My name is Marie and I’m a graphic designer, writer, translator and food enthusiast. I live in Quebec City, Canada.
I first started FoodNouveau.com back in 2001, fresh out of graphic design school. I wanted to practice my design skills and build my own website – but about what? I had just started working in a software company and was making a bit of money (finally), which I was almost completely spending on cookbooks and magazine subscriptions. I was salivating over them and reading them as if they were novels. Soon I discovered that when I went online, I found many recipes but not many inspiring pictures to go along with them. Being highly visual, I started a website which was really my online recipe binder, where I published my favorite recipes with pictures and short comments.
Over time, I worked more and more, quitting my job and going freelance, while also undertaking a translation degree. As you might guess, I ended up severely lacking in time to update my website. I stopped maintaining it in 2006, right after I founded my industrial/graphic/interior design company with an associate. It didn’t stop me from pursuing my passion for food, though, as from 2005 to 2009 I managed a small cooking school, located in a Quebec City nice suburb called Cap-Rouge. We first built our model kitchen on the ground floor of our quaint ancestral house as a showroom to demonstrate our interior design skills, and it ended up also acting also as a playground for the chefs who would come and teach classes many nights a week. I worked hand in hand with extremely talented chefs to build a new program every season, and I edited, designed and printed class booklets every week.
Since 2005, I have traveled my way around the world with the fantastic guy who has been sharing my life for eight years now (that would be Eric). In early 2009, we had the fabulous opportunity to live in Paris for five months. This enchanting experience made me feel a strong urge to work as a freelance again, and recover the freedom to travel whenever I want and wherever I can. Loving writing (as I was doing it on a daily basis for my work and for a couple of personal projects I had underway), it seemed clear to me that the time had come to revive Food Nouveau as a blog in which I would chronicle my many travels, discoveries and cooking experiences.
FoodNouveau.com is about the deep pleasure to be found in eating, discovering new flavors, experimenting with them and tasting your way around the world.
Q&A
Are you French or English?
I’m Canadian, born in the French-speaking province of Quebec. My mother tongue is French, and Quebec’s culture is very much influenced and inspired by our French “cousins” (and founders), but also by our North-American neighbors. You could say that we benefit from North-American cooking creativity and diversity while also retaining France’s taste and refinement.
What does “Food Nouveau” mean?
It is a nice little “franglish” (français/English) wordplay I heard in a funny little song of the New York band founded by two Japanese women, Cibo Matto. I thought it represented my heritage perfectly, while suggesting that I love moving forward, staying ahead of the trends, never settling down and always making new discoveries.
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