Is art what you eat?

I had the opportunity recently to meet with Food Networks Food Stylist Challenge winner Angela Yeung, a beautiful and successful food stylist living and working in the Dallas area.

Whats a food stylist you ask? Until I watched the Food Networks Food Stylist Challenge I kind of knew they existed but didn't know to what extent they functioned.

Your reading a magazine featuring a recipe of the month with an appetizing picture of creamy fettuccine alfredo, watching a commercial with a steamy bowl of soup, looking at a calendar with a beautiful Thanksgiving spread or passing a billboard with a sweet treat. Food is everywhere we look and everywhere we look it's appetizing and appealing, comforting and begging for us to buy, buy, buy. Who makes this food want to jump into our shopping carts or stop at a local restaurant and devour the delectable goods....food stylists. Using clever tricks they've learned like fake ice in soda and clear rocks in soup to keep garnish afloat, they make food look picture perfect.

Being a future culinarian, I've set out to do some personal job investigation to find out what's out there as far as food jobs. This is one that truly requires thinking on your feet, artistic and culinary skill along with a flare for knowing what a client wants even if they don't know what they want or, doing what a client asks and finding ways to complete the task at hand. Being on a set with models, photographers, designers, and a host of staff with thousands of dollars on the line can add pressure knowing that your product has to work and if it doesn't, it could affect your reputation and future work.

While their numbers are relatively small, its a very competitive field and hard to break into the business of making food look scrumptious. It's all about contacts, networking, knowing someone in the business and a lot of hard work. Some advice Angela gave me for building a repertoire of food styling techniques are various books, trade shows and if there not stingy about teaching their tricks of the trade, interning for a food stylist.

Creativity and culinary skill add to your success in this field so if your interested in making hamburgers look like picture perfect or pancakes that stand up and smile for the camera this is the job for you, but word from the wise and successful, it's not for everyone and it's very competitive and hard to break into. So if your patient and have the right contacts yours could be the next billboard we pass that make us crave an ice cold frothy libation.