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"Out & About"
Tourtières fresh out of the oven- meat pie style
In Quebec the tourtière keeps its noble place on tables during the Réveillon or Christmas Eve. My family, which left Quebec 30 years ago for British Columbia still eats tourtière at Christmas too. If you do not know what the tourtière is, for many it is a meat pie with or without potatoes, but in Lac-St-Jean and Gaspésie it is a deep dish mix of meats covered with dough.
Scraping dough off the table
On November 20th I went to Aux Purs Délices the pastry shop on Church Street in Verdun to participate in the Réseau d’Entraide de Verdun bi-annual tourtière making day. Mr. L’Anglais generously leaves us his bakery and supplies with the boxes, aluminum pie trays, the use of his ovens and rolling pins to make the pies. The tourtière are sold for $3.00 each and are very popular at Christmas time. We make tourtières to fund my cooking workshops amongst other activities. Making them is a lively gig where one group of volunteers does the morning shift and another group the afternoon shift. The volunteers are put in different modes of production: most roll tops and bottoms, while others fill the pies, cover them, cut an “X” and brush the tops with egg wash, and others still fill the speed rack and the ovens. We get to taste the shop’s delicious pastries. The radio plays and we sing along with music from the 70’s and 80’s. You will hear comments like “C’est Richard Seguin qui chante ça. J’y ferais pas mal. Je passerai mes mains dans ses cheveux.” There’s a lot of fooling around, but we also manage to pump out about 400 tourtière’s in a day thanks to the energy of the volunteers, the rotating oven that fits 72 tourtière s at a time and because of the sheer love for tourtière.
- Production at Aux Purs Delices
Working the dough
While I was doing research for a contract the same week, I stumbled on “The Long History of Tourtière of Quebec’s Lac-St-Jean” by Jean-Pierre Lemasson in What’s to Eat: Entrées in Canadian Food History, Edited by Nathalie Cooke. It turns out that tourtière may have come from tourterelle or turtle dove pie. It may also have come from the name of the dish tourtière that it was cooked in, but the first recorded tourtière -like recipe dates back to 1600 B.C. Mesopotamia. It instructs to boil gizzards and intestines with aromatic bark, salt, fat and rue. It uses onion, samidu (an unknown spice from Mesopotamia), leek, garlic, sasku semolina and milk for the dough, and of course, poultry.
In 400 AD there is a version made with tripe, lovage, eggs and wheat flour.
There is also the Cipaille or Cipâte in Gaspésie whose ancestors are the Sea Pie, Cipaye, Cipare, Six pâtes (6 doughs), six pailles (six straws). This traditionally had 6 layers, but it has ebbed into something made with what people have: traditionally pork and veal. The tourtière has become a meat pie for those outside of Lac-St-Jean. In the Middle Ages, however, the six layers included:
1) Fried chicken with onions and spices
2) White and Green (parsley) ravioli
3) Sausage, minced meat and ham
4) Minced pork with cheese and eggs
5) Sausage, brain, marrow, cheese and herbs
6) Ravioli with almonds, half of them sweetened with sugar
Between each layer there were stuffed dates and eggs. Sounds like an Epic Meal Time feat to me. This was the decadent version, but the beauty of the meat pie is that it cuts across class lines because you can use what you have. For the Réseau d’Entraide’s we used ground pork that had been donated and the dough from Aux Purs Délices. The pies are humble, but delicious and they are at a price that is affordable to all, even those with the least and they help to finance food security measures, food hampers, collective kitchen groups and cooking workshops that give people the culinary tools to save money, eat better and build autonomy.
Getting ready for the Tops Tops on- Check- ready for trimming and grooming.
Finishing Touches
Charlevoix and Lac-St-Jean both claim to be the home of the real tourtière. My Simard ancestors first landed in Charlevoix, but then many Simard’s moved to Lac-St-Jean. Maybe the tourtière had a similar story. The tourtières roots run much deeper than that thought. Meat pies are one of the earliest recipes known to man. There are versions throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Slavic countries. They have been exported around the world (patties, empanadas)- everyone has a version. Maybe that explains the deep nostalgia we feel when we eat tourtière at Christmas. The feeling is deeper than Quebec pride, it is engrained on our genes and a symbol of survival, movement around the planet and baking our own version of “abundance” . Companion means “bread sharer” in Latin, so as soon as you have the crust holding everything together, you have a real party and coming together.
Party in a Box for $3.00
Challenge: I challenge you to make your own meat pie with as many layers as you see fit, that represents who you are, your social strata and your genetic evolution.
