john lucas
It's hard to tell about the depth of field. It looks close. The bottom photo looks the best on my computer although the background is gray. The safest thing on the exposure is simply to bracket. Shoot what you think is correct and then shoot one over exposed and one under exposed. Then when you get to the computer you can pick the best. It takes little time to do this and saves you lots of headaches.
Tilting the bowl actually helps with Depth of Field. Whatever is in focus is parallel to the film plane and as you increase your F stop it increases in front of and behind this point. Bowls are typically perpendicular to the film plane which means they require much more depth of field to get them in focus. A platter that is propped up so it's almost parallel to the camera back will need very little depth of field. consequently tilting a bowl up brings it closer to parallel to the back so you have fewer focus problems.