Why my food photography sucks

I have no natural light in my kitchen. We live in a townhouse and the kitchen is in the middle of the house. Add to that it has florescent lighting and it really sucks. And right it's with a 3 year old point and shoot. I have a Nikon dSLR. I got it for Christmas from Mike. Apparently it was missing the do-hickeys on the strap that keep the strap in place. It slipped off my neck camping. Like crashed to the ground, slipped off the strap. I cried in the middle of our hike. It seemed to be working ok, then I took off the lens. And there loose, was a cylinder inside the lens rattling around. So, now I get to drive out to Nikon Canada and hope against hope they'll cover it under warranty since my strap came defective out of the box, and it's my kit lens. So please, if you read this, do a warranty dance for me.