Book review: Gran Cocina Latina (with recipes!)

    Disclosure: A shortened review of this book was submitted to Food52 as part of its “Community Picks” Contest. I didn’t win, but this reviewer did. Couldn’t have said it better myself. My hometown of Montreal is the furthest thing imaginable from a Latin American food mecca. Our summer is too short to grow [...]

Cookbook: À la bonne franquette 2

Cookbook: Kitchen Galerie

  Cookbook copywriting in collaboration with the book’s two chefs, Mathieu Cloutier and Jean-Philippe Saint-Denis of Montreal’s Kitchen Galerie Restaurants  

My new cookbook is here!

  It is finally here. The second edition of my À la bonne franquette book has landed at last, updated and expanded to 120, count’em, 120 Québec chefs in all!     Regular readers of this blog may remember that, in 2010, I published the first À la bonne franquette with the help of 80 [...]

Healthy cooking: The Montreal Heart Institute Cookbook

It was the kind of challenge I relish: convince 10 of Quebec’s top chefs to play the healthy card by creating gourmet recipes for the Montreal Heart Institute and the nutritionists at its EPIC Centre. A unique cookbook that could also serve to raise funds for the Institute’s well-respected and much-needed Foundation.     The [...]

Gift Idea: My go-to maple syrup cookbook

Before the gargantuan Cabane PDC by Montréal chef Martin Picard, there was Anne Fortin’s Cooking with Québec maple syrup. A friend of mine, Anne is the grande dame of Jean-Talon Market where she owns the food bookstore Librairie gourmande, AKA Montreal chef-and-foodie central. While I have every intention of cooking from the Pied de cochon [...]

Québec is cooking: Market Chronicles by Susan Semenak (with recipe!)

Market Chronicles:Stories & Recipes from Montreal’s Marché Jean TalonÉditions CardinalPublished: Fall 2011$39.95 Newly published, you can find it everywhere and on Amazon.ca in French only (!). For an English version, ask a local bookstore or friend. __________________________ Why this book? • For once, I can present to my English readers a Québec cookbook in their [...]

Québec is cooking: Lemon-mustard roasted cauliflower

I still remember when my son would eat anything you put on his plate, a 2 year-old on a holy quest for the grail of new taste sensations.Then, he entered the picky years and everything pretty much screeched to a halt. Although he is slowly outgrowing his NO period, you should see the shocked look [...]

Québec is cooking: Butternut Mac’n Cheese

When asked, my cheese-phobic 5 year-old usually identifies Mac’n Cheese as his favourite dish. I know he loved the version served at his daycare, responsible among other things for introducing him to ketchup and grilled cheese made in the oven… So whenever I make Mac’n Cheese, he looks completely delighted, until he takes a bite. [...]

Québec is cooking: Apollo2 (with recipes)

  Apollo2 Improvisations culinaires signées Giovanni Les Éditions Transcontinental Published September 2011 $34.95 In the French side of my blog, I review this cookbook, which may or may not interest English readers. (By the way, I give it a thumbs-up.) Here you will find 2 of the recipes tested in judging the book. If you [...]

Quebec Cooking: Grilled skid with sausage stuffing

A few months ago, I sort of reviewed here a Quebec cookbook: Deux folles et un fouet by Jessica Barker and Rafaële Germain, that I quite liked. Why? Because the recipes are simple yet company-worthy, and quite tasty despite the fact they often require few ingredients.     I had given myself one guideline when [...]

Book: Les carnivores infidèles

Nutritionist Catherine Lefebvre signs this scrumptious vegetarian cookbook for food lovers who wish to cheat on their butcher from time to time. In keeping with the times, she crowd-sourced many of the 60 recipes from prominent Quebec bloggers and food communicators, including yours truly. My take? A vegetarian Spaghetahini, 100% family-friendly of course!   Visit [...]

Quebec is cooking: Cream & olive chicken

I must confess, Deux folles et un fouet (Two crazy women and a whisk), the cookbook from Rafaëlle Germain and Jessica Barker talked to me from the get-go. Unabashedly pink, pro-joy of life and addicted to fat and salt, it’s got a cool, friendly vibe. But let’s face it, everybody and her mother seems to [...]

Cookbook Contest: We have a winner!

Congratulations to Caroline Masson from Cuisine2.ca who won the À la bonne franquette cookbook. She owes one to her grand-mother who inspired her as a kid with her delicious spaghetti with sausage recipe… Sounds good to me.     Come back later this week since, with the contest over, I’m back to cooking cherished family [...]

Québec is cooking: Eggplant caviar bruschetta

The Eggplant Saga inspired by Stefano Faita’s Entre cuisine et quincaillerie cookbook ends here with his Eggplant caviar bruschetta. In his book, the chef reveals that this recipe was first published in the March 2006 issue of dearly-departed Gourmet magazine devoted to the Montreal food scene. In his tips, Stefano Faita suggests that you serve [...]

Quebec is cooking: The secrets of vegetables (recipe included!)

My library: Around my French table

You’ve been cooking up a storm. Stained cookbook on the counter top, wooden spoon glued to hand, you followed every instruction to the letter, measured each ingredient as if your life depended on it, and dirtied every pot & pan in the house. You’re tired but proud. No longer hungry but eager to taste. You [...]

Cookbook: À la bonne franquette

Concept and contents development, selection and sollicitation of 100 or so Quebec chefs, coordination with 16 tourism associations to secure copy fact check and photographic content, recipe editing and turnkey copywriting Publishers: Éditions Transcontinental

On being a cookbook ghost writer

Fall 2009 — Here I was, at Ô Chalet Restaurant near Montreal’s CBC tower, celebrating with a good friend and colleague the launch of 100 recettes, 100 vedettes Centraide, my third collective cookbook as a ghost writer. From Cercles de Fermières’ Qu’est-ce qu’on mange ? cookbook to TV show Des kiwis et des hommes’ culinary [...]

Cookbook: 100 vedettes, 100 recettes, Centraide

Concept and contents development, recipe editing and turnkey copywriting Publishers: Publications Transcontinental, French CBC

Cookbook: Des kiwis et des hommes

Concept and contents development, interviews, recipe selection and editing, turnkey copywriting of cookbook En direct du marché, based on French CBC show Publishers: Novem, Radio-Canada

Qu’est-ce qu’on mange? Cookbook

Recipe editing and descriptive copywriting, Qu’est-ce qu’on mange ? Volume 2 cookbook Publishers: Communiplex, Cercles de Fermières du Québec