By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Plant-Based Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
During the summer in Arizona, our local farmers work very hard to grow beautiful produce for us in our 100+ degree weather, so I love to create beautiful dishes with it.
Earlier this week while I was chatting with a friend who reminded me that there are often “behind-the-scenes” steps in creating a beautifully plated dish. So with this Summer dish, I’m sharing with you the full steps from the vision of the dish to the final plate.
I hope you enjoy this “food art” lesson.
Step 1: Stop by the farm and farmers markets to see what’s in season. This was especially important to me the last few weeks, as I was traveling in the Boston area, Cocoa Beach, Florida, and Barbados, so I lost track of what would be growing seasonally in Arizona.
My first stop was The Farm at South Mountain, where Farm Operations Manager, Billy Anthony is growing hundreds of pounds of beautiful heirloom tomatoes.
My next stop was the Downtown Phoenix Public Market, where I often shop and lead cooking demos. I was happy to see that the farmers were growing some of my summer favorites. Thanks Blue Sky Organic Farms for the collard greens and leeks; and thanks to Maya’s Farm for the rainbow carrots.
Step 2: Pause and enjoy the beautiful produce from our farmers. Begin to visualize the creation of a beautiful dish. With intuitive cooking, once we learn cooking techniques and practice with recipes, we can intuitively create beautiful, tasty meals.
Step 3: Pause again and choose a few different types of produce with different colors and textures.
Step 4: Cut the veggies and fruit in different shapes.
Step 5: Pause, yet again, and intuitively notice if any of the produce “fits” together. Today, for me, it was a simple avocado salsa (or guacamole) with the tomatoes, avocado, colorful carrots, lemon, and sea salt. And, the fresh peaches and butterscotch melon with a squeeze of lemon seemed to go together nicely.
Avocado Salsa
Peaches & Melon
Step 6: Arrange all of the ingredients and components (the Avocado Salsa, Peaches & Melon) in a plating “mise en place.” That is, all ingredients mindfully organized to be ready for plating.
Step 7: Looking at the plating “mise en place” begin to visualize how the plate will look. Then, sketch out the plating of the dish, using colored pencils or markers. In the sketch include where the different foods will go onto the plate and the order to plate them.
I’ve been mindfully plating for a few years now, and this process does take practice. Once we get into our own rhythm of sketching our dishes and plating, it becomes fluid and fun. Key is to practice, practice, practice.
Step 8: Mindfully plate the food, following your plating sketch. Know that this phase is also part of the food art process, so if your plate does not look exactly like your sketch, no worries at all. Enjoy it!
All set to plate.
Step 9: Finally, mindfully enjoy eating your plate.
Of course, first pause and enjoy your “food art”.
Enjoy…
We are only two months away from our Plant-Based Cooking & Self-Care Retreat in Sedona, Arizona September 13-16, 2019. Along with plant-based culinary skills we will also focus on mindfully plating and creating our own style of “food art”.
Please feel free to call (602.615.2486) or e-mail if you’d like to chat about the retreat and take a look at the information about the retreat on ExperienceNutrition.com/sedona-retreats
