Producer
Slate Productions Ltd
And that was it.
Slate made a pilot for a TV show based on recipes I’d come up with, which is a lot harder than people think it is. We got the green light to film three weeks later, I suddenly had a contract as a TV chef and I was able to tell Kieran that he ought to promote Jocelyn and stop bullying staff or else he’d have no business in a year.
I’d got Dan to run the numbers and sweetly explained that thefat-heavy recipes we’d been making up till then were no longer the way forward.
‘I’m doing this for Jocelyn and not for you,’ I told Kieran, who had turned puce and then white once he saw Dan’s financial projections.
‘You could help ...’ Kieran stammered.
‘I’d consult,’ I said, having been heavily coached by both Dan and Maura. ‘For a fat fee.’
*
This morning, I drive home to load up the car with dishes, pans, knives, you name it, and then head off into the traffic again to my minuscule base, which is situated in a soulless building and where Lorraine Ryan, mypart-time home economics advisor, and I share an office.
Neither of us could afford one on our own. Nor could I afford an assistant just for me but Lorraine, who works a lot for me although also for other chefs, is a mistress of all trades and can turn her hand to anything. Including organising my computer/files/you name it. In our tiny office with its own kitchen and coffee machine area, we also have several lockable cupboards, storage for the things we both use during filming, demos, photo shoots.
There are two desks, one tidy one – Lorraine’s – and onesigns-of-a-scuffle one, which is mine.
Today at twelve, we’re due to start shooting acook-and-?photograph for the country’s biggest selling magazine, theRTÉ Guide, so no pressure. Lorraine and I, plus a food stylist, a photographer and her assistant are going to magic the first part of an autumnal series and photograph it so the readers drool when they read it.
Yes, I did say autumn.
They work a long time ahead in the magazine business.
By high summer, I will beknee-deep in speedy Christmas cakes and advice on how to make your own stollen without too much sugar – this is an oxymoron. Stollen’s sheer glory is that it is mainly sugar with dried fruit and filaments of pastry thrown in but at Christmas, many magazine readers are also dieting themselves into frenzies so they can fit into party clothes without the aid of two pairs of Spanx, so we have to do our best for them. If cutting a sliver of almond paste out of the recipe helps (I could exist entirely on marzipan paste, but it migrates straight to my hips without even hitting my digestive system at all), then we will do our best.
Studios where food photography shoots take place are always average photographic studios – think draughty industrialloft-style rooms – with miniscule kitchens/dressing rooms/make-up counters tacked on. The resulting shots may look glamorous but the locale is not.
Lorraine and I once made an entire Christmas dinner (with vegan options) in a room not much bigger than your average bathroom. I still have the mark of a burn on my big toe from when the turkey fat went rogue. Chefs wear clogs for this reason but a hole in mine (long story) meant they were finally rendered useless.
Today would be easier. I had new kitchen clogs so the chance of oil spillage was less. Confession: magazine food shoots are often fun but always hard work.
Lorraine was meeting me there, where we’d spend probably a frantic fifteen minutes with the stylist setting the scene. But first, I had to pick up a few things from the office. Notably, onecopper-bottomed pan that had been inadvertently left behind and which was more valuable to me than everything else.
Team Freya meant a certain amount of Scandi coolness. In fact I brought in quite a lot of things from home, including half of the pantry because really, you couldn’t leave this stuff in the office no matter how well it was locked up.
‘You love those pans more than you love me,’ Dan liked to tease me, when he spotted me carefully cleaning them so that they gleamed a rich copper, with not a hint of verdigris.
I always teased back by hugging a pan and moaning, until Teddy saw me at it and tried it herself.
‘Ooooh, nice yummy pot,’ she said, giving it a lick for added love.
Dan and I, when we recovered from laughing, could no longer look at my pots and pans the same way again.
I grab the precious pan, and head back into the car, en route for the photographic studio.
Today, as I drive past Bricky City – ‘Buy Bricks For Half Price!’ – I realise that even Beyoncé on the radio huskily telling me he should have put a ring on it isn’t cheering me up.
I should be happy, I reason as I drive in a line of lorries.
I have beautiful children, a husband, new house, a career ... But away from my family, my lodestones, I don’t feel happy and this shouldn’t be the case.Shouldis a tricky word.
I needed to look at Pinterest later, see some funnies, I decide. Pinterest always makes me happy when I have a moment to look at it.
