months. i thought i broke my ankle. what is the most perilous aspect of the job? would it be dogs or icy stairs? in this area there s a lot of dogs, but i would say icy stairs. it s one thing to have to work outside in this wintry mess, but it takes a strange and wonderful kind of mutant to actually find it pleasurable. like, well, these two gentlemen. do you like the cold? i mean, by you, i mean the quebecois. it cleans the streets of ebola. the cold? yeah. the frigid cold keeps the riffraff out of the city, for sure. fred morin, dave mcmillen, restauranteur, chefs at the legendary joe beef, bon vivant, raconteur. historians of their beloved great white north. princes of hospitality.
everything. yeah, at this point, you know, animals see me and they re like oh no, no. not that guy. there s a joke around here somewhere, but to tell you the truth, the stuff is just too good. it s like 10 below zero in this freaking town. and that generally does not spell good time for me. a good time for me is more like a palm tree, a beach, a swimming pool, where the only cold thing is my beer. s but no. these hearty culinarians of the north like to frolic in the snow and ice. more accurately, they like to obey their genetic quebecois imperative to face dental and
thus began a gradual but steady persecution of all things french. the quebecois have struggled mightily to hang on to their french heritage and language. the issue of seceding entirely, a notion that persists to some extent even today. journalist patrick legasse meets me for lunch at bistro m sur masson, to understand what many feel is at stake. so i was going to talk about the whole history of french quebecoisism, but i have to get to the pressing matter of the day pasta-gate. what do you want to know about pastagate? for those not up on current quebec politics, pasta-gate refers to an incident where local authorities notified an italian restaurant that they were in violation of french were in violation of french laws because they used the word pasta, which is italian. this is okay. stop apologizing. okay? don t get me wrong.
do you like the cold? i mean, by you, i mean the quebecois. it cleans the streets of ebola. the cold? yeah. the frigid cold keeps the riffraff out of the city, for sure. fred morin, dave mcmillen, restauranteur, chefs at the legendary joe beef, bon vivant, raconteur. historians of their beloved great white north. princes of hospitality. and what do men like this do for fun when the rivers turn to ice three feet thick, when testicles shrink and most of us scurry for warmth and shelter? if they were like so many other canadians, they would go ice fishing on the st. lawrence river. the cabin fever induces in the quebecois family, because we are confined perhaps to spend so much time indoors, a lot of the families love to do, you know, activities together like this, go to the cottage, go ice
life after them is never the same. martin picard is such a man. a heretofore unencountered hybrid of rugged outdoorsman, veteran chef with many years of fine dining experience, renegade, innovator, he is one of the most influential chefs in north america. he is also a proud quebecois, and perhaps he more than anyone else has defined for a new generation of americans and canadians what that means. he is an unlikely ambassador for his country and his province. but maybe not so unlikely. i mean, look at him. out for a day trapping beaver with local trapper carl. no? so the bait is wood? yeah, just the bark. they eat the bark? yeah, yeah, yeah. i understand in pioneer days beaver was the financial engine