Eating
Stories about eating and nice meals
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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Cheese #Food #Kitchen #Restaurant #Taste #Beer #Spirits #Wine #Consultant
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Cheesy Thoughts
On our recent trip to Québec I was reminded of one of the few things that I was missing from living there. Cheeses! Tons and tons of varieties, the tastier the better… As with many places I have lived in the past, the cheeses available, in most supermarkets here in Mexico, tend to be bland and boring. Strangely enough, for a population that is so strongly attracted to tasty and spicy food, strong tasting cheeses are not very appreciated. It is somewhat understandable as a lot of time cheeses are used to cool off the taste of other stronger tasting ingredients, and as toppings. Most supermarkets have commercially-made high production cheeses of the common local varieties. Panela, a fresh cheese of wet rubbery consistency, Oaxaca, a tasty cheese made for melting that is available in long ribbons formed into balls, and some firm varieties, namely Manchego and Chihuahua. Strangely enough the local variety of Manchego is made with cow’s milk and is more reminiscent of a mild cheddar than the firm ewe’s milk Manchego of Spain. Of course, if you like shopping for fresh produces at the tianguis like we do, there are much tastier varieties of the same cheeses available there that have much fuller flavors as well as other small production farm cheeses. As always these cheeses have much better flavor and less of a bland taste as most large production cheeses. This is something that I have found in most countries that I have visited.
Being raised in a French household and surrounded by cheeses since infancy my understanding of the cheese culture is a bit different than most North American. My Dad’s taste for cheeses was always on the hard varieties like strong aged cheddars and a local semi-firm variety made by Trappist Monks in Oka, a small town near Montréal, and surprisingly named Fromage Oka. The later was, in its original incarnation, an incredibly pungent cheese that took a very strong stomach to approach from the smell alone, but that was of surprisingly mild and beautiful taste once you got past the smell. My own personal taste runs to the tasty, high fat, soft textured French cheeses with a mold crust like Brie, Camembert, Reblochon, but I have not met a well-made cheese so far that I do not like.
In the past 25 years the cheese industry in Québec has evolved greatly in new directions. Still available are the high production commercial cheeses, but a new industry has developed that has created a huge variety of small-production artisan cheeses of all types and flavors that rival the French by their quality and creativity. It is too bad that they also rival them with their prices, but I guess that quality always has its price. Traditional techniques have been imported from France and, to lesser extent, other countries, and the use of “Lait Cru”, unpasteurized milk, is on the rise. As an unabashed lover of “Lait Cru” cheeses I am very happy of the later development. By not pasteurizing the milk and letting its natural bacterial flora flourish these cheeses develop a much more interesting taste that can become very addictive.
It is common, here in Mexico, to serve some cheese as appetizers, but personally I much prefer to have a nice platter of room-temperature cheeses after the meal, to the point of replacing desserts with it. It is a fitting finish to an elaborate meal and it is normally the correct point in the evening to open the best bottle of wine. In my life, many fond memories were made over some nice runny, pungent cheeses with a fittingly appropriate potent wine bottle or three. It leads to inspiration and long lasting friendship of the best kind.
I will have more to say on cheeses in coming weeks, and in the meantime I hope that you can look for a nice piece of cheese to experiment with, for a nice bottle of wine to go with it, and more importantly for the time to relax and truly appreciate them with good friends.
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Experience
I have been wondering about something since last night, and that makes me reflect a lot on many things, to the point of making me somewhat unproductive today. I know that I am not chronologically young anymore, but I still feel like I am young deep down inside me, even though some morning my body reminds me that I am not still in my teens. I have been wondering all day if experience still counts for something in today’s society…
This thought was triggered by watching some cooking show on TV last night. There was not much of anything decent on TV and I was zapping through the channels trying to find something interesting to watch. I came across a cooking show that I had seen advertised on one of the Latin American cooking channels we get on cable, but never actually watched. It was a restaurant based reality show where some young chef, that showed his lack of experience in the way he was running the place and also the attitude of a spoiled kid, was confronted with running a busy restaurant short on staff. This attitude is not entirely related to age, as I know people much older than me that exhibit the same personality traits. What came next is what really floored me when this kid in his mid 20’s, who could not be out of cooking school that long, came on camera and boasted “When I was a young chef”. I could not help commenting to Normita that I probably have socks older than that kid, and how long could he have been cooking professionally to say something like that. If while in his mid 20’s he is considering himself an ‘Old Timer’ what will he consider himself to be in 20-30 years?
