Top Ten Things To Expect When Dining With A Food Blogger
Disclaimer: The following is a tongue-in-cheek and much exaggerated preview of what to expect should you accept a dinner invitation to the home of an avid food blogger. At least, I think it would be like this; certainly at my place things are done with much more consideration for the guest!
Top Ten Things To Expect When Dining With A Food Blogger:
1. You won’t be asked to bring anything except perhaps wine or other beverages.
2. Dinner will be served at 3 in the afternoon because the natural light is better.
3. Once the meal is ready, it will be marched past the set dining room table and out the back door for a photo shoot on the shady deck; it will be served to you approximately fifteen minutes later. If you’re lucky.
4. Due to #3, dinner will be cold.
5. There will be one beautifully presented dish – the one being photographed – but any side dishes may look like they were hurriedly slopped together.
6. The dining room has a backdrop and fill lights. (So I don’t, but I bet I know someone who does.)
7. You may be asked if you can be photographed while eating, but note that this request is merely a formality and the host will snap away at will no matter what your response. Expect close-ups of your lips, etc.
8. The host may seem lost in thought for the most of the meal — presumably because he/she is already composing a blog post in his/her head.
9. If there is conversation, it will probably revolve around the food (details on how it was prepared, the chef’s feelings on how it turned out) or the weather (too sunny for photographs or not sunny enough).
10. You’ll notice that the cake for dessert has a slice missing from it. That’s because the host needed to photograph the layers.
Consider yourself warned. You’re welcome.
Update: Don’t miss the follow-up to this post “Ten Things I’ve Learned About Food Bloggers“!
OMG. You have been to my house at meal times! Yes brought forward to 3.00 ‘cos the light is better! LOL
Oh I love it.
Nutters, all of us.
Hahahaha… yes so true!!!
Sad but so true Aime!!!!
I’ve forwarded this to the group of friends who come for “blog photography dinner” once a month. I cook things I need to photograph, and they eat whatever it is. And except for timing (I actually cook and photo in the morning), it is just exactly as you describe. Thanks for writing this post, for all of us and our guests, too!
Ha! I laughed so hard when I read “dinner will be served at 3 in the afternoon”, the light definitely is better than at 6 pm. This whole post is too funny, thanks Aimée. 🙂
Is this a warning for Friday evening, if things work out for that? I guess I’ll watch the little sweethearts while you do the photo shoot!
I love the photo that serves as the prelude to the list! So appropriate. My husband is notorious for telling our son it’s dinner time, only to grumble, “Well not until your mother takes her precious picture first.” I’m still a novice though and take my pictures at 6pm with the terrible lighting!
Hi Sally- Welcome to UtHC! I’m glad you can relate!
Hi Sarah- So it’s not just me…
Hi Val- Pathetic? 🙂
Hi Lydia- I’m sure your friends don’t complain!!
Hi Lyb- I’m glad you found it funny. I was hoping people would ‘get it’.
Hi Grammy- Don’t worry…had you come last week…well that would have been a different story!
Hi Colin’s Mum- That’s funny. Precious photos indeed.
That’s hilarious! LOL! Seriously, I’m at work and am fighting laughing too loudly. Great post, Aimee!
~ingrid
You are right on. So cute!
That’s a good one. So true.
Spot on. But that’s the “old me”–these days, I’ve banned myself from blogging dinners, unless it’s just me and my boyfriend, in which case he knows to just deal with it.
Hysterical!!!! My husband always yells that they food is going to get cold.
SO true…great post!! When we have people over we have to apologize for the camera and possible cold food:)
Hi ingrid- The jokes on you! 🙂
Hi abby- Thanks!
Hi Helene- Too true, indeed.
Hi Michele- Wise decision. 10 years down the road you will still have friends- I won’t.
Hi culinarywannabe- I know, I know!
Hi Maria- it just doesn’t taste the same when it’s re-heated does it?
Tee hee hee! Here are some of my favorites: “Hold on! Mommy forgot to take a picture! Can you please slide over, I need more light? I know, you’re hungry. Mommy is hungry too.”
Then, there is always: “Mommy do you want to take a picture of my bacon filled tortilla for the blog? Mommy, I was just working on a recipe for the blog: water, lots of water, sugar and cinnamon sugar (perhaps, it was an attempt at sweet cinnamon tea).”
Life in the kitchen was so boring before blogging:)
Works for me! When can I come? 😉
Well its not THAT bad… but you have your moments 😉
So true. My dining room is where I store lights, extension cord, reflector, tablecloths, backdrops, and blogware. Good thing we don’t actually eat there often!
I am just starting to add photos of what I am making and truly see myself working my way down the list!
Very funny and true!
