Long Beach City College’s culinary arts department partnered with the graphic arts department’s Digital Media Arts 6 (DMA 6) class to create a cookbook during photoshoots held Oct. 7 and Oct. 21. The project was led by Professor Cloutier and Chef Marina
The cookbook is DMA 6’s sole project for the semester, each student is assigned to put together a cookbook in their own way using photos taken by LBCC student Grace Suphamark with recipes provided by Chef Marina.
DMA 6 student Gerardo Cueto said the cookbook was coming along and close to completion.
“We are making great progress on the book. Layouts are close to finished. All we need is to drop in the images we took,” Cueto said.
The design class will be editing the chef’s portraits and the photos of the food, along with the recipes to each of the prepared dishes.
It is currently unknown whether the book will be available to the rest of the student body, but all students involved in the project will each receive a copy.
Sheet-pan chicken with potatoes, arugula, asparagus, and feta. The dish was prepared by Culinary student Angelica Lopez for the cookbook photoshoot on Oct. 21. (Jocelyn Cortez-Garcia)
“The book will be printed and if I am not mistaken it will be shared with the culinary students that participated in this group project,” Cueto said.
Culinary students who participated in this project had various recipe options for dishes and pastries to choose from.
The Sheet-pan chicken with potatoes, arugula, asparagus and feta recipe caught the attention of culinary student Angelica Lopez, she chose that particular dish as she thought it would be a good challenge for her.
“I wanted to challenge myself with a hard dish or so I thought. It turned out it was an easy dish to make,” Lopez said.
Lopez’s dish took an estimated time of 45 minutes total, 10 minutes for prep and then 35 minutes to bake and plate.
Lopez mentioned she made this recipe for her family with only $30, and was able to feed five people with three people going back for seconds.
“I actually made this recipe yesterday for my family. It’s very affordable, I bought the ingredients from Albertsons and spent about $30,” Lopez said.
Culinary arts student Ana Jimenez Villaseñor places a prepared dish during a cookbook photoshoot on Oct. 21. The dish is grilled zucchini with green apple salad topped with pomegranate seeds. (Jocelyn Cortez-Garcia)
Suphamark said photographing food can be challenging depending on the dish, the dish may only hold for a few minutes before it starts to change its appearance.
“Food, though, is hard in its own way. It’s got a shelf life to look good for about five minutes (depending on the dish) so you have to move incredibly fast to compose and light the shot,” Suphamark said.
The cookbook united different programs from LBCC to create multiple versions of the cookbook and allowed DMA 6 and culinary students to both use their creativity to create a cookbook in their style and for them to challenge themselves with a recipe they have never made.
You must be logged in to post a comment.