Behind the Scenes: The Firehouse Kitchen

Editor Note from Jane Dagmi, Producer

As our quest for real kitchens continued, we were hell-bent on finding the quintessential guy kitchen. We had a lead on a single male firefighter mechanic in Salem, New Hampshire. We introduced ourselves and explained our mission and James O'Brien Drago was game.

He emailed me pictures of his condo kitchen. It featured many guy-style trademarks, most notably a souvenir bottle collection, pizza boxes (neatly tucked behind the trash can) and a scantly stocked fridge with a curiously inordinate amount of pancake syrup.

This bachelor guy story was percolating. I started in with some kitchen-related questions. Drago told me he owned a very sophisticated coffee making machine but uses it rarely. Most days he said, he just heads down to the fire station and drinks his first coffee there. Drago planted the seed. There was no turning back.

He promptly sent firehouse kitchen gallery from his iPhone. I loved them; my team loved them. We knew this was a departure from the everyday single family kitchens we'd been featuring, but we contended that the firehouse kitchen did indeed fit the project theme and uniquely so.

Drago put me in touch with Assistant Chief Paul J. Parisi who gave the green light. He thought that our "coverage and article was appropriate and in line with representing what the Town of Salem would be proud of." We scheduled the shoot at Station 1 and we hired Boston-based wedding photographer Channing Johnson to capture the love.

The shoot had its challenges – as soon as Channing showed up, the firefighters got their first emergency call of the day and left him alone in the kitchen -- but nonetheless, he did a fab job. He reports, "They were all really friendly and just good people. There was a good deal of laughing and hugging as people came and went. The kitchen was never static."

I really wanted to attend this shoot and observe the action and interaction of this unique family first hand. Chief Parisi said there was a good chance I could ride in the truck and maybe even blow the horn. I did not go to Salem, however, but pieced the story together from afar, using the 500 images that Channing took, plus the information I gathered over countless emails and phone chats with Chief Parisi and Drago.

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Big thanks to everyone who helped make this story happen.