Earlier this year, I met Denise Marchessault – a professional chef and a simply wonderful person. Through a funny, kind of mixed up phone call (she thought I was a different Rebecca and started to tell me about her day. I went along with it. :) ), we ended up making arrangements for me to come to her kitchen to do a shoot of a dish she had prepared for an article in EAT magazine. And we hit it off immediately, with our common passion for food and beautiful things and doing what we love.
Denise runs French Mint, a cooking school here in Victoria, which is housed in the lower level of her lovely home. Denise invited me back to attend one of her classes, and today, I had the pleasure. I’ve been excited about this for weeks.
The class I decided on concentrated on a number of Appetizers and Small Bites. It was full, with ten of us perched around the room, watching, taking notes, and drooling over the amazing smells Denise was conjuring up. Fresh herbs in bouquets sent wafts of greenness around the room. Oil infused with garlic and rosemary and some of my other favorite things in the world, simmered gently on the stove. Things baked and toasted and were finely chopped. We sipped wine and laughed with each other. My head was spinning with ultimate foody pleasure.
There’s something I love about not only food, but the preparation of it. Matching white bowls of already chopped peppers, crisp crostinis on a tray and other embellishments awaited their turn to be put into service. All of our senses were satiated while Noreen, Denise’s assistant, kept us watered and fed as more and more delicacies came off the demo counter and onto our plates.
As I sat there and munched on carpaccio de boeuf, prosciutto wrapped palm hearts, Vietnamese rolls, halibut ceviche and one of my favorites – blue cheese cookies fresh out of the oven (oh. my. God.), I looked around, took a deep breath and stopped. I suddenly longed for a commercial kitchen, with a barn door oven like Denise’s. More stainless bowls than I would ever need. Two hundred tiny white bowls for dipping sauce. Professional knives and eight chopping boards. It was like every scent in that kitchen hit me at once. The chili oil, the jalapenos, the fresh mint and cilantro. It gave me goose bumps. It made me want to cry. I wanted to invite everyone that I know over for food. I would cook it all and serve it with wine. It would be a non stop assembly line of amazing tastes and scents. It recharged me to get back to the kitchen. Maybe not in such volumes to need two hundred dipping bowls! But back to the kitchen nonetheless.
I didn’t bring my camera with me to class. It was hard not to, but I knew that’s what I had to do in order to get the full experience. This day was for me, so I can’t tell you how glad I was that I didn’t. I love cooking. I love food. I love food appliances and gadgets and dishes. And I needed to fully immerse myself in all of these things without a camera in my hands. It’s been a really long time since I’ve done this. And I needed it. Badly. It was a wonderful reminder of the other passion. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love to spend time creating with food. You will all be glad to know that the beast has been reawakened! And it needs guinea pigs people, so stay tuned.
Thank you, Denise. I cannot tell you enough how much I enjoyed myself today. And despite what they say…it turns out that food really is love. :) Or at least I like to think of it that way.
The left image below was on the cover of the March/April issue of EAT magazine and was so beautifully put together by Denise. xo
by Rebecca
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