Whenever I tell people that I am a food stylist, I invariably have to explain that I don't make fake food for a living. With very few exceptions, the food I am styling is the real deal, and often times legally has to be the real deal. As the author of the following article explains, food stylists employ some techniques to ensure that the food will look good for an extended period of time. And thanks to digital photography, that period of time is now less than half of what it was back in the days of Polaroids and film.

Check out what one food stylist has to say about an often misunderstood profession, explained in simple terms that even the most adamant stylist-hater can appreciate: Are There Ethics in Food Styling?

I want to say thanks to everyone that emailed with comments and compliments of my recent work for The New York Times Magazine. It was prepped and shot over three days at Tom Schierlitz's studio in Tribeca. We went through a lot of junk food to get the job done, the best tasting of which was definitely the fried chicken.

World Water Day is this Sunday, March 22nd. There are numerous events happening worldwide to draw attention to issues relating to clean drinking water. A listing of cities holding World Water Day events can be found here: http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/152.

New York City is hosting just such an event -- a three mile walk starting near The United Nations kicks off at 12:15. More information is also available on the World Water Day site here: http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/560.

More information about World Water Day can be found on the official World Water Day site: http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/

At some point in all of the radio interviews regarding Cool Waters I have done so far, a key question was asked by the hosts, "Are your water recipes low in calories?". It's true that I hadn't done an analysis of the actual calorie content of my drinks, I suspected they would be far lighter than any soda, juice, or sugary enhanced water on the market.

My suspicions were correct. Yesterday I diligently calculated every water recipe in the book and many of the results were quite stunning. Here are some details:

Cool Waters Recipes

Clean Spearmint Water - 0
Blueberry Twist - 8
Rain From Spain - 15
Sweet Tart - 19
Mango-Ginger “Beer” - 24

VS some of the most popular water-based beverages:

VitaminWater® Revive Fruit Punch™ - 50
Gatorade® - 50
Coca-Cola® - 97
Pepsi® - 100
Mountain Dew® - 110

For the comparison, I used an eight ounce portion of each beverage. A PDF of the calorie counts of all 40 recipes can be found here: cool_waters_calories.pdf. (You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDF.)