A celebrity photographer discovers what
chefs would eat on their way out.
By Joseph Guinto
It's easy to imagine that when chefs get together,
they ask each other things like, "So where
do you source your Patagonian toothfish?" Melanie Dunea knows
better. A Manhattan-based freelance photographer who has shot for
everyone from Vanity Fair to Gourmet to Inc., she spent months
finding out what chefs really talk to each other about.
As it turns out, there's a parlor game - a
conversation-enabling query - that goes something along the lines
of, "What would you have for your last meal?"
For her just-released photo book,
My
Last Supper (Bloomsbury, $40), Dunea went one question
further. She got 50 of the world's best-known chefs - Ferrán Adrià,
Alain Ducasse,
Thomas Keller,
Gordon Ramsay, and Nancy Silverton
among them - to elaborate on not only what they would eat but also
on who would prepare the meal, where it would be consumed, and who
would be present. For fans of these chefs' work, the answers are
enlightening. Iron Chef Mario Batali, whose Babbo Ristorante has
single-handedly changed the face of Italian cooking in the United
States, would dine before his demise at a "small beachside
trattoria on the Amalfi coast." Things would kick off with raw
radishes with extra-virgin
olive oil and salt, and would finish
with sponge cake in rum syrup, with lots of shellfish in between.
Oh, and R.E.M. would be there, playing a set with U2. Sounds nice.
Too bad he'd get to have it only once.
The book also includes recipes from each of the chefs, as well as
impressive, whimsical portraits of the world's kitchen masters.
PBS's Lidia Bastianich wore a hat made of garlic and dried pasta.
Giorgio Locatelli, an Italian who runs
Locanda Locatelli in London,
posed with a 600-pound mackerel behind him. "It was quite smelly,"
Dunea says diplomatically.
Since we knew where to find her (in the interest of full
disclosure, Dunea's work has also appeared in
American Way), we asked Dunea to tell us more about the
making of
My Last Supper.
On the difference between photographing chefs and
photographing other celebrities (Dunea has shot Harrison Ford,
Michael Stipe, Johnny Depp, Jon Bon Jovi, and Kirsten Dunst, among
others): "Chefs are a touch less guarded and are willing to
do unusual things. Since their job is more behind-the-scenes than
most celebrities, they don't have to be too protective of their
image."
On what she, uh, gained from being around top
chefs: "I gained 10 pounds as I went along. Now whenever
someone comes over for dinner, I'll make something from the book.
We've had Gordon Ramsay's 'Last Supper,' and we had Alain Ducasse's
apple slices for dessert the other night."
On her own "Last Supper": "I would like
many different bites to be laid out on a big table. Surrounding the
table would be all my favorite people. I could swan around and
mingle and taste. There would be some Vacheron cheese and a good
English cheddar, many pieces of Thornton's Chocolate Smothered
Toffee, Balthazar bread with English butter, a few pieces of sushi,
a sparerib or two, some foie gras, some caviar on blini. The list
is interminable. It would all be washed down with a beautiful red
wine and port."
Cooking Couple
Nigella Lawson and Rachael Ray: Separated at
birth?
It must be globalization. British TV chef
Nigella Lawson, with her lavishly filmed cooking shows, has already
made her mark on American TV cookery. Half the shows on today's
Food Network are indebted to her
Nigella
Bites, what with their glossy sheen, loving ingredient
close-ups, and closing shots of the chef chowing down with giggling
guests. But now Lawson's influence is spreading in another
direction. The publishers of her new book,
Nigella
Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast(Hyperion, $35), say
that it "is her solution to eating well when time is short," that
the meals within are "quick to prepare and easy to follow," and
that you "can conjure them up after a day in the office or on a
busy weekend." That sounds an awful lot like the approach that made
U.S. TV chef Rachael Ray famous.
Which has us thinking that although these two couldn't seem more
different - Ray is an everywoman from upstate New York who grew up
in the restaurant business, while Lawson is a former literary
editor connected to British aristocracy - maybe they're more
similar than we first imagined.
To wit:
| Personal Look |
Long, flowing currently black hair.
Simple tops and lots of jeans. Proudly displays her
curves.
|
Long, flowing always black hair. Simple
tops (sometimes in denim) and lots of black skirts.
Proudly displays her curves.
|
The Kitchen You Can't
Have
|
Bright green and orange, retro-chic, tiled
decor. Excellent working antique stove that you'd be
lucky to find in any condition, much less functional,
on eBay. |
Softly lit, modern, and gigantic. Has the
world's largest pantry - walk in and sit down.
|
Annoying
Quirk
|
Is she a chef or a traffic cop? Enough
with the overexaggerated hand talking already.
|
Yes, she's British. But, Nigella, we call
it cilantro, not coriander.
|
Inefficient
Knife
|
The Santoku, a Japanese knife used for
thin slicing, is her tool of choice. Ray uses it for
everything, including chopping herbs, a horrible task
for this knife's flat blade.
|
Her mezzaluna's curved blade is great for
chopping herbs, but who has a mezzaluna? Everyone, on
the other hand, has scissors, which Lawson uses to snip
just about everything. The trouble is, scissors have
the unfortunate tendency to rust when you wash
them. |
Telling
Recipe
|
Makes pasta carbonara with rigatoni
instead of with the traditional spaghetti. Otherwise,
there's a standard allotment of pancetta, wine, eggs,
cheese, and parsley. She makes you feel better by
excluding cream.
|
Makes spaghetti carbonara with lots of pancetta (about twice the amount called for in Ray’s recipe), wine, eggs (also doubled), and cheese. She makes you feel better by including a good dollop of cream. |