B.T.S. Violife Foods Photo Shoots!

I love what I do because you never know where your next food project may take you! The Violife brand 100% Vegan is a fun, tasty, and fresh product hitting the shelves in the USA! I’ve been working with the T&C team creating colorful social assets featuring their products used in recipes. Each month we have been shooting different recipes that may correlate with an upcoming FOOD holiday or special event. The recipes are tested and concepts are sketched out for each recipe. Lisa Russell helps with styling, art direction and sourcing props for each setup. Each recipe gets a hero still image and a supporting stop motion. So fun to watch these shots come to life. Make sure to follow along @violifeus

Happy Holidays: Reflecting on 2021

Happy Holidays! Blessed to have another amazing year of work and to have started getting back to in-person meetings, and shoots. 2020 was a real blur and 2021 still had its ups and downs. I’m thankful for all the crew and clients that worked with me this past year. Couldn’t of done it without you!

As a photographer it’s rare you get to meet other photographers in the field and for me that would happen at industry events like holiday parties or portfolio reviews. I was so happy when BLVD Artists brought back in person reviews. It was great to see fellow photographers and agency folks an arms reach away. Human connection is so important and necessary in personal growth.

Creating personal work is always on my list and it was another successful year collaborating with super talented stylist shooting really cool work.

To finish out my year into 2022 I’m very excited to be shooting my first international job with a very well known pizza brand. Can’t wait to share the news when I return!

Happy Holidays

Sincerely,

Felicia

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Felicia Perretti is a commercial food and beverage photographer and director based in New York City. She works nationally with food and beverage clients in advertising, packaging, editorial, and video. She has worked with food and drink in all shapes and knows how to craft the right team to get the job done! Her passion for food and beverage shine through on set as well as outside of work in her everyday life. Whether it’s trying new restaurants, traveling, or cooking with her husband Joe. Send her an email or give a call to discuss your next project, she would be more than happy to chat!

Recipe: Roasted Chestnuts

Chestnuts roasting on a open fire might work for some but the oven works just as good. I’ll get into that in a minute but first want to talk about these unique treats. Weeks leading up to Thanksgiving the holidays start filling our heads and seasonal dishes filling our stomachs. A favorite past time treat are roasted chestnuts. To some this seems like a foreign food and only know of it by the famous Nat King Cole melody but chestnuts and the trees they come from date back to the 1900’s in the United States. The American Chestnut Foundation in the early 1980’s wanted to revive the nut in all its glory especially since a terrible fungus earlier destroyed a large amount of the forests containing these trees.
Around the holidays in the US you can find street vendors roasting the chestnuts and selling by the bag. This method of using chestnuts is also vastly popular in Europe!
How I roast chestnuts is I start with the flat side down on a cutting board and make an “X” slit through the skin of the nut. Then I briefly soak the nuts in hot water then drain and dry. Once they are dried I toss the nuts with melted butter, salt, pepper, and sage. I lay them out on a foil lined cookie sheet gathering the edges to create a large opening around the chestnuts. I roast in the oven at 425 degrees for 35 minutes. The skin where you made the “X” should be peeling back. Once removed from the oven let rest till you can touch them and peel back the skin. You want to eat the meaty, buttery inside of the nut.
These nuts can go bad so when shopping for them make sure the skin doesn’t have blemishes. An ideal nut is a vibrant chestnut color, and smooth.

Photo Shoot Recap: Stevia In The Raw

    This was such a fun day and everything went smoothly. I can’t stress enough how important pre production to a photo shoot really is. The more planning, communicating with agency, client, and team the better the day will go. We finished our shoot on time if not a little early! Also it’s really nice when you have two amazing assistants on hand. This shoot for Stevia In The Raw was highlighting their newly designed packaging for print ads across many popular food magazines in addition some very tasty recipes using the product. The hero shot was really cool because we worked with Hinge; a 2D/3D animation studio in Portland that created a really cute gingerbread man character that they placed in my photograph for the final!
    For the recipes they were all amazing, but I think my personal favorite was the chocolate espresso pizzelles. The expresso buttercream sandwiched between the two pizzelles was so good! Luckily Lisa my stylist made extras, haha! Lisa did a fantastic job creating the other recipes as well. She made the gingerbread butterscotch trifle cups that created these beautiful layers. The grand finale recipe was the chocolate peppermint truffle tart. She had sourced spearmint leaves fresh from a garden that topped the tart so perfectly. It made it picture perfect! Make sure to keep an eye out for my Stevia In The Raw shots and take a minute to see our B.T.S. video.

