Old camera, new photographer and… square eggs?

Special feature: photos by Jac!

I’ve been using a Panasonic TZ3 ever since August last year. What did I do with my old camera, the Canon Ixus V? I gave it to Jac! She does use it from time to time (when she actually remembers she has a camera now!).

Jac volunteered to be in charge of cooking breakfast on her family’s weekend away. She really does enjoy cooking breakfast on the weekends, when she has the time. Here are the photos she took of breakfast on her weekend away, which she was happy for me to share with you guys.

Her pancakes with maple syrup and bacon went down a treat on Saturday morning. She made her own pancake batter – they are more crepe-style than flapjack or hotcake style). You may notice the glass of tomato juice next to the plate in the photo – tomato juice is Jac’s favourite juice. On the table are wedges of fresh lemon, for anyone who preferred to eat their pancakes with sugar and lemon. I hear there was cream as well – pancakes with maple syrup, bacon and cream sound fantastic to me. You’d definitely need to go for a big walk or a run afterwards.

Pancakes with maple syrup and bacon

Sunday breakfast: a big fry-up. After my recent post about the “mini” fry-up in which Jac used egg rings to contain the size/spread of the eggs in the pan, a few people asked me about the rings and what they look like. Ours are basically circular metal rings, nothing complicated. You can now buy rings in fancier shapes than just circles or squares, and some made from silicon rather than old-fashioned metal like ours. Ours can be tricky to lift up as they are rings without any sort of handle, but you can now buy ones with a handle too! Just do a Google search for “egg rings”. I also found this explanation which may help (and notice at the end, a list of write-ups about other egg equipment. At the holiday house they rented, Jac found twelve square egg rings in one of the kitchen drawers. I realise it’s odd calling something square a ring! She thought it would be fun to try them out when she fried the breakfast eggs in the electric fry pan.

Frying square eggs

This is probably a better view of the eggs. I think Jac was thinking like a good food pornographer when she took this shot!

Frying square eggs

Along with the square eggs, Jac had cooked bacon, chipolatas, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast. In the photo, on the table you may be able to see the sauces: tomato (red squeeze bottle with green top), smokey barbecue (brown squeeze bottle) and “hot chilli sauce”. I’m sure it’s sriracha; Jac calls it her “hot chilli sauce”. She’s been eating it with everything lately, and I’m not surprised it found its way to the breakfast table when she was on holidays. She packed up condiments and supplies galore to ensure there’d be plenty to cook and eat and enjoy that weekend. Nothing worse than making lunch or something and thinking “I wish I’d brought that dijon mustard. I know we have that jar sitting at home in the fridge. Damn, it would be tasty on this sandwich right now.”

Hungry hoards grab food

Here’s Jac’s plate.

Bacon and square egg on toast

Jac’s comments on being a food pornographer (paraphrased): It was hard taking photos while trying to cook at the same time. It was also hard to take photos before everyone swooped in on the food. And when I’d sat down with my own plate I didn’t want to spend too much time photographing it, because I wanted to eat my food hot! But I thought TFP and the readers (that’s you guys!) would find the square eggs interesting.

TFP’s comments on Jac being a food pornographer: Jac’s comments capture the very issues I deal with all the time as TFP. For me, in the first instance when I sit with a plate of food before me, getting a good photograph for my blog is far more important than eating the food hot. It’s not like my food is stone-cold by the time I eat it, but I have learned to enjoy my food less-than-piping-hot. That may well be a blessing in disguise as I once I start eating it is usually so enthusiastically that I burn my tongue if the food’s really hot. I’ve learned to keep my hands very steady while taking photos quickly so that my fellow diners don’t have to wait long to start eating. She was right about the square eggs; I thought they looked pretty cool. I’m all for interestingly-shaped and cutesy food as long as it tastes good. And lastly, I’m glad that in my life other people tend to do most of the cooking, which frees me up to do the photographing and eating. Thank you, all the cooks in my life!

Looking at the photos Jac’s taken with my old camera, I find it really interesting to see how different her photos look to mine (prior to 26 August 2007 I took all photos at this blog with the Ixus V). We’re both amateur photographers who don’t go for complicated photography – point-and-shoot’s our thing – yet I think we each view and represent the world differently through the camera lens. I think Jac’s photos are definitely more “her” and mine are definitely more “me”. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions there! :)

We’ll return to TFP’s (my) photos in the next post. :)

Facebook comments

comments

 Like

Share this post