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THE GOOD WORD Vol. 4: Shao Zhi Zhong of FriedWontons4U
THE GOOD WORD Vol. 4: Shao Zhi Zhong of FriedWontons4U
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The Good Word is a new weekly Meal Ticket feature where we ask Philadelphia food people questions. We�re going to start by highlighting the city�s many excellent food writers and bloggers, with eventual plans to extend beyond the scribeosphere. The questions will be different every week unless we come across a really sweet one we want to reuse. Want to nominate a future Good Word candidate (yes, you can nominate yourself), or submit ideas for questions? E-mail drew.lazor@citypaper.net.
In this installment of The Good Word, we�re chatting with Shao Zhi Zhong of FriedWontons4U. Shao, a native of Guangzhou, China whose family came to Philadelphia when she was 5, is an avid home cook with an insane knack for food photography.
You grew up in the restaurant industry here in Philly, working at your uncle's restaurant in Chinatown. Why do you think you ended up on the coverage end of food via your blog, as opposed to having a full-time career "in the biz"?
I still work there a few times a week. The economy is rough. I'm very thankful I have this small part-time job until I could find something more stable. As for being "in the biz," I could see myself doing something in the management side, but never as a chef or enrolling in culinary school professionally. I have terrible knife skills! For me, cooking is about making mistakes, and trying to get it right over and over again at my own pace. Cooking professionally would take some of the joy out of that.
When I first started the blog, I did it because I had all this down time after I left my last job. I always enjoyed cooking, but the blog has made me realize how much I love the whole process of it. Researching for recipes, shopping for the ingredients, selecting the plate for the dish and even the occasional cooking hiccups. I have as much fun with these steps as I do cooking the whole meal. If I ever do something that's "in the biz" full-time, it would have to be something as enjoyable as trying to perfect an ice cream recipe over and over again.
Your photos are beautiful. Everyone wants to know how you do it!
Thank you! I mostly shoot with a Nikon D60, and sometimes with a Nikon D90, as well. I tend to stick to a 50mm and a 35mm lens for all my food photos. Need to catch all the little crumbs on the plate! My speedlight also helps when I'm working with less-than-perfect indoor lighting conditions, but you don't really need to invest in a SLR to take good food photos. If you have a point and shoot, natural light is your friend. My first post was shot with a small Canon PowerShot.
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| friedwontons4u.com |
What's really important, though, is patience. Snapping pictures as you watch the food you just made slowly getting cold is torture. The blog has changed how I react to food. When a plate of food is presented to me now, the first thing that comes in mind is not "I can't wait to dig in, yum!" but rather it's "if I turn it slightly on this angle and rearrange this lettuce leaf ... "
If you weren't cooking/covering food in Philly, which other city would you like to blog about?
I was in Seattle and San Francisco a few months ago and had some amazing meals there. I also love the dinning atmosphere of Rome and Japan when I was over there. It would be very hard for me to pick just one city. I want to eat my way through every continent if I could! Every region has their own unique dining culture. That's whats so great about eating in a different country, or even in a different town � you get to learn so much about the area by the dish that's presented in front of you.
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| friedwontons4u.com |
You have five ingredients to cook with for the rest of your life. What are they? Choose wisely!
How could you make me pick?! Well, garlic is a must. Lemon, fish (please don't make me choose which type), eggs, and, of course, bacon. Garlic goes good with just about everything. Lemon juice and zest will brighten up any dish. Fish is one of my favorite proteins. I can eat eggs any time of the day. As for bacon, well, it's BACON, and you can never go wrong with some pork fat in your life.
What an interesting interview - great questions! If I may, I would like to suggest the esteemed food critic of the South Philly Review, Phyllis Stein-Novack. Perhaps it could be the 1st ever round table GOOD WORD and feature both Edward and Carl (both frequent dining companions of Phyllis)!
I whole-heartedly agree with Poncho. Phyllis Stein-Novack would be an excellent choice-- she is my favorite food critic. Both locally and nationally. I'm sure Cousin Carl and Edward would both be happy to oblige!
Awesome to see Shao featured here! I wholeheartedly agree with the statement about watching food get cold while taking the photos. When shooting, the entire time I'm just thinking "man I want to get this over with so I can dig in!" Awesome work, keep it up Shao!
Great article on one of my favorite bloggers! Congrats, Shao. Your food photography is stunning; glad to know the secret to your success!
[...] Meal Ticket By Shao, on August 3rd, 2009 THE GOOD WORD Vol. 4 [...]
- barstool scientist
- Booze
- Brew Revue
- Chef Salad
- Closings
- Coffee
- Contests
- Dealage
- Dirty Dishes
- Don't Front
- Eat This Immediately
- Field Trip
- Food and Art
- Food and Holidays
- Food and Movies
- Food and Music
- Food and Politics
- Food and Sports
- Food and Web
- Food Blogs
- Food Books
- Food Events
- Food News
- Food TV
- Gifted
- Happy Hour Hopper
- How-To
- In Print
- Interview
- Meal Ticket
- Menu Time
- Not So Quickfire
- Notes from the Weekend
- On Wheels
- Openings
- Patio Drinking
- Philly Beer Week 2010
- Photos
- Private Chef POV
- Product Placement
- Recipes
- Snack Time
- Stiff Drank
- SUPPER
- Tea
- Testing
- Ticket Stubs
- Top Chef
- Vegan
- Vegetarian
- Video
- Weekly Candy
- Weird Regional Foods
- We're Here to Help
- Where'd We Eat?
- Drew Lazor's Ill-Advised Rant Factory
- Pregame
- Ill-Advised Ranting
- The Week Without Meat
- Philly Beer Week 2009
- Real Big
- Where'd I Eat Last Night?
- Top Chef Masters
- The Good Word
- Next Iron Chef
- Arterial Terrorism
- Food and Radio
