The ideal: the poised proprietor and chef in her elegant dining room, holding an artfully styled plate of food, Gourmet Magazine style. The fine-dining side of Hyde Park.
The real: Dinner rush in the downstairs kitchen. "There to there, don’t cross! You can watch, don’t get in my way!" Orders piling up. Spanish to the kitchen crew. More orders to us. "Don’t stand in front of the door! You’ll get run over!" The main light source is a row of partially burned out fluorescent tubes.
Regroup time. Shot one is never going to happen. I acclimatize to the frenzied but precise energy, antipodal to the serenity upstairs. Mary is moving fast, with total attention to the momentary requirement. Pour oil in pan, dust five duck breasts with spice, pull out five chicken thighs, set two salmon fillets in smoking oil, pork loin in another hot pan, chicken thighs nestled in another, duck in a fourth, start filling enormous stock pot, taste reduced veal sauce with handle end of spoon, turn chicken, tongs into dirty dish shelf under my tripod legs, add salt to sauce, rotate pork loin, turn salmon. Halibut on pastry parchment, a splash of water on the tray. A small spill. She gets a mop, wipes floor, sets against wall. Salmon under broiler, pull chicken, pour off grease, set in oven. The choreography is a marvel to behold.
I sense that she senses that I’m attuned to the flow now. "Can I move to that corner?" I ask. She nods yes. I set up at the end of the range, I now need to be alert to the splattering pans and to the traffic flow that I’m now blocking. I am totally on, and I see a shot coming together. The saucepan anchors the bottom of the frame. The lights under the hood are a welcome source of focused illumination. Mary moves back and forth from the range to the prep table in a predictable pattern that I can now track, and I pan her movements at a slow shutter speed (as if there is an alternative). Her sautéing of the green beans and almond slivers in clarified butter offer great action close in. She pulls a finished plate to show me. I grab a few frames, but that shot is in the distant past now. This one’s so much better.
Upstairs, over the duck breast, she visits our table. She is the serene, poised proprietress now. I show her the photos I took thirty minutes ago, as well as the shots of the salad course (the card with the dinner is still in the camera). "I’ve been looking for these forever. What do you charge? Can I hire you?"
I tell Matt how amazing it was to watch her in her element downstairs, the intensity and focus on the all-consuming moment. "It’s like watching you," he replies.
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