Here’s what I’ve eaten since April 22nd:

On the top row:

Chicken Tikka at our favourite Indian cafe in Manchester, perfect Dukan Diet food.
Fishy starter at mum’s for lunch.
A typical Dukan lunch, sliced homemade burger, boiled eggs, cottage cheese, salmon with homemade tartare sauce.
Chopped salad.

Second row:

Slicked chicken breast, chopped up boiled egg with yoghurt dressing.
Stirfried chicken thighs with five spice & Chinese flavours with green veg.
Boiled eggs, cottage cheese, gherkin.
Smoked salmon, prawns, celery, squid, smoked mackerel pate, yoghurt

Third row:

Tinned tunal salad with fat free fake eggy mayonnaise.  Very odd.
Cooked turkey breast and homemade turkey patties with Indian spices.
Sashimi – yum!
Cottage cheese, chicken breast.

Fourth row:

Carparcio with rocket and Parmesan salad – out for a birthday supper.
Dressed crab.
Pavlova – at a Christening.
Fishy starter at mum’s again.

The top row:

It’s still done in Lightroom’s Print Module but I changed the layout a bit and made it 20×20 inches in size which is a great size for a print and here’s the result which is now a bone-fide print available to buy in both my shops!

While I was still in the mood, I decided to make another montage based on the same layout to show off some of the street art I’ve collected over the years.  Some of the images I’ve used previously for prints and they have been seen in my shop, but some of the others are making their first appearance as a print.  Available in my Etsy shop and right here on my website!

I haven’t taken many pictures of mum’s cat, Miso, she really doesn’t like the camera, so I decided not to scare her with it and try for a more graphic arrangement instead!

I can reliably report that within three days of this modest brasserie meal, Peter and I were dining in some style at El Bulli (and yes, I photographed every single of the 40 courses and not one person batted an eyelid), and not long after that, we were eating at The Fat Duck (17 courses) and again, I photographed everything.  The Guardian article mentioned above says that Heston has banned cameras at The Fat Duck which I think is a great shame.  Would I have remembered these once in a lifetime meals if I hadn’t taken any pictures?  We have the menus as souvenirs but that’s not quite the same thing really.

So why do I photograph my food?  I love to eat and I love to cook but I don’t like to forget.  Peter is always amused that I can chart my way around a city or country by the restaurants I’ve been to and what I’ve eaten in them.  Even with the best will (and memory) in the world, that’s not so easy to do so over a long period of time without either taking notes, recording a commentary or taking a quick photo and I know which I would find the least obtrusive, especially in the current days of excellent camera phones which are most inconspicuous and even (sometimes) cope with the terrible (or ‘atmospheric’, as they like to call it) lighting in most eateries.  I love to photograph food that I’ve made, I do this as I am interested in food photography, because I am building up a substantial archive of food photos (which have come in very handy for a recent design job where I was able to use all my own pictures and not resort to library snaps), I do it because I like my food, I think it’s delicious and I like to have an aide-mémoire of what I’ve made, call it vanity if you wish – I’m guilty but very happy to keep photographing my food.  The only place where I have been aware that photography was forbidden was in a tiny little sashimi restaurant at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo where our friend Dave took us for a sashimi breakfast at 7am when we had finished exploring the greatest seafood market in the world.   We queued for ages outside the little shoebox sized restaurant for the best sashimi I have ever eaten, I do remember it though, despite the lack of photographic evidence, but the experience would have been enhanced for me if I could look back on it and remember in full colour.  If our visit to Japan had been in the days of the iPhone 4s with it’s excellent camera I would no doubt have been cheeky and risked a quick snap, but all I had was my ‘proper’ camera which would have been somewhat obvious!

I’ve never taken to the food photo sharing apps though, not sure why as they are aimed right at me.  I share my pictures on Instagram, Flickr, Facebook and here in my blog, sometimes I write detailed reviews about the experience, sometimes it’s just the pictues with a description, but it all helps me to remember what I’ve had which in turn jogs my memory as to why I was there, who I was with, why we were there – was it a special occasion or just a ‘normal’ nosh? and that can’t be a bad thing surely?

Here’s some of what I’ve eaten in the last fifteen days (click on a thumbnail to see larger or click here to see all the pictures with longer descriptions in Flickr)

On the top row

Roast veg, puy lentils and mushrooms with goats cheese.

Mid week fizz as a treat

Soup and wrap out at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.

Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.

Second row

Ingredients for supper.

Bircher Museli.

Chinesey chicen thights, spuds and choi sum.

Miso soup with noodles and veg.

Third row

Chargrilled chicken breast burger at the Horse and Jockey in Chorlton.

Lazy and sunny lunch at home – deli, cheese and salad.

Found in the fridge lunch.

Healthy breakfast.

Fourth row

Strange breakfast.

Bircher museli and tea for breakfast.

Noodles for lunch.

The square pictures were taken with the Hipstamatic App and the Loftus lens/film, the rectangular pictures were taken with the ProCamera App.  A couple of the pictures, Zombie Fox and The Meaning of Life are available as prints in my Etsy Shop and in my shop right here on this site.

He’s pleasingly sneaky – wearing the iconic white Apple headphones so it looks as if he’s preoccupied on a call rather than focusing on your face (or hat), a luxurious arm stretch is also a ruse for getting into someone’s space, all tricks I’d love to try.  Have a look, it’s very well done!

Daily Food 34/365 Feb02

Broad bean, pea and mint bruschetta and mozarella, basil and chilli bruschetta as a starter to a supper with friends.  To follow this I cooked Lauren Pascalle’s baked butternut squash but changed the recipe to use cous cous rather than quinoa.  To follow was Nigella Lawson’s chocolate pear pudding which was fabulous.  A very good meal indeed!