photography lesson at Scandi Kitchen; mini prawn & egg "smorrebrod" (open sandwich); the hot dawg

If there is one thing a food blogger wants, it’s to take good photos. Oh I’m sorry, they want food, but right after food, it’s the good photos. This is because the majority of readers out there scan posts for the glorious food pØrn and maybe, just maybe they might read a paragraph or two, but really, our hopes are pinned on the photos because if you write as much crap as I do, no one reads the post.

Except my mum. Hi! 

Having said that, there was some discussion in twitterverse about people who actually read blogs? I mean, isn’t that like saying you buy Playboy for the articles? I rest my case.

So in light of wanting to take stunning unadulterated food pØrn photos, I tagged along last week to an informal photo lesson hosted by Helen of a forkful of spaghetti and photographer Chris Windsor to learn a thing or two.

Or really, I went because the event was at Scandinavian Kitchen, one of my uber most favourite places in London.

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HIX Restaurant, Soho

First and foremost, I have to admit that I am not usually a fan of British cuisine. Don’t ask me why, because if I answer that I can already feel the onslaught of abuse at my lack of culinary prowess. Not that I ever had any. But ok, ask me why, why catty do you not appreciate the abundance of British food at your doorstep, given that you live in London and all?

Well catty (yes, I totally talk to myself), I just don’t find the variety wide enough, the flavours appealing enough, and I don’t know, maybe it’s because I don’t know how to appreciate good British food, for instance fresh oysters? I’ve literally just learned that you order them by their region (thanks Mark), because it’s their salt water which makes them special.

Right, because here I am spitting out the salt water, but drown them in black bean sauce and I am all there, baby.

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chicken, mushroom & leek pie, and ugg boots!

I’m gonna come clean up front and admit that this is a completely blagged post. Blagged items, if you don’t know, are things that we bloggers are sent from PR folk to eat and cook and test, and provide our supposedly much sought after opinion. My opinion in particular has the influence of a peanut, so I don’t know why they send me stuff, but hey, this week I got ugg boots (!!!) so I am not complaining.

In light of the fact that dusting off my old ugg boots indicate the onset of winter, new ugg boots indicate that it’s winter now! NOW! Wear them NOW! and like seriously, the power of the mind, I have convinced myself (and everyone else) it’s winter. So much so that Abel & Cole also think it’s winter, and have sent me a delicious chicken, mushroom and leek pie to warm my little belly.

Hi. My name is catty and I’m a blagger.

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Soseki

So y’all probably know that my girlfriends and I head out on a date night once every few weeks. Like here. and here. and here. and sometimes we even go on a whole date weekend. In the transient state that is being an Australian living in London, people come and go, and so our date night posse shrinks and grows accordingly. One of my bestest buddies here, Helen, left recently and so our date night last week was the first without her, and I don’t know if it’s cos she wasn’t there, or if Soseki is just nothing to write home about… but I thought the whole thing was just a little bit… average.

Maybe I’m just missing Helen 🙁

No actually, I think Soseki was just average. Sorry!

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Sprinkles cupcakes; sweet potato chips from 25 Degrees, Roosevelt Hotel; Kyochon fried chicken; Umami burger

Los Angeles, the City of Angels. More appropriately (for me anyway), it was the City of Food, or rather, of amazing burgers, cupcakes and fried chicken. Love. Over the course of four days, we ate at a dozen supertacular places, but in light of keeping this post to a read-able length, I’m going to do some culling (wow this is hard, you realise this is like me culling my children) and touch on the best of LA eating.

[Note: I woke up this morning thinking about KyoChon fried chicken, hence I finally got my butt into gear to do this post]

So here goes, and in no particular order…

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