IRONSIDE: Blair Underwood and Dominican Food...can I get a what what...

A new sexy approach to detective work from a wheelchair and we got to fry his chicken...


Whoa. Blair Underwood.

I first worked with Blair Underwood on the set of LA Law.. Is this a kush job or what?

In his IMDB profile it states, and I quote, "Blair Underwood is a smart, confidant, eloquent, exceptionally handsome African-American actor who was born in Tacoma Washington in 1964, the son of an Army man, and, with his family lived all over the world. Trained in musical theater at Carnegie-Mellon, he moved to New York and got his first break on his second day there by winning a part on "The Cosby Show," and later scored the charismatic role of attorney Jonathan Rollins in the hit dramatic series "LA Law"

BUT WAIT.. We were discussing movie food...

We arrived at the "O's Chicken Shack" location in downtown LA (posing as NYC) at 6 am with massive amounts of lime marinated Dominican fried chicken with a mango sauce, creamy cuminy delicious cole slaw, cheesy gooey mac and cheese, spicy fried okra, not to mention a sumptuous island banana pudding with toasted coconut.

The cuisine of the Dominican Republic reflects it's melting pot roots of Taino, European and African cultures with
later additions from Lebanon, Syria, and other communities of the Middle East and Asia. 

Arriving anywhere at 6 am is a challenge, but arriving with food, food warmers, coolers, knives, cutting boards, spray bottles, gloves, microwaves, a tool kit...well you get the picture...

6:30 AM. Interior of O's Chicken Shack with food in place warm and ready to go. 

Once inside and settled in we carved out a space for ourselves and got to work putting together a Dominican buffet behind the "shack" counter. In this industry everyone is constantly jockeying for position, but at the same time being extremely polite and respectful (well most of the time) of each others work. After all there are hairdressers, makeup artists, a wardrobe department, camera crew, sound engineers, grips, video village, electricians, cinematographers, directors, assistant directors, set decorators, property masters.. all who need a place to be, and sometimes in some very tiny locales. One needs to know who to ask the proper questions of, how to quickly get out of their way, and how to set up...fast.

Picking up his chicken

The scene opens on an actor walking up to the counter to get his chicken. No sooner had we turned around, and he was pushed up against a wall. Cut! 50 chicken legs later that man was fried chickened out.

And apparently Blair Underwood... Also loved the chicken. Now he too is tweeting about the most sought after food stylist in Hollywood

Just kidding.

Recipes for Lime marinated Fried Chicken, Creamy Cumin Cole Slaw and delicious Caribbean Banana Pudding

Sullivan and Son-Bacon Pizza!

The amazing cast of "Sullivan and Son"

Food Porn at its Best

Wikipedia:

Food porn is a glamorized visual presentation of food in every type of visual media. Usually it involves foods boasting a high fat and calorie content or exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or cook. Food porn often takes the form of food photography and styling that presents food provocatively, in a similar way to fashion photography or pornography. 

When you think about it, what is more delicious than a photograph of a cheeseburger dripping with ketchup, special sauce, cheese, lettuce, grilled onions, and tomatoes weighing just enough to squeeze out little spurts of mustardy mayo deliciousness?

Imagine a flourless chocolate cake that oozes molten chocolate onto the plate mixing with a mint creme anglaise and raspberry coulis with fresh sugared raspberries dancing around nearby. And who these days doesn’t love bacon? We now have bacon butter, bacon donuts, bacon cupcakes, bacon lollipops, and of course the old standby... bacon pizza.

What better example could there be than a recent assignment where I was asked to produce 30 pizzas so bacon-y and decadent that the bacon had to be baked INTO the crust, for the comedy TV hit, “Sullivan and Son”. In this particular episode comedian Ken Jeong (Hangover trilogy, The Office, Knocked Up) played a depressive urologist, and at the prompting of his friends discovers the miracle of pizza washed down with many sake bombs. He exclaims drunkenly, "beer and pizza! Does anyone know about this combination?” The funny thing is that Ken Jeong actually is a doctor and an amazing comedic actor who graduated with his MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.. But back to Bacon pizza...

In this episode, Brian Doyal Murray, a bar regular, is supposed to be scarfing down the bacon pizza, and we were called in to produce this tasty prop. My team and I sourced out the best Pizzeria for the job as the producers were very specific about having a perfectly round pizza dripping with bacon and cheese that looked exactly the same in every shot, which is never an easy task.  In food styling there is something called continuity. If the principal actor is eating a slice of pizza it has to be replicated exactly as it was in the first ten takes (then the next 10 takes often using a spit bucket), but back to delicious food and the need for 30 perfect pies.

After calling 25 pizza places, we found “Pizza Cookery”, in Woodlands Hills CA, They were personal friends of one of my amazing assistants, Skyler Thomson and the only ones that would bake cheese and bacon into the crust as well as on the surface. It still took three tries (driving out to Woodland Hills each time) to get them close to the effect that we wanted for the camera. After arriving at the set we had to strategically place tons of perfectly baked, sliced and shined up pieces of bacon onto the slice to make it look truly mouth watering.  Check our next blog for tricks on the road to shininess...

