The Artistry of Creative Cooking

The artistry of creative cooking is a world of scrumptious, soul-satisfying delight. As children, most of us are told not to play with our food, but kids are natural artists and the medium is no barrier. Perhaps they’re onto something because cooking is definitely an art.

A swirl of sauce here, and a sprinkle of spice there, and maybe a hint of tang under the sweet. Then… there’s the plating! “Plating” is like painting and creating visual art with food. 😉 The plate or platter is the cook’s canvas for artfully presenting their masterpiece.

‘Plating’ is the chef’s finishing touches, the final strokes of culinary artistry.

With cooking, flavors create unlimited palettes in the canvas of each pot and pan.
~Devani Alderson, iCreateDaily.com®

AUDIO ARTICLE: Creative Cooking

Note: This article has been updated since the last recording, so text will vary from audio!

At 26 I’ve been Cooking for 23 Years

I’ve always loved cooking. Beginning with helping my mom in the kitchen when I was just three, up to now, you could say I’ve been cooking all my life. Though I never viewed it as a form of art until recently!

Sure there are days when cooking is just about seeing how quickly I can throw something together, but most of the time I tend to get into the artistry of cooking. I especially enjoy creating things without recipes. Of course, this results in just about as many “okay” dishes as it does fantastic results, but even the failures inform future successes.

One of my favorite Saturday things to do is cook while listening to interesting podcasts. We’ve shared some of our favorites in this article on best podcasts.

Failures inform future successes.
~Devani Alderson, iCreateDaily.com®

Devani Alderson at age 3 and age 23

What is Art?

One of the things I love about building the iCreateDaily brand is how it has helped me to broaden the horizons of my perspective on what art is.

Cooking is a world full of creativity, culture, and class! It’s like interactive 3D art that you can see, touch, smell, and eat! Serving a canvas of edible art handcrafted with care for family, friends, loved ones, or customers.

Food, like every other form of art, has brought humanity together since the dawn of human time.

As we’ll explore more in this article, the internet has opened up new portals of experience—and opportunities—in creative cooking! From videos on social media, food bloggers, and Instagram accounts featuring stunning edible art, the Pandora’s pot has been stirred and dished.

“You can’t just eat good food. You’ve got to talk about it too. And you’ve got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.” 
~Kurt Vonnegut, writer, author, playwright, 1922-2007

Creative Cooking and Food Bloggers

I’ve entertained the idea of creating a food blog, but it’s only been a passing interest. However, while researching this article and visiting beautiful sites with incredible creativity, I’ve had second—and third—helpings of thoughts about that!

We did buy a recipe website, but haven’t yet had time to get fancy with it. You know… because creators got to be ideating and creating current and future projects!

I quickly fell down the rabbit-hole scrolling through drool-worthy food photos.  The @Rustic.Vegan shown next, is currently my favorite Instagram food account.  This guy has mastered food artistry, photography and presentation.  Every photo makes me want to go vegan and be a food blogger too!

To inspire others to create is the privilege of all creators.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

If you search #FoodArt on Instagram you’ll get over 6.8 million results of people posting stunning videos and photos of their artistic food creations.  The hashtag #InstaFood pulls up 150 million posts and counting!!!

The Kitchen Whisperer

One of our favorite recipes ever is this incredible mushroom bean burger recipe from Lori of The Kitchen Whisperer.

The first thing that drew us in were the photos that you could almost taste! While I haven’t yet made many of the other recipes featured on this blog, there are so many that look amazing, so I’m sure I will! Lori has even created helpful meal plans for the day or week.

Blessed Beyond Crazy

Blessed Beyond Crazy website is owned by an awesome mother daughter team. They have some great recipes as well as other crafts, home and family features. This incredible looking no-bake raspberry parfait caught our eye!

This duo of cooks not only publish recipes, but they also share DIY Home projects, crafts, parenting, and homeschooling articles. If you want to see a great example of sharing multiple interests on one blog, check their site out, BlessedBeyondCrazy.com!

One of the best ways to grow your own website and following is by contributing content to other established websites.
~iCreateDaily.com ®

Food Photography is a Thing

Food blogging is so much more than just making food and writing about it. As you’ll notice in the blogs we’re sharing here, it’s clear that these cooks put so much artistry into their meals, photo prep, and staging, before sharing it with the world.

