CHAPTER FIVEaside but do not refrigerate. It’s a good plan to write down
and keep a journal of successful food styling formulas and
techniques for future reference.
Sauce will be applied to the pasta either immediately
before it is built into the hero dish, or immediately after
the hero is built. Th e decision about which method to use
should be based on your comfort level. For example, you
can add a little sauce to the pasta before building the hero
dish. Th is method can be messy and I recommend build-
ing the hero away from the set, but it is a good way to
ensure the pasta is covered with sauce. Or, you can build
the hero with plain pasta and, after the hero dish is built,
brush the sauce onto the pasta. When I built the pasta
for the chapter opening shot, I built the hero bowl and
spoon with pasta and brushed the sauce on the pasta after
the build was completed. If you want a heavier sauce
appearance, you will be more successful using the tech-
nique for applying a light sauce to the pasta before build-
ing it in the hero bowl and then using a bulb dispenser
to deposit more sauce in strategic locations within the
hero dish after it is built.
Food Additions to the Pasta
Now you’re ready to prep other ingredients you’ve
selected to add to the pasta. At this time you should
have the pasta stored in Ziploc bags and have deter-
mined a formula for the pasta sauce. Turn your attention
to prepping the other ingredients that are going into
your hero pasta dish. If using meats in the dish, you
should refer to the chapter on meats (Chapter 7) for
prep techniques. Pan-seared meat adds extra interest to
pasta dishes. All vegetable items in your dish need to
go through the hero process. Some vegetables may need
to be blanched, baked, or cooked on a griddle. Refer to
the chapter on vegetables (Chapter 8) for prep tech-
niques. If you use fresh herbs or garnishes, you will need
to prep them right before fi nal capture. Refer to Chapter
12 on garnishes for prep techniques for snipped herbs
and garnishes.Building the Pasta
To achieve height in a bowl of pasta, you’ll need to
provide a solid structure to create the extra height
because pasta coated with oil will naturally settle down
into the bowl rather than pile up. Use a spacer that is
similar in color to the pasta to create height. Th e spac-
er’s size will depend on the size of your hero container
and on the height you want to achieve. Remember to
keep the height realistic. Pasta towers are not naturally
occurring phenomena.
If you use a spacer to add some height or support for the
pasta and other ingredients, you will need to position the
spacer in the clean hero bowl before beginning to build
the pasta dish.