liked. The email went something like this:

“Sue loves everything and anything pink, fluffy and sparkly, Abba (she’s a dancing queen!), she has a black fluffy cat called Bertie, her favorite foods are chocolate and cheese, she loves champagne. Oh yeah, and she is ridiculously organised and has a spreadsheet for absolutely everything!”

Sue’s 40th party was in a large rented house in Herefordshire, and she knew nothing about the cake. I always intended to pick up the cake en route but my sense of geography was never a strong point! To cut a long story short we ended up driving from Aylesbury via Suffolk to Herefordshire to pick up the cake (I think we went through 8 different counties!). My husband Simon raised more than an eyebrow when finding out the travel plans, and though he didn’t actually say it I could tell he was wondering why on earth I hadn’t commissioned someone closer to home! His face though when he saw the cake was a picture, and he was so genuinely impressed that even my ill-conceived comment of “you realise we’re driving the equivalent number of miles today as going to Scotland” was overlooked!

But the best reaction was that of the birthday girl herself, who was absolutely thrilled! Gemma had even managed to put the cake version of Sue in the SAME glittery Abba outfit that she’d worn the night before at the fancy dress party. So whilst Gemma really does fall into the category of friend and client, I am writing this as a very very happy customer and a very very happy birthday girl!

So in my mantra of “a picture speaks a thousand words” I’ll let you judge the cake for yourself…

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  No prizes for guessing who the birthday girl is!

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  I love the fact Bertie is actually looking at Sue, and there is even a bite taken out of the chocolate!

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  Awesome cheese board and look at the laptop screen!

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  Beautiful miniature chocolate cake details and pink glittery cupcakes!

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  Champagne with champagne candles

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  Never too old to blow out birthday candles!

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  Lemon Baked Cheesecake

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  Healthy Breakfast

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  Yoghurt and Muesli

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  Pea green soup

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  Chicken Ceasar Salad

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  Peanut Yoghurt Dip

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  Peanut Yoghurt Dip-2

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  Chicken kebabs on a flame

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  Harissa Chicken Kebabs and Yoghurt Dip

Considering the weather had been pretty grim leading up to the Saturday, the day, whilst a chilly start, proved to be glorious. So much hard work by Alison Isherwood from Thame Council , Sally Dorling from Marketing Foods, Sally from local foodie haven What’s Cooking? and Sonja Francis from thamenews.net really paid off. A huge visitor turn out resulted in the overall feedback from all the stall holders about how busy and successful the day had been for all.

Thame in Oxfordshire is such a lovely market town and is surrounded by all sorts of independent food suppliers and restaurants, all getting involved in the festival. Particular highlights of the day were not only the talks in the Stable at the James Figg public house but also the hands on cooking activities for the kids, including Whoopie Pie making, cake decorating at the Aga Shop, pasta making in the Town Hall and “Tortoise Dough” making at the Cottage Bakery.

A few highlights of the day and the full pictures can be seen at www.imagingessence.co.uk/thame_food_festival

Just a little update, a video from scissorspaperstone.tv about the Thame Food Festival with the highlights, look out about 1 minute in for a comment from yours truly!!

• I’ve discovered container gardening which means I don’t have to do any weeding
• Rather than just pretty flowers these growing things have an end purpose, I’m already thinking about recipes where I can use them
• This year is the first year when I have been working locally so I can really take the time to appreciate the garden, the morning daily inspection of the garden is a great way to start the day
• I can even calculate an actual “return on investment” with herbs, vegetable and fruits rather than an intangible it makes the garden look pretty
• I have discovered an intense appreciation of old episodes of “The Good Life” and scarily could actually empathise with the “talking to seeds to see which grows first” episode (we are currently having a ‘which sunflower is the tallest competition’ going on), and our future aspirations are now frequently alluded to as “when I’ve got chickens, and you’ve got bees”

The biggest thing however I really really didn’t reckon on happening was how possessive and proud I would be of the produce, I can honestly now see why competitions can become so fierce at local country shows, I’ve even scared myself by discovering maternal instincts for baby cucumbers and the excitement as the first baby beet pushed it’s way through the earth from seed – really, I need to know, I am certifiable is it just I’ve finally succumbed to the (late) 30ish something way of life???

Anyways, as is my mantra of a picture can speak a thousand words, I thought I’d share some of the latest additions to the imaging essence container garden, and I warn you, the baby cucumbers are seriously cute!!

Enjoy!

Anyways we went out to shop at PE Meads Farm shop near Tring yesterday in order to stock up for the Easter weekend, main shopping purpose was for their home reared meat and fantastic chiltern rapeseed oil. Whilst there I picked up some black pudding as a cooked breakfast bank holiday weekend treat, when I came across these monster mushrooms in the veg section – bloomin’ MASSIVE, one of them actually weighed in at 0.25kg, probably not a world record, but certainly biggest ‘shroom that’s seen the inside of my kitchen! So the monster mushroom breakfast plan took hold, picked up some lovely free range and eggs to create a breakfast with the mushroom as the hero, it would have been rude to do anything else!

Me being me just had to capture it on camera – so here’s a few shots of the Monster Mushroom Breakfast – hope you enjoy looking as much as we did eating!!

Monster Mushroom weighing 0.25kg

Not one but two monster mushrooms

You don't get texture on eggs like that from a supermarket!

Okay, so maybe getting overly arty - but I love this job!!

About to cut into the stack, huge mushroom baked with butter and a balsamic & wholegrain mustard dressing, black pudding and poached eggs

If I'm being critical then the egg is slightly over cooked

and the overall feedback from mr imagingessence was lots of oohs & ahhs (have to confess I thought it tasted rather good as well)

Perfect valentines cheese course

Valentine cheeses

Who says valentines shouldn't be cheesey....

After I took the pictures I managed to bagsy myself one of these, but don’t tell the other half, it’s supposed to be a surprise!!