We interviewed Caro Rose, a nutritionist and vegan food artist about her journey and dreams in food art. While food photography is mostly still a hobby for Caro, there’s so much creative inspiration in her story and daily productivity!

In fact, the artistry of creative cooking is one of the reasons food blogging is such a captivating industry, because of the art it brings to the table! Outside of just the cooking, there’s the visual feast of plating a dish, and then describing and conveying your creation to the world.

In fact, food art is so popular that many cooks have expanded into teaching food photography courses as a part of their brand offering.

For food bloggers, their cooking is their art.
~iCreateDaily.com®

Growing Need for Recipe Creators

If you love cooking, you may be interested to know there is also a growing demand for recipe contributors on various food blogs. If you can cook, photograph, write, and upload your recipe creations, there are opportunities to earn money, from cooking your own meals and desserts!

In fact, we had the opportunity to purchase a food blog that we are slowly updating and adding to. Eventually, we’ll create another one from scratch, branded to the iCreateDaily theme, as iCookDaily and iChefDaily. Meanwhile…

Opportunities for Writers

We pay experienced writer-contributors. We love to publish content from newbies too in exchange for a ranking boost to their site through the backlinks created when they contribute their content, (which helps with traffic to your website), and for building your portfolio of online articles. 

Sometimes it is in exchange for training, which I love to do but which takes more time than is typically available right now.

If you’d like to contribute articles and/or recipes with photos to any of our sites send us an email with links to your published work or a document of your work. Or if you’re interested but not published, send an inquiry note that includes the kinds of things you like to write about based on your experience, such as if you’re a cook or gardener, into fitness or dogs, art, etc.

One of our goals is to become a resource for article writers to earn well for their writing. There are things to learn about that industry, however, it’s totally accessible to learn about for free.

If you’re a writer, there are many options for you.

You can contribute articles and/or recipes with photos to any of our sites send us an email with links to your published work or a portfolio document of your work.

If you’re interested in checking out some of the array of food photography courses, you can start here.

“When I remember adventure and challenge and artistry, my creativity returns and improves upon whatever moment it visits.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

4 Best Cooking Movies

Julie & Julia

One of my favorite cooking movies is Julie & Julia, (currently FREE on NetFlix, and oh so good!), based on the true story of food blogger, Julie Powell. 

Julie quits her boring, unfulfilling desk-job and embarks on a year-long journey of learning to cook. Her mission was to follow Julia Child’s cookbook, by making a new recipe, page-by-page, every day for a year, and to blog about that journey.

The movie also tracks Julia Child’s life and adventures in cooking, in side-by-side comparisons of two women discovering their passion for food, in two vastly different eras. I highly recommend watching this while eating dinner because it will make you want to eat… and cook… and food blog! 

Julie Powell is inspired by Julia Child’s passion for French Cuisine, and that inspiration ended up changing her life trajectory.

Consider how you’ll never know just how many lives your work—your art—may touch. But it will touch them. This is why you must create and share your creations with the world.
~LeAura Alderson, Cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

Chef

Another great food movie is Chef.  It’s about a guy who starts a food-truck business with his son, and they embark on a summer road trip. Father and son bond through hilarious, difficult and heartwarming escapades as they travel and work together.

The with-it, Millennial son, documents their journey on social media and drums up a following while teaching his dad about it. Dad teaches the son how to make popular street foods that people love. 

Chef is an inspiring story of discovery, family, taking risks, pursuing your passions.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

A humorous, fun, and delicious tale of food, family, and … eventual friends! The Hundred-Food Journey is artistry in film, cooking and story as if follows an Indian family opening a restaurant in France across from a famous French restaurant.

The elderly owner of the other restaurant, played by the remarkable Helen Mirin, doesn’t like the new competition in town and makes her irritation well known. One of the eldest boys in the Indian family wants to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional chef. He sees an opportunity in working for the French restaurant.

This is a wonderful story of two different cultures clashing and needing to resolve their differences. And of course food is a wonderful unifier as the passion for a creative cooking works its magic on human relations.

No Reservations

The kitchen can be a dramatic territorial place, and No Reservations is no exception!

In this funny, sweet, and tart movie the top chef, Kate, gets her world flipped when her sister dies. Kate, who is dedicated to her career, has to juggle being the guardian to her niece… while protecting her job as a new sue-chef is hired at her restaurant!

You can check out a few more cooking movies here.

Get Gratitude.

The Day is the Way.

iCreateDaily™ on Amazon

iCreateDaily Journals & More