Canon SD700 and S3 for Candid Food Photographs

One of the reasons I like a small camera is to snap pictures of tasty restaurant meals. I found the Canon S30 was a little underpowered in the flash and ISO areas for taking good closeups indoors in dim light. The 20D obviously is overkill to pull out at a small table in a crowded dining room; besides, it would probably still have the 300mm lens on! Now that we have the Canon S3 and Canon SD700, can we say we've got the solution?

The SD700 actually turns out to be the champ here. Normally, flash burns out the whole picture when it reflects off dining plates. But with the SD700 in manual mode and the flash turned down in strength to -1 EV, it gives a great exposure at low ISO every time.

The S3 has a problem because of its strong flash. I haven't found a consistent flash setting that avoids burnout. Luckily, with its powerful zoom, I can back off a little bit and zoom in. But that takes a bit of experimentation each time.

"Stuffed" Sweet Potatoes

Since John and I are both vegetarians, I keep running across variations on Stuffed Acorn Squash recipes as suggestions for Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. In fact, this was my choice of entree at our Thanksgiving dinner at Millennium. I decided to create my own version for our dinner the day after Thanksgiving. Since John prefers not to have to separate out skins or shells from his food, I baked one each regular and one Japanese white organic sweet potato, peeled and mashed them (one on each side to maintain the two separate colors) as a low bowl. I drizzled freshly-made pesto on these, and then filled the center with bhutan red rice, and added organic broccoli, onions, and chopped almonds and more drizzles of pesto. This was a rousing success and was heartily enjoyed by all!

I would like to dedicate my first food blog post to two of my favorite food bloggers, gluten-free girl and vegan lunch box, who write passionately about eating on diets limited, but not restricted, by health or ethical reasons. You are truly inspiring! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

I Ain't Gonna Get No More Socca!

Socca Oven, which I blogged about previous, has closed:

eastbayexpress.com The East Bay Express Blog � Gregoire Sticks a Fork in Socca

(At least in this location.) Too bad, they were just about to go on my list of Berkeley-area pizza places!

Tea for More than Two

In the ongoing search for good vegetarian dim sum in the Bay Area, tried out Tin's Tea House in Walnut Creek. Several reviews focused mostly on the traditional (i.e. meat-heavy) dishes: East Bay Express, San Francisco Chronicle. (Is there an editorial rule at the Chronicle that they are forbidden to mention a single vegetarian dish, unless it's a lame salad?)

But by wading through dozens of mini-reviews on Yelp etc., I pieced together that they really do have some vegetarian dishes. And it's true. I especially liked the sesame balls with lotus seed paste. In addition to half a dozen vegetarian choices on the dim sum menu, there is a vegetarian section on the regular menu and we ordered a couple of larger dishes there. (Mongolian faux beef for me, veggie chow fun for Lotus.) The only knock on the veggie offerings is that both the dumplings and the potstickers were jammed full of mushrooms and nothing else. A bit more variety there would be welcome.

All in all, a nice find now that Long Life Vegi House in Berkeley has stopped doing weekend dim sum.