Photo Shoot: Village Voice Magazine

    The holidays are an exciting time with the music, snow, gift shopping, and seasonal cocktails. It was exciting when a friend and photo editor reached out to me for a project for Village Voice! Myself and food stylist Jill Keller got to go around to 6 different bars in New York photographing 6 signature drinks the bar and bartenders worked on. Also it was great to reference if you wanted to try and make it at home for yourself. Each bar was very unique and fun to check out. I think my personal favorite was Miracle On 9th Street pop up bar by Nico de Soto. The bar was decorated like my grandma’s house around the holidays. There were so many nostalgic Christmas decorations. The drinks were served in these cute cups that looked like Santa. It was really exciting because after the story ran Bon Appetit Magazine was also doing coverage of the bar! Nico was doing live demo of making the drinks. I got to work with talented food stylists Jill Keller and we hopped around town going to each bar. It was fun!

Grana Padano photo shoot for Cheese Connoisseur Magazine

Just in time for the holidays, a few quick cheese recipes I shot for Cheese Connoisseur magazine. These were prepared with Grana Padano cheese, which is similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano. It is made in northeastern Italy. The recipes were really a nice selection to showcase how you can use this cheese. We made a simple quesadilla with roasted red peppers, a squash soup, and an apple crostata!

We had to make sure and leave room for titles and recipe text when these run in the magazine.

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Holiday Recipe: Hot Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients

12 ounces dark chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

TOPPINGS: Crushed candy canes or Hershey's cocoa powder

Directions

 Place all ingredients in a double boiler and stir until chocolate is melted. Whisk works well.
    Allow the mixture to cool. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerator for about 2-3 hours until firm.
    Using a cookie scoop, scoop the chocolate mixture ( approx. 1 inch scoops) and roll into a ball. Then with your choice of topping roll in that. Immediately place each ball onto a square of plastic wrap.

For Gifting: Wrap up each ball with plastic wrap to seal.  Place balls in a freezer bag and freeze until ready to use.

To Make Hot Chocolate: 1 cup of milk into a microwave-safe mug (or in saucepan to heat). Carefully drop two unwrapped hot chocolate truffles into the milk. Stir for 30 seconds to 1 minute until the truffles dissolve into the milk. Serve warm!

Wine Choice: Merlot

National Beer Day

Today is the greatest Un-Birthday/Holidays you could experience. We can thank our former president Franklin Roosevelt for this. Today is National Beer Day! 82 years ago Roosevelt declared it legal to sell, and brew beer ending prohibition.

Time has 8 reasons to love beer on beer day: http://time.com/money/3773998/national-beer-day-why-we-love-beer/

Recipe: Leftover Pumpkin Puree

The holidays are coming up and I thought I should share this easy, tasty recipe that will help you use leftover pumpkin puree from your soup and pie recipes you've made for the family.

Ingredients:

-1 cup pumpkin puree

-3 cups rolled oats

-3 tbs brown sugar (dark or light)

-1 tbs cinnamon

-1 tbs pumpkin pie spice

-1 egg white

-1/3 cup honey or maple syrup

-1 tsp vanilla

-Any additional nuts or dried berries can be added, I had almonds on hand so I used them.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
-Mix 3 cups rolled oats and 1 cup almonds with 3 tbs brown sugar, 1 tbs cinnamon, and 1 tbs pumpkin pie spice and set aside.
-Separately mix one egg white with 1 cup pumpkin puree, 1/3 cup honey, and 1 tsp of vanilla.
-Combine dry ingredients and pumpkin mixture; mix till coated.
-Spread on baking pan and bake for 45-50 minutes mixing between every 15min. Let rest for 20min then serve.