The Quick and the Dead...

Here it is, and now it is gone. That is how a dish can appear and then disappear in a blink of the eye and in the passing of a moment in the kitchen. One moment, you are looking at a dish and then it whisked off to the dining room only to be devoured by our guests. A good thing of course. As a cook working on the line, you may be working on a precise task, or series of dishes of your own and totally focused on the technique at hand and only catch a quick glimpse of another cook plating something you deem cool. You stop what you are doing and you make your way to the pass and off it goes. You ask your contemporaries about what it was, they shrug..."it was this and that"..."shoulda seen it...next"! Back to your station to keep going. Maybe you see the next one, maybe not. Next time pay attention and haul ass over before it departs. Having your camera ready at the pass and remembering to take the damn picture is another thing in it's entirety. If I had a dollar for every shot I missed simply because I was engulfed in the dish itself...well, let's just say I could probably retire! Seriously though...it is a discipline like any other. Here is a shot I actually was able to capture before it was lost into the depths of the abyssal thralls of dining pleasure...