Chunks of tomato, red onion and jalapeno instantaneously form from the flying edge of the knife. A ruler is etched on the inside of the blade ensuring perfect squares.
Fresh lemon juice massaged out of the lemon is caught in his hand before trickling pulp-less into the bowl.
Spices season the mix unmeasured.
Chef Corey Fair explains his technique. "I don't use recipes. It all comes out of my head. I season with my hands."
Fair is a 30-year-old Texan with fiery hair, sharp blue eyes and start-of-summer freckles. He wears the uniform of the Culinary Institute of America, which has a code so strict he can only use one kind of hand towel.
His nails are cut short and the only accessory he wears is the watch on his right hand to keep an eye on the time.
Fair has worked in restaurants around the country as Executive Chef. He currently works at the Hotel Dupont and Dupont Country Club.
Last Saturday night, Fair was preparing for a guest list of 24 at Celebrity Kitchens in Wilmington. Famous chefs present demonstrations and shows on cooking for the audience who also get to eat the meal after each step has been completed.
The meal is called "Floridian Cuisine," a mix of zesty vegetables, citrus and lots of seafood including shrimp, crab and grouper.
This is Fair's second time in Celebrity Kitchens. But throughout his career he has fed vastly different kinds of audiences.
When the Texas Rangers baseball team opened their ballpark in Arlington, Fair was feeding 500 to 2,500 people per night. The club needed all 26 of the kitchens utilized in order to get everything done.
Fair explains how he would have a golf cart waiting for him outside the kitchen to take him to the next place. Otherwise, he would have lost valuable time by walking.
The audience laughs appreciatively at this story, and is mesmerized not only by his hands moving faster than they can see, but the funny anecdotes he has of feeding different kinds of people, different kinds of food.
Fair also explains that the Bush Family own a portion of the Texas Rangers, and he has fed both the President Bushes and their families.
Someone from the crowd pipes up that the Bushes are all alive, so his cooking cannot be that bad. He regretfully admits he has never personally been invited to the White House.
The White House does have one of only 70 Master Chefs in the world, a number Fair hopes to join in a year and a half. The test costs $10,000 per applicant and is 10, 18-hour days long. Failing one day could result in the failing of the entire test. Fair admits the failure rate is 98 percent.
Fair has been cooking since he was 15 and has always had the passion to be a chef. Not only does he enjoy the reaction of those who eat his food and the instant gratification it brings, but he also considers it an art.
"There's a science to it, but there's definitely a theory and an artistic side."
But the passion of the chefs who cook here mirror that of the owners of the restaurant, Cindy Weiner and Angela Martinez.
The origins of the restaurant are no secret; many people including regulars and family can relate that it was Cindy's passion that started everything.
After finding out she had breast cancer over one year ago, Weiner decided to quit her job as a prosecuting attorney. She felt it was unsatisfying and unfulfilling, and she wanted to spend her life on other things. One of these things was cooking.
Weiner and fellow attorney Martinez began looking at furniture and kitchen supplies while Weiner was in chemotherapy. The restaurant opened March 11, 2002, and celebrated its one-year anniversary last month.
Of the guests who come to eat here, many are regulars. Weiner explains that most people find out about the place by word of mouth.
Rita Armstrong is one of these regulars. She brings cousins John and Marcella Petrarca with her to see Corey Fair for the second time.
Armstrong laughs loudly with a woman one table over, the two of them already through their second glasses of wine and onto thirds and fourths.
But it is not just the friendly and relaxed aura emenating from the audience that makes the meal interesting. The meals arranged are routinely videotaped and aired as the show "Cooked to Order from Celebrity Kitchens" on local channel 28 several days per week.
Fair, who was not videotaped, could not help commenting on the similarities between his show and that of chefs on television. "I feel like Emeril!"
The audience members are not just sitting passively as Fair lights skillets on fire and juggles crab meat. Guests get to shell shrimp and husk corn too. One woman even got to make the bread pudding as per instructions.
Chefs give tips on how to prepare the meal at home, what a perfect avocado feels like or what lemongrass looks like. Guests get to take the recipes home with them when they leave.
4/18/03 The Review