by Marc on March 29, 2012

Hey there,
I thought I would share some thoughts….

Just read Mission Street Food book and got totally inspired and motivated! So happy to be baking and cooking, thrilled about local food and products, considering doing something to give back to the community and neighbourhood I love so much.

Getting excited again about Red Fife wheat. I recently obtained 20kg of flour and 10kg of wheat berries from Patricia Hastings. Fun, fun, fun! Patricia is an organic farmer based in Madoc, Ontario. I found her thanks to David Szanto at Slow Food. And now, I’m trying to make a connection between Patricia and Elena Faita at Quincaillerie Dante. Elena has expressed interest in selling Red Fife flour at her shop! That would be the first and only place that I know of to retail Red Fife flour in Montréal. Ever!! How exciting! Stay tuned for more info as things move forward.

A spontaneous list of cool people and stuff:
Elena and Stefano Faita
Andre and his beautiful Big in Japan bar!!
Acqtaste magazine
Cookies Unite monthly event at Nouveau Palais
Gabriele Bonci, pizza king of Rome
My Saturday morning chats at O+G with Jean-Philippe Tastet
Sarah Musgrave’s Sandwich Club series in the Montreal Gazette
Chew comic book
Menu dégustation at Osteria Venti
Francis Archambault, soon to be Maître d’ at Daniel Boulud’s reopening Ritz-Carlton
Weekday lunch at Dominion Square Tavern

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What’s up for the fall?!

by Marc on November 7, 2011

Okay, careful what you wish for there Marky!…

OysterFest 2011 was so much fun! The Olive+Gourmando team rocked it really hard! We served crazy delicious chicken and mushroom mini-burgers on our unique grilled bread. I had the honour of manning the grill for the 2 1/2 hours it took to sell out of everything we had! Quite a workout! I can’t wait until next year. The O+G team will be back with more goodies to make ‘em line up for days!..

The pizza classes with Vanessa Laberge (chef de cuisine @ Olive+Gourmando) at Les Touilleurs were a hit. We did non-traditional pizzas with some pretty creative toppings. That Vanessa sure is awesome!
They’ve invited us back for four more (Jan. 24, 25 and March 13, 14). Contact them ASAP for a spot! They will sell out very quickly!

Vanessa and I went to the Joe Beef cookbook launch a couple of weeks back. What a great evening! And the book is phenomenal! Please go out and buy it, you will not regret it. Not only for the recipes but especially for the wonderfully written extra chapters about Montréal and all its food glory!

Mezza Luna classes were fun and hopefully a couple more in early 2012. Contact them at 57, rue Dante
Montréal, mezzaluna@chezdante.com, 514.272.5299.

Upcoming:
A unique Montréal-themed dinner event for students from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy. I was supposed to host a workshop for them last year but we had some scheduling difficulties so we had to cancel. This year is a different story altogether! David Szanto has asked Michele Forgione of Osteria Venti and I to co-host a private affair at Venti in mid-November.

A little R&D in Brooklyn in January. NYC is always good for inspiration, isn’t it?

Things I am lovin’ these days. In brief:
Lucky Peach magazine. Brilliant. Inspiring.

Sprouting rye for breads and salads at Olive+Gourmando. Delicious. Nutritious.

St-Ambroise‘s India Pale Ale.

Beau’s All-Natural Brewery.

Jeff Finklestein‘s caraway bread at Tuck Shop.

The home made tourtières I made with my mom.

Ibrilo. One word. Tons of cool gift ideas!

Bread bakers of the world, unite!

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Summer in the city

August 17, 2011

I haven’t been very busy with any bread classes or workshops … it looks like folks don’t want to learn to bake bread at home in the hot summer months. But that hasn’t stopped me from havin’ fun! I did some barbecue and fire pit pizza tests at a friend’s cottage and I made beer [...]

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Cool bakers everywhere!!

June 2, 2011

Montréal, NYC, Vancouver Island, Aix en Provence… Byron Fry is The Travelling Baker. He contacted me through Facebook and we’ve become fast friends. He’s doing some inspiring and beautiful work out in Victoria. His photos are gorgeous! Just seeing them gets me all fired up about being a baker and I just want to run [...]

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Plenty to keep me busy!…

April 25, 2011

All right, hows about a little update… it’s been a little too long since my last post. Wow! What a couple of months it’s been! First off, the big news… I’ve been named sous chef at Olive+Gourmando. How exciting! I guess I’ll be sticking around after all… just kidding! I love that place! I get [...]

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Upcoming…

February 10, 2011

The next couple of months look like lots of fun… École Mezza Luna: March 9: Bread 101 and April 10: The Baker’s Brunch I’ll be making special breads for a Sara Jenkins event hosted by chef Michele Forgione on April 21. Three workshops at Les Touilleurs on April 26, 27 and May 25, in the [...]

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Wild vs commercial yeast

January 24, 2011

So you’re gonna make bread—What will you use to make it rise? Wild yeast or commercially produced dried yeast? Many bakers have a clear preference and feel quite strongly about it. The bread baking world, like cooking in general, is rife with many beliefs, traditions, habits, and the line dividing them all is quite thin. [...]

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Quincaillerie Dante / Mezza Luna

January 24, 2011

I’ll be teaching a bread class on Feb 8 and March 9 at Mezza Luna, Elena Faita’s cooking school. What an honour! All the info can be found here. I’m really looking forward to it because last time I really had a blast with the students and especially with Elena. What a star! Je serai [...]

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Happy New Year, happy Thanksgiving…

January 3, 2011

I like to think of New Year’s as the perfect time to give thanks. Thanks for all the good food, great people, fun places, and cool opportunities that have come up in the past twelve months… Well folks, 2010 was awesome: full-time work at Olive+Gourmando, developing my TV show, lots of bread baking classes, joining [...]

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More classes in 2011

December 24, 2010

The New Year promises to be just as busy and exciting as 2010. Once the Holidays are done, I’ll be back in the kitchen pretty quickly! Maybe even in your kitchen!… As usual, I’ll be available for private bookings but I’ll also get my hands on a cool kitchen to host a few demo classes [...]

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