For food-preneur Maryse Lapalme, it\u2019s a classic story of vocation yielding the right of way to avocation when she changed lanes from her career as a Chartered Professional Accountant and into the kitchen working with food and teaching others about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably around 2009,\u201d says Lapalme, who says food and cooking is a true passion. \u201cI decided I wanted a change, so I started the Academy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Located on Notre-Dame Street in Embrun, Acad\u00e9mie du gourmet provides a wide range of foods, kitchen tools and services that, according to Lapalme, the community around her has embraced.<\/p>\n
Passion and demand have intersected. Lapalme says that 15 years ago, there was a gap in the range of healthier ready-made foods that were then available, noting, however, that there was mostly an abundant supply of deep-fried foods consumers could buy.<\/p>\n
But times changed and so did peoples\u2019 awareness of the importance of a healthy diet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has gotten a lot better now, including at grocery stores, but we focus on making healthier foods and prepare our menu from scratch,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The Academy\u2019s meals-to-go, made weekly in the Academy\u2019s kitchen and with a relatively small staff, feature local ingredients and avoid preservatives and additives whenever possible.<\/p>\n
Citing what she discovered was a \u201cneed\u201d in the community for healthy and convenient ways to feed a busy family, in the freezers and fridges at the venue are ready-made meals including roughly 15 soups in rotation, shepherd\u2019s pie, salmon dishes, pasta sauce, beef Bourguignon and a variety of baked goods, among others dishes.<\/p>\n
Tradition plays a role in her cooking, and Lapalme, who is also a certified holistic nutritionist, says her meat pies are very traditional, \u201cvery French Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Christmas time stuff,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I make the meat pies year-round.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is also a selection of bulk foods for purchase with customers bringing their own eco-friendly containers including nearly two dozen oils and vinegars (such as balsamics) and various grains, spices, cheeses and locally roasted coffee.<\/p>\n
Lapalme loves her electric smoker, too: she smokes scallops and duck, but smoked salmon is a favourite for both hot and cold smokes as well as candied. It\u2019s then vacuum sealed and has a good shelf life, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople come in just for our smoked salmon. It\u2019s very tasty,\u201d says Lapalme adding that her kitchen will be smoking spareribs this week and making an accompanying home-made barbecue sauce.<\/p>\n
Twice a week, Lapalme and staff prepare a full meal \u2013 soup, main course and dessert \u2013 for the local Meals on Wheels organization that delivers supper to elderly people and people with limited mobility.<\/p>\n
Just about everyone interested in food loves some sort of culinary equipment, and it\u2019s another of Lapalme\u2019s passions to offer a selection of kitchen tools as part of her retail line. As Lapalme describes it, she \u201creally likes\u201d good kitchen gadgets.<\/p>\n
The store also carries a number of personal care products like soaps, shampoos and lotions.
\nDespite the word \u201cacademy\u201d that is part of the business\u2019s name, implying as it does a sense of institutional rigour and formality, it\u2019s easy to tell that Lapalme\u2019s approach to food and cooking is casual and accessible. When she talks about the Academy\u2019s services, she does so as educational but also entertaining and engaging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not a place where you come to get a title, or papers, or anything like that,\u201d Lapalme says. \u201cIt\u2019s for the fun of learning about cooking and food which is my passion.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that leads to the instructional element: a good part of that passion around food derives from teaching: she gives demonstration classes for groups as large as 24 people and hands-on cooking classes for 12. On occasion, guest chefs from Ottawa visit to teach Thai or Italian cuisine.<\/p>\n
After a having given adult cooking classes and doing kids\u2019 birthday parties, participants asked Lapalme about teaching kids some of the basics of the kitchen \u2013 it\u2019s now a key component of her business that she\u2019s been doing for about a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe start the classes for eight-year-olds. They come on Saturday for a two-hour class and start with knife skills. We make soups and move on to chicken cordon bleu. I have high school students helping us out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lapalme confesses that her love for food and making a variety of dishes for her customers \u2013 often from family recipes like her mother\u2019s shepherd\u2019s pie \u2013 is satisfying, but at the same time the classroom continues to inspire her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned years later when I started this business that I really like to teach,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
To take a page from a Martha Stewart cookbook, sharing knowledge is a \u201cvery good thing.\u201d The traditions of culinary skills and local foodways being passed down to the next generation both connects people and contributes to community building.<\/p>\n
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of \u201cFarm to Table\u201d and co-author of \u201cCooking with Shakespeare.\u201d Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For food-preneur Maryse Lapalme, it\u2019s a classic story of vocation yielding the right of way to avocation when she changed lanes from her career as a Chartered Professional Accountant and into the kitchen working with food and teaching others about it. \u201cIt was probably around 2009,\u201d says Lapalme, who says food and cooking is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":103357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affaires"],"acf":[],"featured_media_global":[],"yoast_head":"\n