SOWA food photography + styling Workshop overview plus a bunch of recipes

June 14th was a beautiful Sunday morning. It was kind of morning that made you want to take your dog out for a long walk- crisp, clear, sunny, with no humidity but a light breeze. It was the kind of morning that invited you to spread a picnic blanket out on a field and sip on wine and gaze at the clouds. At 8am, our attendees began to trickle in, clutching cups of coffee, because who gets up at 8am on Sunday?? However, they arrived, smiling and enthusiastic, a group of wonderful foodies who wanted to learn about food photography. I’m not going to lie – Meg and I were nervous. At least, I was definitely a bundle of nerves. My hands were still stained a bit pink from handling beets, and I tried to hide that as I smiled at the attendees. It turned out we didn’t have to be nervous at all – this group was GREAT. How did we get so lucky that our first group turned out to be so perfect?? I’m really excited to share this day with you all. I was so happy and honored to teach photography and styling, but honestly? I feel like I learned so much from this experience as well. I absolutely loved meeting everyone – there’s something really special and heart warming about meeting other like-minded individuals (aka, people who would actually go into excited squeaks over good food, discussions about props, and enjoying a meal together).
I’ll also be sharing recipes for half the menu here – specifically, stone-fruit salad with hibiscus syrup, elderflower strawberry galette, citrus marinated beets with burrito and pistachios, and rosé sangria with cherries, strawberries, lemon, and basil. You can find the rest of the menu at Bread + Barrow. If you’re interested in future events, shoot me an email at bettysliu07 [at] gmail, and I’ll put you on the emailing list so you’ll be the first to know. We will be doing more events this fall. Also, feel free to follow me on instagram, as I always post updates there as well :). 

Lavender Honey Peach Buttermilk Pie

What a mouthful. Lavender honey peach buttermilk pie. What can I say? I love putting together different flavors, and honey and lavender are just subtle enough to be placed with peach. This custard pie is sweet, refreshing, and permeated with the peach flavor, and adapted from Joy’s Apricot Buttermilk Pie. Topped with a greek yogurt cream and honeycomb, I can almost say it’s healthy. Well, not really, but the point is, it’s not exactly the most unhealthy dessert right? I used lavender as a secondary taste, and it worked out really well in this pie. Lavender can often be an overpowering flavor, so I ground it up with sugar – think of it as using a lavender scented sugar, if you will. The point is, it’s August. Peaches are ripe. Go pick some peaches. And make this pie.

I started out with lavender and sugar. There are two ways to do this. You can first grind up the lavender, then rub it with sugar, or you can put the sugar with lavender buds in a spice grinder and process it that way. The sugar becomes quite fine (almost like powdered sugar), which is nice side effect.

This recipe is inspired by Joy The Baker’s apricot buttermilk pie. I did not have dried apricots on hand, but I did have some plump, ripe yellow peaches. So I fiddled with this, changed some of that, and here is a peach buttermilk pie. This pie not only tastes good, but it also looks so darn pretty! I’m all for the lattice pie and all the interesting things you can do with a double crust (like this), but a clean custard pie… In the way a freshly made bed just invites you to lay on it, a clean custard pie just calls for me to dive in with a fork. A custard pie invites vignettes of lazy summer days, pristine white walls, a clear blue sky, and a fancy tea party. But that’s just me.