Jan 21, 2011

Well this took longer to post than to eat...

About a good hour and half in of working on my Le Bernardin post (yes that was the glorious dinner I was rushing off to in Wednesday's post!), my Photoshop did the unthinkable and crashed, leaving me with my horridly orange/reddish unedited pictures from this meal. I cursed, took a deep breath, closed my laptop, ate some Thai food while watching CSI, and finally mustered up the patience to start at it again.

Oh, auto white balance, you failed me so so so badly here. After seriously editing the SHIT out of these pictures until they were passable, they are still inconsistent from one another and just meh. I really only wanted to show these for the food and wine, not for great photos. And how fast of a computer do I need for it to not take a full minute to merge two layers on a RAW image! Dear god!

I clearly need to get out more on Friday nights.

An abbreviated version of our tasting menu: thinly pounded yellowfin tuna with foie gras and toasted baguette, charred octopus with fermented black bean, warm lobster carpaccio with hearts of palm, seared yellowtail king fish with truffle risotto, crispy black bass with hoisin-plum jus, parsnip creme brulee, and maralumi milk chocolate parfait. (Still a mouthful!) And I know now we could have asked for "The Egg."

Finally, here is our meal in all its splendor.

Quite stellar in all respects. Perhaps the food and wine pairing encouraged so much thought though that my dining companion paid more attention to these fine details than to me. I suppose I could see it as a fair trade for my having to shoot the food before he gets to dig in? :P

A lovely chamomile with lavender ended the night on a calm note.

The next day, my palate was ruined and nothing tasted right. I walked around aimlessly during lunch, starving but unable to think of anything that could possibly transition me from the night. Needless to say, I got over that quickly. It's a good thing our palates are so resilient.

11 comments :

  1. well I'm glad you edited the photos even after that :P they look fantastic!

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  2. They do look fantastic! Great work, even if Photoshop was being a pain.
    Yummm!

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  3. i adore this photo story, your dinner seems to be excellent (sauvignon is one of my fav wine!)
    do you use only photoshop or also other software? I use adobe lightroom, is very fast and the result are so good!


    hugs :)

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  4. It looks fabulous! I have wanted to eat there since forever. Have you ever watched Eric Ripert's show? You can watch it online and its fantastic. I totally appreciate how you get these awesome shots in low light conditions. Its really tough and something I suck at. I need natural vibrant light. Plus film (which I think your using) adds such a seductive elegant graininess. When are we going to eat? hehe

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  5. oh frustrating! but these pics are oh so pretty. that last one looks like film!

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  6. ha, that's funny -- when you eat something so amazing that it makes everything else seem so ordinary.

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  7. Looks good, both the food and the product. Sorry to hear about your trials; hope that gets cleared up.

    Mixed light, AutoWB nightmare. But your whites are white; I would call that a win.

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  8. alice,
    im in love with this post. ; )

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  9. Darn Photoshop! I've definitely been there as well-so frustrating. This dinner looks delicious!

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  10. You eat the best dinners & take the best photos. *sigh*

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  11. Your last shot with the tea & petit fours has me drooling! Great post & awesome pictures despite your Photoshop troubles!

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