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Tuesday, July 3, 2007
A bit more Paris Breakfasts ancient history, since you loved the Bocuse story...I got involved with The James Beard House because I fell in love with fancy plating while at a French spa, Les Pres D'Eugenie les Bains...I took a tour visiting New York's top restaurant kitchens when I returned.The leader suggested I volunteer at the Beard House so I could learn to plate on the spot.
This chef is 'plating' = creating beautiful plates for the diners and he's making sure every plate is perfect and delectable.That's how I joined the Beard parsley chopping brigade...
The chefs perform in the kitchen like theater. They dance around like Baryshnikov, working in unison and I loved sketching them. But plating is HARD WORK, and first chance I got, I switched to shooting the chefs. 
Watching the chefs move around is like being at a life drawing class... I was dying to draw them! As soon as I got home I'd start sketching and next day I'd shoot off my sketches via fax into the chef's kitchens.
I became the Toulouse Lautrec of the kitchen. I met every chef in chefdom and I got to draw them too!
But painting those chefs caused me such weltschmerz /world-pain. Finally a week before the portrait show opened I figured it out. Painted multi-drawings on a toned ground a bit like old master drawings.
I loved painting chefs from the back especially...so much character revealed from the back.
I almost forgot! Part of the hard work of photographing the chefs dancing in the kitchen, was shooting these gorgeous plates. AND eating them. The top dish is a roasted peach filled with berries and ice cream. The bottom dish looks like fish + chips, but is really Rattlesnake + chips. All part of the job of shooting the chefs. More on my brilliant careers to come... 0 Comments:
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