This led me to do some serious thinking about what my outlook on life was when I was that age. I clearly remember that, like most people that age, I thought that I knew better than most people my own age, and a lot of older people, but I also remember that I had, and still have a lot of respect for the opinion of people who had done something longer than I had and accumulated a lot of experience. It all comes down to one of my pet peeves of all time, my long-standing lamenting that the old apprentice system of yore is gone, and there is no way for people to learn a trade that takes years to master, as most people want results now without the need to learn it the old fashioned way. I have worked with my hands all of my life, and I know that many skills are beyond what I can do with the time I have to practice them. I also know that if you want to be good at something you have to have some talent, but the most important thing is practice, and practice, and practice, and some more practice.
Back to the cooking world where somebody used to apprentice for years before moving up in the kitchen hierarchy, we now have kids that goes for a few weeks to a few months in a famous kitchen, and move on to another one to improve their resumé, and that they want to be cooking stars a few short years after they get interested in the trade. This lead to what I saw yesterday on TV when a 25 year old ‘Old Timer’ has is own cooking show on TV, plainly shows that he cannot handle the job at hand, that of running a restaurant’s kitchen, and even worse does not even demonstrate good manual skill at the basic prep work for the dishes he demonstrates. The later is a trait that you see often nowadays on cooking show, and I assume that they do not teach basic techniques in cooking school anymore, or worse that they do, but most people do not bother learning and practicing them properly.
I guess that I am ranting again and boring you all, and that what was supposed to be a very short post is turning into a long one, but I firmly believe that experience and basic skills takes time to learn, and that there are no shortcuts to attain them both. I noticed the same trend in my professional life as a programmer, is that there are so many new things to learn that people are more interested in the technology itself, than in making thing actually do something very well, without the need of the latest technology.
A word of advise to anybody passing by here from an ‘Old Timer’ at many things including life, no matter what your goals are in life, no matter what subject you really feel deeply interested in, please take some time developing the basic skills to achieve your goals. It both takes time and a lot of practice, but when you finally grow up and are finally getting a bit of real life experience under your collar, you will learn to appreciate the fact that you actually KNOW a lot more about the subject at hand than a lot of your contemporaries, and one day you will also learn to be proud of that in itself. By the way, this also applies to people my age, as we are never too old to learn anything new, and experience, no matter how old you are to start with, takes a long time to accumulate. As they would say today, knowledge and experience rules!
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Short Introduction
I have been deeply involved with food since my childhood. I remember, when I was 4-5 years old, sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen while she was cooking, and helping her in making cookies and other treats. Our family was from a small village on the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Quebec, and, as with any good French family, food was an important part of our lives. I lived in Montreal with my parents and every weekend we would take the trip “Up-North” to my grandparent’s house and stay with them. You could get in the house, via the kitchen, at any hour of the day or night, and there would be something cooking on the stove or in the oven, and some industrial quantities of freshly prepared food in the refrigerator. I remember, when I was in my late teens, stopping at their place in the middle of the night after the clubs closed, and there was always a freshly baked ham in the refrigerator or some thick stew or soup slowly simmering on the stove. We would dig-in without waking up anyone and fill ourselves with great food before going out again for more revelry.
After my early childhood in my grandmother’s kitchen, my interest for cooking became more formal. In my early teens my mother was taking cooking lessons from one of the best French chefs in Montreal, and when she was returning home I would pour over her lessons and prepare the newly-learned recipes with her. By the time I was at university I was taking regular night classes in various forms of cooking, including many years of traditional Chinese cooking. From then on cooking and later wine became my passions and I have been involved professionally as a food consultant and wine buyer since the mid-eighties as one of my many business endeavors.
I lived in Quebec through my early twenties until I graduated from university, I then moved to Northern Ontario where I worked in private practice. I was involved with 3 careers through the eighties, first as a dentist, second as a food and wine consultant, and third as a computer consultant. By the early nineties I abandoned the first career completely to dedicate myself primarily to the computer business. I have been involved with numerous IT startups since then, and also consulting on IT and the food/wine business. All of this while traveling the world for both pleasure and business.
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Where did all the taste go?
We just got up from the table after a late breakfast and something dawned on me. Where did the taste go in most commercial food products? Recently I bemoaned the lack of taste in high production commercial cheeses that tastes more of plastic than of milk products, but why is this happening with most mass-market food products? I know that according to modern corporate practices and the search for the holy bottom line, large corporations tend to homogenize their products and go for the least common denominator, but is there a universal ingredient called “Flavor” that is so expensive in the future market that most corporations shy away from using it in their products?
