Real food.  Honest images…Honestly.

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Chef Lea McIntosh creates the recipes in our magazine, but what you probably don’t know is that she also does the food styling.  For us, it’s important to show the real food without using any fancy tricks or slight of hand.  Of course, we want them to look enticing, so Lea prepares beautiful presentations for the camera…and we look to great photographers to capture every last bit of delicious!

Here Lea is in the San Francisco Christopher Peacock Showroom kitchen styling a small bowl of her Creamy Chevre Crab Dip (page 28 in the Winter 2010 issue).

She adds a piece of fresh crab on top so you can visually tell that the recipe includes crab meat.  Notice the small cups of Brandied Tomato Cream Soup that were styled for the same issue (Page 16 Winter 2010).

The final touch?  Two snips of fresh chives placed on top in a graceful-X, for a pop of green!  The layering of wooden plates underneath complement the organic bowl’s shape.

For more on today’s kind of  food styling for magazines…read this great post on mattbites.com

Images by Michael Soo, Soo Photography