Diversivore is Three! – A Look Back at the Beginning

The OG Diversivore recipe. This was the very first post I ever created to work on - and interestingly enough, it's the one that I most recently rewrote. The original text was very sparse, so I redid it with more information about the ingredients, as well as a look into the recipe's fantastic name (it means 'Pockmarked Old Woman's tofu).

Thankfully the photos have held up fairly well - they were taken on a stump that sat out in front of my old house. I loved the look of that stump, and the natural light worked fairly well (had to fight those shadows in Lightroom though). Sadly there's really only a few variations on a single photo though - I learned fairly early on that I needed to diversify my shoots so that I'd have multiple angles and aspect ratios to work with.

I feel bad for this little recipe of mine. It's deserved reworking for too long, and I only recently got to it. I've also neglected to promote it much on the ol' interwebs, so it is (as of posting) the only recipe on Diversivore without a comment. Poor cauliflower leaves.

Despite that, I've noticed it doing fairly well with search engine traffic lately - probably from people who want to know if you can in fact eat cauliflower leaves. You can, and they're delightful. So while I'd like to reshoot this recipe one of these days, I stand by it as a great no-waste recipe that can also be adapted to a wide variety of brassicaceous veggies. Also, I love saying 'brassicaceous.'

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you green tomatoes, make dinner.

I tweaked the photos on this recipe a bit over the years to better deal with the lighting and shadows, but like my mapo tofu, I feel like it's held up fairly well. I shot it a cement sidewalk because... well, I thought it looked cool. And you know what? I still think it looks cool. Go with your gut, right? As for the recipe itself, I still love it. If you've never cooked with green tomatoes before, I encourage you to start. In fact, I encourage you to start here!

This recipe taught me a lot. First of all, it taught me the value of reshoots. The original shoot was... well, awful. I didn't own professional lights when I first made it, which meant that I had to use yellow indoor lights. The colour balance was awful and impossible to clean up. Moreover, I didn't really style the original shoot very well. Food styling is a complicated creative endeavour, and it's one that I feel like I'm always working to improve. So I remade and reshot the whole thing and I was much happier with the results.

But this recipe wasn't done teaching me - not by a long shot. Even after the edits it wasn't getting the kind of traffic I thought it deserved, and I realized that it had a lot to do with how I represented it. I didn't originally lean into the 'healthier' aspect, fearing that people would think the recipe wasn't rich or cheesy enough (which it totally is). But I learned that I wasn't doing myself any favours. You see, there are PLENTY of broccoli cheddar soup recipes out there, but mine is special because it's flavour-forward AND healthier from the ground up. This recipe is cool because veggies do so much of the hard work when it comes to building up the flavour. Pureed corn, for example, provides sweetness and creaminess that allows you to easily omit cream in favour of milk. At under 400 calories per serving, this is way healthier than similar recipes - and it deserved to be promoted as such.

Find out what makes something special and really lean into it.
Lesson learned.

I've reflected on this lovely, somewhat oddball pasta dish (it uses squash blossoms, coconut cream, basil and more) quite a bit over the years. The most important lesson I learned from it is that if you do decide to make and shoot a recipe while you're on vacation, make sure you take a lot of pictures - because you're not going to get to shoot it again any time soon. Actually I've found that shooting in a vacation environment can be a lot of fun, as it gives you an opportunity to use new, fresh props and backgrounds.

This recipe was the result of a trip to a wonderful farmer's market and a desire to cook for my wife's family - and even though I'd love to have a few more photos of it, I doubt I'll reshoot it. The sentiment of the original shoot matters to me, and the place it occupies in my memories.  I did, however, recently add some more information about the ingredients, including a few tips I learned when putting together a different recipe. That's a fun thing about blogging - posts act can grow, live, and change along with you. As an educator, I really like this - information changes and improves, and it's vital that we adapt to share these changes as we go along.

Hey look at that, a square bowl shot that worked out.  Phew.

Never underestimate the power of a simple weeknight dinner.  That's probably been the biggest take-home over the years from this one.  From a photography standpoint, I got fairly lucky here, and managed to get good results out of the original.  Diversivore originally featured 2x1 banners at the tops of every page, but this recipe and others made me realize how much I hate shooting for that aspect ratio.  So I switched to 5x3 and was much happier with the results.  Of course now if you visit on a mobile device, you'll generally see a square photo at the top of every recipe - another bit of optimization that's come with experience and trial/error.

Making a plate of food look really nice is not nearly as easy as one might think. Case in point. I really didn't like the original photos of this recipe, and it bugged me to have them up because I adore Seville oranges and I love to promote recipes that use them.

Not to keep harping on lighting... but LIGHTING.  With short winter days, lots of overcast skies, and little kids running around during daytime hours, it can be exceptionally difficult to shoot with natural light.  The original photos attempted to use natural light, but a) that light happened to be verrrry blue, and b) I foolishly left interior lights on, meaning that the photos had a mix of blue and yellow casts all over the place.  Editing. Nightmare.

As a random little aside, I quite like the fact that this post includes the words challah, pulla, and zopf.  It sounds like the names of three fairies who secretly make bread at night in a folk tale.

Adventures in Photoshop!

Let me make one thing very clear - I always endeavour to get my food looking its best through styling and shooting so that the editing is mostly playing with the lighting, white balance, focus, etc.  But sometimes the props need a bit of help.

