Everything Matters..those two words now saturate my thoughts. They were introduced to my psyche last October and then embedded again a few months ago. I also cannot look at a carrot the same. There is an excellent tale to the trail to excellence about carrots and ‘Everything Matters’.
During a week spent in the kitchen of Chef John Fraser of the Dovetail Restaurant in New York City, Vince Versace (seated above) was given the task of prepping carrots. The restaurant is ‘critically acclaimed and offers an intimate dining experience showcasing Chef Fraser’s passion for local ingredients and classical European training’.
Vince began the task of dicing the carrots, and as he recollects the story, you imagine being there with him, as the waitstaff whizz by, he is dicing away with the passion of an Olympic Gold medalist, his personal passion for the culinary arts is being satiated like one of his students at his photo workshops, he is the dice-master of carrots, no one will ever, ever dice carrots with as much heart and soul as this !
At the point of near finishing, with beads of perspiration developing on his brow from the temperature of kitchen heat and his focused passion, Vince peers up to observe the Chef’s furrowed eyebrows. ‘Chef Versace’, Chef Fraser extolls, ’these carrots are diced incorrectly’…..Vince, trembling-thinks to himself, they are just diced carrots..Chef Fraser continues,’you have diced little diamond shapes, their pointed ends will cook faster and will taste like mush instead of having a crisp texture when our customers eat them. Here at the Dovetail, Everything Matters !’
Needless to say, after closing, Vince visited every grocery store that was open until he had purchased a bushel of carrots and took them home to practice proper carrot dicing. He could relate to the Chef’s passion, in Vince’s workshop he discusses the importance of getting an extra 5% in quality in every step of your workflow, it adds up by the time you print your image… Carrots needed to be diced properly to give Chef Fraser the same quality impact in his culinary artistry.
Vince redeemed himself the following day. With his fingers raw and body fatigued from pulling an all nighter dicing carrots, Vince had before him his reassignment duty of diced carrots, Chef Fraser observed and inspected the perfectly prepared orange squares and sent an acknowledging wink of approval and walked away…Vince was ecstatic…
So at each workshop that I have attended with Vince as instructor at the Maine Media Workshop, somewhere and somehow the class has been able to get a plate of carrots and bribe the restaurant chef to make an appearance and ask, ”Chef Versace ?!…Can you please assist and dice these carrots…Everything Matters !”.
The photo here was taken at the Brass Compass Cafe in Rockland, their lobster club is award winning and OMG it’s massive, and the Chef here out dueled Bobby Flay a few years ago…..
Thanks to Chef Fraser, my fellow workshop photographers and our master instructor, incredible photographer, passionate chef and inspiring human being; Vince Versace…Everything Matters.
For more information:
- Vincent Versace Website
- Vincent Versace Flickr
- Chef Fraser/Dovetail restaurant, NYC.
- Brass Compass Cafe, Rockland Maine
- DubStep selection-Miss Maddy
