Food Styling for Photographers

BURGERS, SANDWICHES, AND BEYOND

To prep lettuce for a sandwich, remove the whole leaves

from a head of lettuce, discarding any leaves with damaged

edges or discolored areas. If the lettuce is visibly dirty,

you will want to wash it in a bath of water and Fruit

Fresh Produce Protector. Spin the lettuce leaves dry in a

salad spinner. Place two or three hero whole lettuce leaves

into a one gallon-size Ziploc bag. Place all of the bags

of lettuce in the refrigerator vegetable drawer until you

build the hero sandwich. Bean sprouts and other sprouts

should be washed in a bowl of cold water. Th e empty seed

casings will fl oat to the surface of the water and should

be discarded. Place the sprouts on a paper towel–lined

paper plate. Slip the sprouts and plate into a Ziploc bag

and refrigerate.

For tomato prep, slice ripe red tomatoes using a serrated

tomato knife. Th e slices should be thick enough to

hold together, but normally not more than 1/2 inch in

thickness. Lay the slices on a plastic tray, cover tightly

with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. It’s best not to cut

tomato slices less than 1/4 inch thick because they often

become fl imsy and require support. If it turns out your

tomato slices do need support, thin sheets of acrylic can

be used. Acrylic sheets bound in pads are sold at art

stores. Cut circles out of the acrylic material that are

slightly smaller than the hero tomato slices. As you build

the sandwich, if the tomato slices need support to keep

their shape, place one acrylic circle under each tomato

slice. Note that you will have to be creative when using

toothpicks for the build if acrylic circles inhabit the

sandwich.

If I am confi dent with the cheese as I see it packaged at

the deli, I will use the cheese as it comes out of the deli

packages when I build a hero sandwich. If you aren’t

comfortable doing this, then you should work through

the cheese looking for hero slices. Cull through the

cheese slices quickly since exposure to air will dry the

cheese within a few minutes. As you fi nd a hero slice,

place it on a paper plate. Lay a piece of the deli-paper

snugly over each cheese slice and cover the plate with

plastic wrap. Refrigerate the plate of hero cheese until

you are ready to build it into the sandwich.

Other vegetable sandwich ingredients should be hero

sorted and stored on plastic trays or paper plates covered

with plastic wrap until ready to construct the hero sand-

wich. If you choose to cut vegetables such as peppers or

radishes perform these tasks and hero those items during

prep time early on the day of the shoot. Items such as

black olives and roasted peppers that are purchased in

cans or jars should be drained and sliced if necessary and

hero sorted. Place items of this type on paper plates or

plastic trays, cover with a damp paper towel, and then

cover tightly with plastic wrap.