01/09/2010 - Akamaru Modern Ramen at Ippudo, NYC

I put an ad up on Craigslist in February for a food stylist and much to my surprise, there were responses from 2 chefs: Corey Earling, the third place runner up from Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen (season four) and Rob Endelman, a wonderful natural food chef and educator.

These responses plus responses from 5 other established food stylists and one dessert chef left me stunned. I never expected such great talent to respond to my posting.

This winter I started making my own udon and ramen at home. I’d been eating out regularly at Setagaya Ramen, Rai Rai Ken and Ippudo, each within a few blocks of each other, and each bowl of ramen is so very different in taste and appearance, it intrigued me. So it was bound to happen; this all started to migrate to my home cooking and somewhere along the way, I got the notion to shoot food and thus, the posting on Craigslist.

Everyone is so thrilled to be collaborating toward a vision and style that expands each of our individual books. I’m really looking forward to this new endeavor.

And I love the fact that digital food photography isn’t something that can be done with 3-D.