"Food is at the center of our lives, and it is important to make the right choices"

"I spent my childhood eating pie and hating it. Tourtière is a traditional Quebec dish that is eaten especially in winter, for the holidays. It's minced pork and veal, onions, a little spice, all crusted. In my family, it was always overcooked and very dry: to swallow this, you had to put a lot of fruit ketchup, a kind of chutney. When the meat pie was served in mini-tarts, the stuffing-dough ratio was completely unbalanced … But the worst was probably that of my mother, who did not like meat and prepared this dish by obligation, because it was the tradition. She made the dough with shortening, a kind of cheap tasteless margarine. She didn't have a heart for it, and it showed. Besides, it's been a long time since she became a vegetarian. As for me, I decreed in my adolescence that I no longer wanted to eat meat pie in my life.

“On a daily basis, we ate very“ French ”: croissants on Sunday morning, leeks with vinaigrette, good wine. "

Despite this particular aversion, I have always been greedy. My parents cooked a lot – my father with passion. He was an epicurean, who cherished French cuisine. For me, gastronomy was also a way of getting closer to him. During my first trip to France, at 11 years old, I remember peeling the guides to find the best bistros. Market cuisine, by Paul Bocuse, was one of his favorite books. He liked to make sophisticated dishes, rack of lamb, spinach mousse, salmon with sorrel. On a daily basis, we ate very “French”: croissants on Sunday morning, leeks with vinaigrette, good wine. My father also took me to the Jean-Talon market in Montreal, when at the time it was not a popular place. Quebec has changed a lot in the past fifty years, especially in terms of food, in kitchens and in the fields.

I entered everyday The Press in 1988, I covered politics, business, consumption. When I took over the “Lifestyle” section, which also talks about how the world is changing, I started to talk about restaurants, gastronomy and food. For me, everything is linked. I write on millions of subjects, but I realize that food is often in the middle of everything, at the center of our lives, and that it is important to make the right choices, the right and tasty choices.

Tourtière, I came back when chef Martin Picard got involved. This cook opened Au Pied de cochon, in Montreal in 2001, and set out to arrange our national dishes, all the cuisine I hated in my childhood, to get it back on track. He did that with poutine (with foie gras), pudding-unemployed (French toast), stew of pig's legs, and pie, of course… He put lots of butter in the dough, to have an effect “Puff pastry”, he added mushrooms, a potato and shredded meat to give flavor and mellowness, spices well dosed… It became a delicious dish, which reconciled me with these classic 'yesteryear. "