Gyoza

Gyoza with Black Rice Vinegar and Garlic-Chili Dip

I had been making gyoza all afternoon and was really happy to be able to update my missing-in-action blog with something about these babies that I made from scratch. But, the photos turned out really crappy and sucky. Bah! It's really frustrating to have taken out nice little plates and saucers, arrange and garnish the little pot-stickers (I made mine the size of a har kao) as prettily as possible, painstakingly make sure the dipping sauce wasn't all over the edges of the the saucer, take tons of photos... and realise the photos were all out of focus! Argh!


Ok, but Mama always said to learn from one's mistakes so that it wouldn't happen again. So, I sat down and analysed the situation.

1. I think the shutter speed was set too low. I usually used a shutter speed of 1/20 but today I set it to 1/13 (not just for the fun of it, it wasn't as bright as usual because I took my photos at 4pm today instead of the usual 9 - 11am). I'm not really sure if that little change was so absolutely significant, but well, it's good to K.I.V.. I just realised I used to use a shutter speed of 1/80 (not 1/20!). That totally explains why! For a moment there, I thought I was getting Parkinson's.
   
2. I didn't use a tripod. Oh, don't look at me that way.
3. I didn't check the thumbnails before proceeding on to the next photo. (But the thumbnails are so puny!)
4. People (read Mama) were walking in and out and giving all sorts of comments ranging from the type of garnish I should have used (I used spring onions and she said I should have used coriander) to how I should have arranged my gyoza to which pair of chopsticks was better. So I was distracted.
5. I was struggling between using the chopsticks with my right hand to pick up gyoza and dip it into the sauce in a aesthetically pleasing way and putting my eye at the view finder and taking the photo with my left hand with a freaking heavy digital SLR. Am I just telling you how stupid I am?
   

Despite all that whining, not all is lost and I still have a couple of decent looking photographs to show. And I just want to say the piece of fabric I used as a tablecloth is just too adorable to not mention.