AT A GLANCE
- Known for
- Smitten Kitchen, the food blog she started in 2006, and three best-selling cookbooks she wrote and photographed herself
- Works in
- Color, in her small kitchen in New York’s East Village
- Camera
- Canon: a Digital Rebel 300D until 2008, then a Canon 40D (her last published gear list, from 2009)
- Also
- Former art therapist and technology reporter
- Start with
- The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)
- Links
Deb Perelman (born 1976) is the cook, writer and photographer behind Smitten Kitchen, the food blog she started in New York in 2006. She takes all the photos for the site herself. She has also written and photographed three cookbooks, and all three became New York Times best-sellers.
The story
The pasta on the cover of her third cookbook is bright green. It is thin spaghetti tossed with roasted garlic butter blended with spinach. Deb Perelman photographed it on the counter of her own kitchen in New York. During the shoot, her daughter liked the dish so much that she climbed into the picture and ate it right off the counter. It took two tries to get the cover right.
Food was not her first plan. Growing up in New Jersey, she loved drawing and painting. At George Washington University she studied psychology and fine arts, and then art therapy. After about five years as an art therapist, she became a reporter at a technology magazine. In 2003 she started a personal blog called Smitten. Her fourth commenter, Alex, later became her husband.
In 2006 she began a new blog, about cooking. She called it Smitten Kitchen. There was no cooking school behind it and no photo training. “I assumed it was only going to last until Christmas, because what do I know about cooking?” she later said. Her kitchen then was about 80 square feet, with a skylight. She shot on a Canon Digital Rebel, and in the evening she used long exposures on a tripod. She was happy with the results only about half the time.
But she kept going. In 2007 she wrote that she did not think of herself as a real photographer. “I never learned accepted techniques and I barely know what half the buttons on the camera do,” she admitted. What really helps, she wrote, is practice: photograph everything, look hard at the result, and take it again. Styling stayed simple. A smear on the plate or a lightly rusted spatula looked honest to her.
Readers kept coming. In 2012 Knopf published The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, with at least one of her photos for every recipe. Smitten Kitchen Every Day followed in 2017 and Smitten Kitchen Keepers in 2022. Today she still cooks and shoots in a crowded East Village kitchen, not much bigger than the one where it all began.
So a child climbing into the frame is not a disaster. It is real life, and real life is what her pictures are meant to show. “I’m not interested in food styling: I like taking pictures that show the details of the food as it actually looks,” she says.
The work
- 1976Born on June 11; grows up in New Jersey
- 1998Graduates from George Washington University in psychology and fine arts
- 2000Earns a master’s degree in art therapy and works as an art therapist
- 2003Starts a personal blog, Smitten, where she meets her future husband, Alex
- 2006Starts the food blog Smitten Kitchen
- 2012Publishes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook with Knopf
- 2017Publishes Smitten Kitchen Every Day
- 2022Publishes Smitten Kitchen Keepers, with her own photos
- 2024Releases an audio edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, read by herself
Lessons
Practice beats gear. She says the only thing that makes your photos consistently better is practice. Photograph everything, look, and try again.
Show food as it really is. No heavy props. A plain white plate, a little garnish or a fork can be enough.
Get it right in the camera. She keeps editing to cropping, white balance and brightness. When she edits a lot, she knows the picture was not good to begin with.
Try this: photograph your dinner every night for a week on a plain white plate. Leave the crumbs and the smears. On the computer, allow yourself only a crop and a white balance fix.
Gear
Perelman says the camera does not matter much. Her own gear list on Smitten Kitchen was last updated in 2009, and she says it is out of date. This is what it lists.
Canon EOS Digital Rebel 300D: her first digital SLR, used for everything on the blog until May 2008.
Canon EOS 40D: the camera she moved up to in May 2008.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II: her “grab and go” lens. She advises buying a camera body only and using this lens instead of the kit lens.
Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro: her favorite lens, because she loves detailed close-ups.
Canon Speedlite 430EX: a flash for evening cooking, when there is no daylight. Before it she used a tripod, a remote switch and long exposures.
Books
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). Her first book, released on October 30, 2012. She began it in the summer of 2009, while pregnant with her son, and it took almost three years. It has more than 105 recipes, and only about 15 of them come from the blog. Chapters cover breakfasts, salads, sandwiches, tarts and pizzas, main courses with and without meat, and a long section of sweets, plus a few drinks and party snacks. Every recipe has at least one of her color photographs, and measurements are given in cups and in grams. It lies flat on the counter, something she asked for. It spent 13 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. A good start for home cooks, and for anyone who wants to see how she photographs everyday food.
Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017). Her second book, published on October 24, 2017, after five years of work. Most of the main dishes are vegetarian, and there is a soup section for the first time. A “Party Cake Builder” offers seven simple one-bowl cakes and four frostings to mix and match. The recipes, the photographs and the stories are all hers. It spent six weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. For busy cooks who want food that is easy but still feels special.
Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classics for Your Forever Files (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022). Her third book, published on November 15, 2022. She signed the contract in March 2020 and wrote it during the pandemic. It has 100 recipes meant to be made again and again, from a pound cake and a deep-dish quiche to clam chowder and a chocolate chip cookie with salted walnut brittle. The cover dish is Green Angel Hair with Garlic Butter. She wrote and photographed the book herself. It spent five weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and in 2024 she recorded a special audio edition. For cooks who want a small set of reliable favorites.
In her words
“I’ve really gotten into photography since starting my blog.”
“I try to have good, natural lighting, and that’s about it.”
“I had no real experience. All I had were opinions.”
