Lesley Chesterman has a little secret about her new cookbook, A Montreal Cook: Recipes and Reflections From My Kitchen. Montrealers are not the target audience.
“It’s not necessarily meant for people in Montreal,” she said. “It’s really meant for Canadians and Americans who are interested in Montreal.”
She points to a section at the end of the book, devoted to her favourite Montreal addresses for everything from croissants, cakes and pastries to chocolates, donuts, ice cream, bagels, bread, cheese, fish, steak, produce, tea, coffee, kitchen equipment and, of course, eating-out options. There are also longer-form tributes to some of her favourites, classic Montreal spots including L’Express and Beautys.
As The Gazette’s former fine-dining critic, how could she resist? Also featuring a short section at the front of the book on Montreal’s two main markets, Atwater and Jean-Talon, and the Montreal-themed recipes themselves, the book serves as a primer for anyone seeking an introduction to eating in, and out, in our fair city.
But have you ever met a Montrealer who didn’t love hearing about what makes our city so great? Rest assured, this is a go-to resource for any Montrealer who likes spending time in the kitchen.
“I really wanted it to be a book that people use,” Chesterman said.
A Montreal Cook is an enhanced translation (with extra recipes and other add-ons) of her second French cookbook, Un Week-end chez Lesley.
So, what makes a Montreal cook? First off, we care.
“There is no way you can grow up in Montreal and not care about food,” Chesterman writes in the introduction. Then there’s Montreal’s je ne sais quoi flair, a result of the city’s North American and European influences.
“It’s a combination of your cultural background and the effect the city has on you,” she noted. “I was eating croissants, baguette and pâté de foie de volaille as a kid and I didn’t think anything of it; but my cousins in Winnipeg were not.”
A Montreal Cook is an enhanced translation of Lesley Chesterman’s second French cookbook, Un Week-end chez Lesley. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
With sections devoted to breakfast, big brunches, everyday dinners, apéros and après-ski as well as fancier fare, desserts and “Tea à la Montréalaise,” A Montreal Cook captures the spirit of what it means to prepare and partake in good food and the good life here.
“I picked things I make at home,” Chesterman said. She got a little help from her friends and contacts as a former pastry chef and food writer. There is a jam recipe she learned from renowned French pâtissière Christine Ferber; a salmon tartare sauce from chef Antonio Park; a clafoutis recipe from when she worked at the now defunct Pâtisserie de Gascogne; a chicken liver mousse recipe from James MacGuire, who picked it up from famed French chef Charles Barrier; a ragù recipe she developed with chef Michele Forgione of Impasto, Gema and Vesta; a tourtière recipe adapted from Jehane Benoît’s Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne; her mom’s chicken curry recipe, adapted from a Time Life book from 1964; and a chicken recipe from her Parisian brother-in-law.
“It’s called poulet grand-mère, but I called it poulet beau-frère,” Chesterman explained.
Given the book’s Montreal angle, one of the recipes she added was for a humble yet beloved hometown staple: poutine.
“The thing about poutine is everybody thinks it’s about the cheese curds, but the reality is it’s about the sauce,” Chesterman said. “You need that snack bar white-trashiness.”
A Boston cream pie recipe slips in because Chesterman’s partner, former Le Devoir wine critic Jean Aubry, can’t get enough of her version.
“I hated Boston cream pie,” she confessed. “I just thought it was so boring, so I decided to make one that was really good. My boyfriend calls it le May West deluxe.”
It doesn’t get more Montreal than that.
Ultimately, Chesterman hopes A Montreal Cook serves as a tribute to everything her hometown has to offer.
“I want people to see Montreal as a food city,” she said. “It’s a celebration of the city’s food scene, but also just of the city, of what we can make in our own kitchens and what it means to be a person who enjoys making food in Montreal.”
AT A GLANCE
Lesley Chesterman’s A Montreal Cook: Recipes and Reflections From My Kitchen (Simon & Schuster, 384 pages, $45) is out now. Chesterman will sign copies on April 18 at 1 p.m. at Appetite for Books, 388 Victoria Ave. in Westmount.
Editor’s Picks