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What I learned from a failed recipe MAY 21, 2012 / ADINA BAILEY / 
The creative users of TakeThemAMeal have many great ideas that are helpful when taking meals to a friend in need. Recently, I was also hoping to share a delicious and simple meal with a friend. I thought to myself... "Im going to test this noodle bake recipe from a trusted site that seems like the perfect dish to take to a friend. Ill get a lovely photo of the finished dish before my family dives in and then Ill post the recipe along with my familys praises." But... heres what really happened. I made the recipe one evening and took a photo of the casserole unassembled, assembled, and then baked. I cut the first piece and put it on a plate to get one of those lovely photos that I always see online. Finally, I called my hungry family for dinner. Unfortunately, after all my planning and preparation, the dish turned out to be very bland and I decided I wouldnt want to make it for a friend. I wanted it to be good, so I could share it with the caring people who use our site, giving them another easily transportable meal for their repertoires. Instead, the recipe was a flop and it looked much better than it tasted. As I was looking back over the photos of the failed recipe, I noticed that the dish looked delicious in my cropped final photo even though it wasnt.
Then, what really caught my attention was my unedited photo prior to assembling the dish. This uncropped photo communicates several realities:
Thats a typical state of my counter as Im preparing meals for my own family and meals for friends. As I was looking at the unedited photo, I was struck by the contrast between many of the images I see on my favorite web sites and the reality of my own surroundings. Im drawn to images of beautiful spaces and meals - gathering ideas about something I can create in my very spare, spare time, is relaxing to me. On the other hand, when I look at my own surroundings, they are not always tidy, serene, or appetizing. I appreciate the attractive boxed images I see online, but thats not the typical appearance of my home, kids, or dinner table. The finished photo of my failed recipe taught me that images are just that - images - and my full, messy-a-lot-of-the-time-counter is still a pretty picture. Read other recent articles by Adina Bailey:
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