This recipe was something of an unplanned addition to the Diversivore family (getting dangerously close to the child analogy again), and I shot it in my in-laws backyard on their dinner plates.  The brightly coloured background worked for me, but I've never been happy with the plates.  The plating isn't fantastic either, but I can't change that now.  I can, however, change the plates.

During a recent overhaul of this post, I added some notes and new information but decided things just weren't quite right.  On a whim, I decided to see if I'd acquired enough Photoshop mojo to erase the floral pattern that decorated the plates.  The difference felt like night and day.

Well if the last recipe was an unplanned addition, then this was the serendipitous extension. I had plenty of mint chimichurri leftover, and it just so happens that it goes stunningly well with mango and tomato. I presented this as a salad initially, but input and comments from a few readers made me realize that it was just begging to be a salsa too. Input is a lovely thing.

If I had to pick a recipe on the site to reshoot right now, it'd be this one. These photos, man.... I mean, I love the recipe itself, but I've messed around with these photos over and over again in order to improve them. The lighting was a catastrophe, but honestly I learned an awful lot about using Adobe Lightroom just by fixing (and refixing) that aspect. So... silver linings I suppose. Now if only that serving of forbidden rice wasn't so disproportionately large. Ah well, I like rice. Who doesn't?

This recipe was also one of my first chances to explore seafood sustainability and biodiversity. That's definitely something you'll continue to see in the years to come on Diversivore!

My sweet orange baby.  This dessert was the first one on Diversivore, and it remains one of my proudest (albeit richest) creations.  Picture a key lime pie, but instead of lime, it's the most intensely orange-y tasting orange you've ever had.  Plus a chocolate Graham wafer crust, because chocolate and orange forever.

Lest I seem smug and self-satisfied with all these reworkings, let me also say that I'm trying to keep moving and improving.  I don't love the way the meringue shot here - I waited too long to shoot it and it got spongy.  Perhaps I'll just have to make this again.  You know... for research.

My original shoot of this made do for a while but it was never my favourite.  I remade the recipe (which is always a nice way to check and make sure the instructions are the best they can be), and put together a bright, sunny shoot.  That's my favourite dessert fork too.  Only the best for this pie.

Adventures in Photoshop Part Deux!

I'm going to start off with what I like here.  I love this recipe! This was my first real 'project' recipe.  I set out with a goal in mind - a completely scratch-made gumbo using seasonal winter ingredients - and I was thrilled with the result.  There was some serious experimenting (e.g. how to replace the Cajun holy trinity of onions, peppers, and celery - the latter two being decidedly out of season), but we in the Diversivore household couldn't get enough of this.  I love challenging myself, and it's definitely something I'm going to push myself to do more and more around here.

Now, the photos.  I'm going to start sounding like a perfectionist here, but oh well.  These photos drove me nuts until I did something new just the other day.  I completely changed the colour of the towel.

A bit of background.  I made three mistakes while shooting this that I've since learned to pay a great deal of attention to.  First mistake: too dark.  That's never good.  Second mistake: I moved the bowl full of gumbo.  That makes a smeared soupy line all around the food that looks awful.  Now when I shoot food I fill the bowl part way, get it into the position I like, and top it up by pouring in more soup.  Last mistake: I didn't pay attention to the colour palette when accessorizing.  The original photo set (which you can see in part below) had a blue and red towel and I HATED it after the fact.  I wasn't sure what to do, and I haven't had a chance to reshoot this, but just the other day (while preparing for this post) I had an idea.  I fired up Photoshop, filtered out the food, and completely changed the hues.  Combined with some colour burning, sharpness adjustments, and desaturation and it was like a whole new towel.  Now given the choice, I'd MUCH rather go back and pick a new towel to save myself the work - but I'm actually pretty pleased with how it turned out.

These are still the kinds of pictures that drive me crazy when I look at them really close up (which is something I have to do quite often), but I try to assure myself that they're acceptable in their current state.  Call Billie Holiday - we've got some Long Gone Blues.

I adore this recipe. It's easy to make, uses simple ingredients, and it's a great example of how authentic Chinese cooking can be really approachable. It's one of those dishes that everyone just keeps eating - which is good, because it's also crazy good for you.

The simplicity of this dish made it a cinch to reshoot, and though the new shots are similar in many ways, I'm so glad that I made the change. It's amazing what the punches of red colour do for this photoshoot.

Another lesson in the importance of accessorizing. This probably makes me sound a lot more stylish than I actually am.

Any recipe that's fairly homogeneous is going to be difficult to shoot. Rice, soup, beans, and other similar dishes lack a strong focal point, so you need to do something to make them pop. Enter the egg. A fried egg isn't just a delicious way to round out a tasty bowl of kimchi fried rice - it's also the the saviour in this photo set.

Next thing I want to do to update this post: link it to my recipe for making kimchi. Now, to find the time to finish that....

Boy, I could have chosen some easier things to shoot for my first 15. Soup... rice... and now sandwiches. Sandwiches are annoyingly hard to photograph for two reasons. One: they're flat, and flat food is a pain in the butt, and Two: all the good stuff is inside. I mean, if you don't shoot it right, you're basically just shooting... bread.

This recipe is simple and wonderful, and it focuses a lot on my appreciation for good ingredients (and cheese).

Next step in the post's evolution: to finish up and link to the recipe for that homemade plumcot ketchup you see in the photos. It's ridiculously tasty. 2019 maybe? We'll see.