This is how it goes if there are no guests… And it pains me not to do it when guests are around but I’m also too embarrassed to have to explain why every little detail of dinner must be photographed…
Hi Kimberly- That’s sooo cute. I’m sure my little one has no idea why I photograph food.
Hi Cookiepie- Now that is a good sport!
Hi Miranda- No, could you imagine if it was?? Danny would have my head.
Hi Lynn- Wow, you are hard core! Lights? Really?? No 3PM dinner for you, eh?
Hi Mab- Welcome to the club!
Hi Brilynn- I know!!It’s hard to explain to people.
I think I love you! Awesome. So very true.
I have realized that I haven’t blogged much due to dinner being too late for me to photograph on my back patio. Ha!
Come on time change!
Haha, very true and hilarious. I don’t have any fancy equipment, but I wish I did.
Haha, I love this!
Just stumbled onto your blog while doing research into pudding chomeur. Really enjoying it.
I read this list to my sweetie and he hasn’t laughed so much since I started food blogging.
:{
Not ALL of them. No. Not ALL.
Oh my gosh – you have me laughing out loud! I’m going to pass this post on to my husband – he and the kids have been forced to wait for dinner on more than one occasion. : )
http://oneordinaryday.wordpress.com/
Hilarious!
Where can I subscribe to your blog? I’m looking and looking and can’t fint it…
Oh how tru how true. I have resorted to making dinner at 2 different times during the day. One dinner for a photo and one dinner to feed to my family.
They have gotten used to my antics and now sometimes wait patiently while I take a photo of their dinner.
Hysterical!
Hahaha!! I love this. SO true. Do you mind if I link and pass it on?
For my oldest’s Bday party, I took pics of the food, and I guess she was embarrassed because she told all her guests, that “Don’t eat it yet, My mom always takes pictures of food! A million pictures!” lol!
=)
Love your blog, I saw you just found me on Twitter so I stopped by. LOVE the header desing too, so cute and funny!
That was pretty flipping good! I think you nailed it!
OMG, so funny! I used to have all my photography equipment set up in the dining room, and our realtor told me I had to put it all away when showing the house. “You want it to look like a dining room!” she said. Ugh! I don’t take photos when guests, even family, are visiting, though my husband asks me constantly, “Did you photograph that?” before I serve anything to company. It’s almost embarrassing!
So cute! I’m not an “official” food blogger yet based on this criteria (though I know many who are!), but I could be heading that way 🙂
Pretty funny. This is probably why we’ll never have a successful food blog, because none of these would ever actually happen at our house. 😉 – John
Hehehe! Oh, that is so funny, and so true! Except, that I march my food into my bedroom where I have my makeshift photography studio set up.
Guilty on most counts 🙂 Although I can’t, in good conscience, serve a cake that has already been sliced.
Great post!
rofl nailed me on quite a few counts
Hi Kandice- I know, I love the long evenings of summer with their soft light.
H Emily- Me either.I wouldn’t know where to start with lighting.
Hi Hilary- Welcome to UtHC!Enjoy your stay.
Hi Ferdzy- What was your score? 80%?? Come on, you can tell us.
Hi Creativecarryout- Our poor husbands. They need a support group for all the meals that they wait for.
Hi Nurit- It’s up now! Main page.
Hi EAT- wow, that’s ambitious!!
Hi Cheryl- Wink, wink!
Hi Rachelle- Thanks for stopping by! See you around.
That’s hilarious and oh so true!
Great post. I also get “Aren’t you taking a photo for your blog? Is our food not good enough to blog?” when we are dining at friend’s houses.All in fun of course.
Completely True! I had a dinner party and took no pictures because I was afraid of what people might think because I would have done the things you listed in entirety.
Totally true. I suffer with the light issue, everything always gets ruined by my lights!
Great blog! We sometimes set out to enjoy a meal with the intention to blog about it, but enjoy the meal and company so much we forget to write notes, take photos etc. But that’s all part of the fun.
LOL! Definetly been there with eating early to take advantage of the natural light. Also, gotta love the perfect looking plate and then the others.
Aimee, hope you don’t mind the link – I’ve read this every day all week and it has cracked me up each time! I have one little lamp with a “natural spectrum” lightbulb that I sometimes use to improve my 9 pm photos – I have a desk job so I can’t cook at 3. I can’t WAIT for the days to be longer just so my photos will be better!
I just made my fiancé flip a pancake close to 50 times so that I could get a “mid-air” shot. Poor man! At least he knows what he’s getting into! Great blog, by the way!
So true, great post. We have one place setting of white dishware for the photos. Sad, but true.
ROFL – can I relate to this or what. Too funny!
I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in so long. So true especially about the missing slice of cake. 🙂