There is a show on the food channel that just aired a program (I think it was on an episode of "Unwrapped") that showed how food for TV commericals is staged. I found it very interesting. They cooked the pasta to not even al dente and used tweezers to each strand look pretty on the plate. They also did the perfect scoop of ice cream but I forget the steps they went to to achieve perfection. They did say that the finished product had to actually be the food that they were selling. No plastic fake food :)