Toutière Enthusiasts
For more info about tourtière click here:
If you want to see my recipe for Catsup aux Fruits which is great with tourtière click the photo below
Convection oven with Rotating Racks- We baked 72 tourtière at a time- 144 if we wanted to.
Vibrant is as Vibrant Does
Mile End Wheat Grass smoothie, Le Saint-Viateur (Berries, yogourt, etc) and Blushing Beauty- celery, apple and beet juice
For many of the days between Oct. 4th and 16th 2011, I subbed in for Valerie Legge at her juice bar Ô Jus in Mile End on the corner of Park Avenue and St-Viateur. She is the owner of Ô Jus, and she is also a life-coach who was recently in Germany and Italy giving a Coaching conference. Valerie is a Buddhist-inspired Vegetarian, Life-coaching Sagittarius inside and outside of Ô Jus. Her values translate directly into the business she opened. She has a philosophical attitude to starting and running her business; she spreads nutrition and good cheer. She makes delicious fresh juices and smoothies, home-made baking, paninis and soups and has a variety of high end hot chocolate, cereal coffee, teas and tisanes and coffee. She also has wheat-grass, all natural protein powder, organic lavender and home-made sorbet to complete her repertoire.
Valerie Legge- owner, life-coach, vegetarian, Sagittarius
Every time I work at Ô Jus, I get out of there feeling invigorated. Valerie has made a space that gives off positive vibes and attracts good souls. People gravitate to Ô Jus because they are vigilant about their health and what they put in their bodies, because they want something delicious to feel good, because they want to work on the computers or soak in the sun from the terrace or the front window or because they just want to talk and be around Valerie or in the store’s colourful atmosphere.
Wall of monitors at Ô Jus
View on Park Avenue
Valerie’s soups are comforting in the cold and always have an exotic twist: red lentil and coconut, chick pea, curry and mint, sweet potato, carrot, orange and ginger. She makes decadent and nourishing energy balls with dates, nuts, seeds and many things I can’t tell you…She also always has home-made muffins like banana and chocolate chip, Mindfulness muffins and lavender and lemon muffins. Her Cosmic Cookies attract regulars and are as delicious as a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie but with so much more: dried fruit, coconut, seeds, etc. They are dense and intense and very addictive…
The Colours and the tastes
Valerie has also allowed me to give workshops about detox regimes with a focus on juicing and smoothies and a workshop about high-protein home-made smoothies without protein powders: some vegan and some not. Workshops to come include Food and Mood and happy juices and smoothies (Nov. 29th, 2011) and green smoothies (Jan 2012). They are enjoyable and are an extension of the juice bar being a life-style institution and not simply an economic endeavour.
Workshop about detox dieting in 2010
I enjoyed the simplicity of working at Ô Jus, baking and making soup at a slow pace, taking in the heady smells. I also enjoyed the friendliness and curiosity of the clients who embrace health and well-being and share themselves. People chatted me up and exchanged business cards and ideas readily. This is particular to Mile End, I believe, and Ô Jus fits right in. In Mile End, for many, it is reasonable, even preferable, to take care of one’s body and live in a thoughtful manner. Health foods and nutrition are not for extra-terrestrials. It seems to beMontreal’s diet for a small planet mecca. There is junk food around like there is everywhere, but at Ô Jus, there were parents taking their kids for a fresh-pressed juice as a treat – new values are being nourished!
Workshop participants- detoxers for life!
Feel free to stop in to Ô Jus (5443 Park Ave.) and taste the fare. Get to know Valerie and open-up to the world where zen is common-place: celebrating the richness of the moment and the wonderful and simple treasures the Earth has to offer.
Ô Jus (5443 Park Ave.)
Plates of fruit garnish ready for service at Nuart
Breakfast At Nuart
I subbed in for Alex the omelette maker and egg scambler over the Labour Day Long Weekend and found myself cooking breakfast with Phillippe Groulx and Madeleine Tomic at Nuart Café in Verdun,. They have been doing breakfast on the weekends for the last nine years, and they recently added weekdays before 11:30am as well. Madeleine is the owner and takes care of the toast, chopping fruit, and the dishes during the rush. Phillippe is the breakfast Chef and the mastermind behind the cheeky theme menu each week. Example of a menu theme: “Les petits Déjeuners à l’international” with items like ‘Pakistanais pas assez bien, il est tombé” ou “Iran Fou”. Or better yet, “Les Petits Déjeuners du Nymphomane” with choices like “Les Toilettes son porno clients” ou “L’exhibitionist à la fenêtre”. Plates are usually elaborately done, with various combos of an omelette or garnished scrambles eggs (“broulli” comme on dit en français), a garnished bagel, with a sweet crêpe or French toast on the side, and always served with fruit and usually potatoes! There are also lighter continental breakfasts or basic bacon and eggs if you want it.