Bacon Pizza is the perfect food porn. With a calorie content of 2,340 and enough saturated fat to clog any artery, it is just tempting enough, with its great color and visual appeal (accented with Pam), to look irresistible. We knew we had succeeded because it was difficult to fend off the crew from eating the props throughout the shooting.  In fact everyone in the cast and crew got to eat tons of bacon pizza leading to a truly happy ending again, in the life of LA’s most sought after food stylist.

Artisan Pizza
Sophie Clark, (of "Sophie's Choice” and another of my great assistants) is a pizza maven extraordinaire. We wanted to include an updated delicious classic and much healthier version of bacon pizza that involves prosciutto, shaved brussel sprouts, home made mozzarella, and tiny little farm to table red and orange button tomatoes.

The Real Husbands of Hollywood

“Cut,” yells the director. 

“Oy” mutters the producer as he surveys the disappointing scene results. 

I had to agree with him. How hard could it be for a vampire on "Trueblood" to bite into my specially baked, beating-heart soufflé, get a mouthful of blood, and then roll around on a stunt mattress making love afterwards? This is the 6th take of this scene and there are still 2 new ones to get through. It’s going to be a long night. 

Well, actually it is extremely hard to make a successful movie or TV show. It demands everyone’s specialized skills, creativity and especially their ‘blood’, sweat, and tears. Yet this is probably the most fun and exciting industry anyone could choose to enter. Small wonder so many aspire to be part of it’s magic. 

Propmaster putting a bow on a pony on the Real Husbands of Hollywood

My part in all this? I am an on-screen food stylist, and for the last 30 years I have lived and worked in Los Angeles helping make thousands of feature films and series. I create fictional food for fantasy characters to eat in make believe settings. I’m the chef and technician who not only crafts the dishes to look tantalizing before the camera, but also makes them in such a way that the actors will find them appealing and consume them with gusto. 

Recently I created a beautiful and enticing feast for a backyard barbeque at Nick Cannon’s house for “The Real Husbands of Hollywood”. Later in the season we created a gourmet dinner for Kevin Hart and his on screen wife. We prepared grilled prawns with a cilantro bean salad and roasted tomato vinaigrette. For the same scene we made a seared salmon filet with a mustard shallot sauce, on garlic red potato mash, and seared baby vegetables. Here are a few pictures from our adventures on the set of "The Real Husbands of Hollywood," as well as the recipes for delicious food we prepared for the principal actors. Follow us and we will unlock the mysteries that lie behind the trials and tribulations of a Hollywood food stylist... 

During shooting the scene of "The Baby Shower of The Century" the actors
played pass the toilet paper roll!

Seared salmon with mustard shallot sauce,

baby vegetables, and garlic red potato mash
Garlic Dill Red Potato Mash
4 lbs. (cubed) red potatoes
8-10 garlic cloves cut in half
½ Cup cream
3 Tbs. Butter
1Tsp. chopped dill

Bil the potatoes with garlic until soft. Drain well in colander. Pour potato mixture in a bowl and add butter, cream, dill, salt and pepper. Mash by hand with a potato masher, leaving the mixture fairly chunky. 

Seared Salmon

1 lb. Pacific Salmon, cut into 2 pieces of the same size

2 Tbs. Olive Oil

¼ Cup white wine

1 Tbs. Dijon

½ Tsp. chopped shallots and garlic

½  Tsp. chopped tarragon

Salt and Pepper

Lavender micro greens

Heat a large non-stick pan over high heat with olive oil. Liberally season salmon with salt and pepper. Place fish, flesh side down in pan and reduce heat to low. After the fish is seared and a golden color, turn it over carefully, and add the wine, garlic, shallots, tarragon, and mustard and allow to cook about 7 minutes or until well browned and cooked about three quarters of the way through until just barely pink in the center.Put a nice oval size shape of warm red potato mash and circle it with the reduced mustard sauce. Place the seared salmon on the mash and decoratively surround it with seared baby vegetables. Take lavender micro greens and delicately place on top of the salmon and serve.

Hey Everyone,

This is Wendy's blog contributor, Sophie. Every week we will be choosing a great restaurant to feature on the Feature Food Blog. The first restaurant we've chosen is La Cevicheria here in Los Angeles. I'm a huge ceviche fan and this place is absolutely fantastic! It's simplicity at its best! The menu features all kinds of amazing fish dishes, but the main attraction is the ceviche. The Bloody Clam ceviche has gained a cult following and is credited to putting La Cevicheria on Jonathan Gold's Best Restaurant list. The clams are drenched with a dark juice that tastes, as Jonathan Gold perfectly describes, "like shellfish fortified with strong beef bouillon."
La Cevicheria is located on Pico Boulevard in Mid-City, sandwiched in-between auto-body repair shops. The building itself is nondescript, don't blink, you'll miss it! Once you get inside you're greeted by wonderful aromas and friendly faces. The owner is usually there during lunch time chatting up the customers, making everyone feel right at home. Just about anything you try at La Cevicheria is sure to impress!

Click on the "Sophie's Choice" icon to learn more about this restaurant, and check back with us next week for another tasty feature!