We have this friend named Derek.
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| That's Derek. |
Derek went to high school with Preston. He moved back to Nacogdoches and we've been hanging out with him and his girlfriend Holli. We invited them over to dinner a few times, went to a few concerts, but it was when Derek invited us over for dinner that we realized that he really, really likes to cook.
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| That's Derek cooking in my kitchen. |
He wowed us with this crazy homemade cheese sauce over chicken breasts and a lemon custard made from scratch that was topped with some kind of fruit infused something, I don't remember, but it blew the socks off the prepackaged burgers and reheated sausage links that we served them at our house.
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| That's Holli, Derek's girlfriend. |
Oh yea, Derek was also Mr. NHS (Nacogdoches High School) in 1996. We don't let him forget it.
Last weekend, Pres and I had a party on Friday night (woo hoo!) and were left with copious amounts of grilled pork and veggies. We invited Derek and Holli over for leftovers on Saturday night. We thought we would just reheat said leftovers, but Derek had other plans.
He made our leftovers into little fancy dishes. I think Cooper the Dog was the most excited about this. He followed Derek around the kitchen like this.
And made pretty faces like this.
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| He's workin' it! |
And sat pretty like this.
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| This is my favorite! |
So from now on, when Derek cooks, I'm going to take pictures and write about it here in this segment titled "Cooking with Mr. NHS 1996." But don't expect recipes. Derek claims that he doesn't remember recipes (see Holli's photo above) but I think he just doesn't want to share.
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| Derek's "plated" dish - grilled pork with BBQ sauce, grilled veggies and cornbread. |
8 comments:
That's my kind of friend! Looks delicious. I think I would have followed in the footsteps of Cooper (he had the right idea!).
Great photos too. Did you use a flash for these? You had some really good lighting in the photos. (Sorry photo nerd here).
That's okay, I think we are the same kind of nerd - I did use a flash. I'm still learning, but I think the best lighting was when I bounced the flash, and one time I used the little pull out white thingie. My kitchen usually makes everything look orange because of the lighting and the red walls, but I think the flash helped, and I used auto levels in Photoshop. Thanks for the photog motivation!
Are you sure you want to encourage me? ;)
So do you have a separate flash bulb or are you using the one that came with the camera? I love autolevels in Photoshop. I don't know if you do this, but I set them up in "adjustment layers" that way I can go in and fiddle with the opacity of the autolevel which makes the change a little less harsh sometimes.
I have a separate flash - I don't know much about editing photos in photoshop past autoanything. I can totally make you an internet ad though! (If I go back and read my notes first). I'll have to look at "adjustment layers."
Next time I'm on my laptop, I'll give you step-by-step. (Don't have photoshop at work!) Boo!
Looks like fun. Go Derek!
Mom
I have Photoshop 7, so the steps might be a bit different. Have your photo open, click on Layer. Select "New Adjustment Layer" from drop down, and then click Levels. Press OK for new layer. When the level screen comes up, select auto. Hit Ok. Now on your layers tab you will see "Levels 1" and at the top right of the layers window their is Opacity 100% and below Fill 100%. You want to click the arrow next to fill, and just move it back and forth from 0 to 100% until you get the desired colors/lighting.
Works like a charm!
Let me know if that made no sense.
I am looking forward to this new segment of your blog! Looks like fun!
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