Phillipe writing the funny breakfast menu
Word play poetry menu at Nuart
Nuart is on Wellington Street in Verdun and has been open for ten years. The breakfasts are swinging, even to the point of having a pianist on Sundays, and they are the bread and butter of the restaurant. They have one of the few terraces in Verdun, and you can enjoy the sun outside or the coziness inside when it’s cold or rainy. The food, service and decor are warm and unapologetic- straight from the heart. There is filter coffee and one kind of juice- orange. Clients partake in the antics and discussions of the staff, and they also get served a bit of mood swing once in a while. But it’s all a part of the experience and…real-life.
Nuart sunny terrasse (3780 Rue Wellington, Montréal, QC, Canada) +1 514-762-1310
I was the evening cook from 2007 to 2009, and it was my second job in a restaurant. Since I left, I come back regularly to visit and sub-in, and Madeleine kindly lets me use the space for belly dance dinners, dinner club, and benefit dinners. I started working there in 2007 right after I had returned from Europe and was broke. And history repeats itself: I just got back from Europe and I was broke. I have only ever worked breakfast once before, and I was so hung-over that they never asked me to work breakfast again. (I’ve since cleaned-up my act.)
serving an omellete
Coming back to Nuart to work is always an experience that fills my heart cup up and gives me pangs of nostalgia. Nuart is a very human experience. Many young people have been helped out of their shells there, and the original block of four, Madeleine, Tania, Jacques and Phillippe, are still there. Jacques and Tania (Madeleine’s daughter) are in the dining room, and Madeleine and Phillippe are in the kitchen. The original four are like a tight family unit, and anyone that works there becomes woven into the fabric as well. As much as everyone loves each other, everyone is also able to drive the other up the wall. And, like any other family, there are certain tensions that aren’t spoken about openly, but as it is a re-constituted family, you can still get a lot looser than many people can with their real family. You can really be yourself at Nuart.
The staff has seen each other through battles with alcoholism, illness, depression, broken hearts, and confronting personal demons. No one is perfect, and at Nuart, no one is obliged to pretend to be. I’ve seen staff members do strip-teases and I’ve tried to recuperate on the deep-freezer after a night of heavy partying. There’s been screaming matches, pranks, drunken confessions, and some of the funniest jokes you’ll hear. There’s been some great food, some so-so food, things that worked and things that didn’t, but the Nuart stays the same even though the menu changes every service.
Madeleine doing her speciality at Nuart - making crepes
Jacques waiter at Nuart
There is always a band of alley cats partaking in Nuart’s re-insertion program on the back balcony- getting fed, some love from the staff, and sometimes even a home with a client. Eugene, the most infamous, was a a ratty washed-up playboy at the end of his 100 lives and at least 10 years of fathering dozens of other Verdun alley cats. He didn’t show-up at the door after the 2009 winter, but his picture is on the fridge.
Scan of the photo of Eugene, the don of alley 2009
The Nuart is a social experiment that allows people to live outside of the mold with ease or to choose to live in the mold with conviction after the experience. It must also be said that in the last few years, there have been few heterosexual men working there and the few that did were like gentlemanly roosters in the hen house. In kitchens with a feminine vibe, there tends to be a lot of helping each other out. Female/gay staff tend to be less showy and very willing to exchange ideas and tricks, while masculine kitchens are much more about the clashes of egos, strutting your stuff, under-cutting your colleagues, and ganging up on the weakest link. Feminine kitchens/staff on the shadow side can be a little moody, over-sensitive, and passive aggressive. Given the choice, I would prefer a majority of feminine staff and kitchen, hands-down.
The electric griddles that Philippe uses to perform breakfast miracles.
The Nuart doesn’t try to be anything. In fact, it is a restaurant without a concept. The art on the brick walls changes drastically from collection to collection, the food from cook to cook, and the mood from moment to moment. It’s a place where people come to work and say, “Let’s do this”, and customers come because the food and atmosphere puts people at ease and makes them feel like it’s “their” place.
Cooking breakfast that morning, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt as we were sweating away in the smouldering heat over the electronic stove and griddle, and Madeleine came up to me and said, “Tiens, 2 piaces, vas t’acheter de quoi moins chaud en face.” She was talking about the friperie across the street. I went with Tania and bought a pink nightie that could have easily been hospital wear. We had some laughs, and boy it felt nice having that breeze come under my garments. What really felt good was letting loose and being able to let go and laugh- and not the nervous forced laughs, but laughs that make you remember what life’s about!
Me working in my one dollar nightie from the second-hand store across the street
