FOOD EYE APPEAL

There are books written on "Food Artistry" entailing complicated procedures to make the appearance of food appetizing. If you have the time – "Go for it!" If not, use your ingenuity when dishing up serving plates, bowls, and individual servings.

Color perhaps takes top priority. For instance, mix deep yellow vegetables with dark green (such as, a few carrots with dark green kale); a serving of cranberries or currants placed alongside of poultry; dark red beets alongside pale green cukes; butter curls in a serving dish surrounded with frilly dark green parsley.

When making a pasta salad, incorporate vivid color in the salad by adding bits of carrot, green onion, black or green olives, pimento, purple, red, green, or yellow peppers.

Serve salads in lettuce cups; add a carrot curl, a radish or a green onion on top or alongside. Parsley, chive sprigs, dill, mint or other herb sprigs can be used. Edible flowers make great decorations in or on salads, fruit desserts, etc.

Meat platters can always use something besides the meat to perk them up. Use slices of lemon with fish or seafood, or place colorful vegetables along the perimeter of the platter. A nice glaze of ketchup can be put on top of a meatloaf before baking. Some cooked roasts can be rolled in a mixture of toasted bread crumbs and parsley before serving.

Baked goods can be brushed with beaten egg and a few seeds sprinkled on before baking to make the crust nice and brown. The seeds will also add flavor.

Jot down many more artistry ideas as you think of them or see them in pictures. Sometimes a little decoration will make an ordinary dish seem to be "out of this world." Food that "ASTONISHES THE EYE" starts salivary juices running which aids in digestion.