Serious XM Podcasts.

Hey everyone, it's Dan here with another sportful reheat for you, and this one I bring to you with a heavy heart.

It's my conversation with Elle Simone Scott, the chef food stylist, and first black cast member on

America's Test Kitchen. And we're sharing this one with you now because Elle died on January 5th at age

49 of ovarian cancer. She'd been diagnosed back in 2016, and we talked about this in our episode

with her, her relationship with the disease, how she approached eating during chemo. And I actually ran into her at an event in the Boston area a couple years after she was on

the show and it was great to catch up with her. She was someone who was just known for her

warmth, her generosity, her enthusiasm, and her deep knowledge. And if you follow food media

folks on social media, you've been seeing the tributes pour in in the last few weeks.

But as I hear in this conversation, Elle really believed in living life, no matter of the situation, not dwelling on the things that you can't change. She's actually a former social worker. So she brought a curious, compassionate perspective to her work with food. We're all going to miss her. Remember, if there's an episode of the Sporkful,

you want to hear one of these reheats, drop me a line at hello at sporkful.com. Thanks, and here's

my conversation with Elle Simone Scott. I heard you say that the job of the food stylist is to sell the

story of the food. And whatever we have to do to sell that story,

you do it. So what's the weirdest thing you've ever done to make a food look good on camera?

For a breakfast shoot, I literally had to scour through maybe three economy sized boxes of cornflakes

for the perfect corn flakes for just one bowl of cereal.

You mean like you were literally going through every single flake?

Every single flake.

Every flake had to be right.

Yes.

And there's a certain diameter.

There's like, you know, it can't be folded.

...