When good food makes bad photographs

While perusing Food Gawker the other day, I came across an interesting picture and beneath it, the caption: “Seven Things You’d Rather Not See on a Food Blog“. I couldn’t resist clicking and came across a blog post where the author uploaded seven pictures that were unappealing, but related to what she does.

I LOVE this idea… and was thinking how funny it would be to post my worst food pictures (like on the blog Cake Wrecks). Everybody has them… those food pictures that look horrendous — where the lighting is awful or the subject is unappealing. Even worse, are those dishes that sounded and even tasted delicious, but looked hideous. Too hideous to post… until now.

So here are some of my best worst…

Strawberry Crepes… and thankfully, I did not make these. They were served to us over Thanksgiving for breakfast at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando. They sounded great on the menu, “Strawberries and Fresh Cream”… but looked awful and didn’t taste that great either. And there was no cream to be found… guess it melted. Very poorly plated dish…

This dish, Cauliflower with Brown Butter, Pears, Sage and Toasted Hazelnut, actually made it onto my blog… despite the fact that it looked awful. It did taste pretty good though.

Um… yeah. This looks pretty unappealing. It tasted good, but it was a bit reminiscent of roast beef — but remember, this is coming from someone that hasn’t had beef in almost 20 years. What is it? Chicken Cobbler Casserole thanks to Southern Living magazine.

This colorful concoction (yes, I am being sarcastic) was the result of a bunch of random ingredients. It was essentially a stir fry of garlic chicken sausage, butternut sqaush, onions and apples. It tasted good… but looked bland.

My first attempt at Homemade Spaghetti Sauce in a really, really, long time. The sauce came out AMAZING… and I really wanted to post about it, but I felt the pictures didn’t do it justice. Too blah…

This picture isn’t awful…I just didn’t love it. It was a little blurry. This was also taken at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando… another breakfast treat — Crab Cakes Benedict. It was good, just way too filling for the start of your day.

And last but not least of of food flops… my Thanksgiving Dinner plate. How can this be from Thanksgiving? Where is the turkey? The gravy? The mashed potatoes? Non-existent… as we go to Florida every year for Thanksgiving to visit my in-laws and it is a long-standing tradition to eat dinner (at the same hotel) in a restaurant that serves an incredible all-you-can-eat buffet. While it may be fun… I really miss the sit-down of a good T-day dinner. One of these years…

These last few photos are kind of “shoulda, coulda, woulda… but didn’t”. This photo, and the following two, were taken at the same Orlando hotel mentioned above. This dish was placed in front of the 4-yo when we requested a Fruit Plate for him. This didn’t make it to the blog because the lighting was awful, but what a wonderful dish huh? I would LOVE to get this if I was a kid!

Closeup of a Smoked Salmon Plate. Loved the picture… never got around to writing about it.


And last, but not certainly least… one of my absolute favorite food photos… Fruit Loops — plain and simple. Not too much to write about here… hence the reason this never made it on the blog.