This morning we opened a new package of margarine, as well as new packages of “Spreadable” cream cheese and peanut butter. All were supposedly “New And Improved” and were definitely more “Spreadable’ than older formulations, but all were lacking taste. In the quest for “Spreadability” the core of the product flavor was forgotten. The margarine was bland and tasted of nothing, the cream cheese could have been bland thick cream as there was no hint of the slight sourness that is normally associated with the product, and you would have been confronted with a difficult task in trying to decide what was put in your mouth if you had tasted the peanut butter blind. The peanut taste was so light that you had to double the normal amount used to get any hint of it.
Maybe that’s what they are trying to make happen… All of those products were not “Light” versions of the regular brand, so that was not the problem. I looked into it a bit and found out that all the brands we had opened this morning were brands from the same mega-food conglomerate, so this might be a problem that is more specific to them, but I have noticed the trend in recent years in a variety of other brands. Has anybody out there found the same thing recently? Come on big food conglomerates; let’s put the taste back in your products…
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The Dining Experience
I was reading this morning about someone being asked about what was their best restaurant meal in a particular city. It got me thinking as I am not a regular restaurant fiend to start with, as most of the time the food is better at home than in most restaurants, and there is more to the dining experience than the actual food. I have the same problem answering the question ‘What Is My Favorite Food’, as it always depends on my mood at the moment I am asked, how hungry I am, the phase of the moon, and velocity of the wind, and other more esoteric factors.
I have eaten in revered restaurants where the cooking was so good that there is no hope in this lifetime that I will ever be able to attain this perfection in my kitchen, in overrated restaurants living only on their reputation and / or ‘Inness’ factor, in restaurants that serve solid-but-uninspired food, in fast-food joints, in food stalls on the street or in markets where I ended up with food poisoning, and in places that fit anywhere in or out of this spectrum. What makes the dining experience is not the food itself, though it is a major part of it, but it is a combination of food, service, atmosphere, and who you are sharing the meal with.
By nature I tend to stay away from the new ‘Trendy’ places as from past experiences they seem to rely on glitziness, gimmicks, and at times shock food to generate their often undeserved reputations. I know that it is difficult to differentiate yourself from the crowds, but spending millions in decor and nada in the kitchen does not make for a nice restaurant. Also the noise level in a lot of trendy places makes enjoying even the best food in the world very difficult. I also dislike the fact that most of the times you have to reserve a long time ahead to get in. Since most of the time I have no idea what I will be doing in the next hour, let alone in 3 months time, and if I will even be in the mood to go out for that type of food that night. I normally go the reservation route only when I am traveling out of town and I know I will be in need of a restaurant on such and such dates, thus reserving is a no-brainer at those times.
Back to the subject of the dining experience, I have noticed that to have an exceptional experience you need to first have well prepared and presented good food that is pleasant to eat. If for shock value the chef is into weird combinations of food, just for sake of being different, I tend to stay away from their place. The same is for experimental cooking, I am all for experimentation, but if you cannot find focus in a dish you should not serve it to paying clients until you finish playing with the ingredients. I have seen chefs bringing you small serving of dishes they are working on to get feedback, and I am all for that, but I would not build a menu with untried recipes, just as I would not serve untried recipes to guests at home. I have ranted already about dishes that are presented for the ‘Picture’ look, but that are difficult to eat and enjoy, so I will not go there today.
I also tend to stay away from the cult of the ‘Star Chef’. Some of their restaurants are stunning and serve sublime food, but a lot tend to lack in the personal touches. If they are at the head of a culinary empire, chances are that they are not the ones supervising the daily running of their restaurants, and whoever is doing a stellar job at it does not get the recognition they deserve, and normally stays in the background as not to take the stardom from the ‘Star Chef’. It is nice to think about your favorite TV Chef preparing your meal for you in the kitchen, but they are probably at some cocktail party, on the set of their TV show, or on another continent when your visit their restaurants. That does not mean that I have not had exceptional dining experiences in their restaurants…
Now that we have a nicely prepared meal on our plates, we now need good service. The staff should be attentive, and not overbearing. They also should know about the food and the chef’s philosophy. There is nothing more annoying than asking how a dish is prepared, or what an advertised ingredient in a recipe is is, and seeing the staff running to the kitchen to ask. If the menu specifies an ingredient it would be good idea to let the staff know what it is before letting them loose on the public. That is, as long as it does not go to the other extreme and they start pontificating about the type of salt they use, or refuse to bring you salt because the chef does not want you to ruin his dishes with it.
Where was I? A plate of nice food, attentive-but-not-overbearing staff… Next on the list is atmosphere. I tend to prefer a quiet relaxed atmosphere, to a frantic noisy one. That is in my nature, as I abhor noise and hyperactivity. If you have to shout to your dinner companions to get heard, it is does not make for a nice dining experience. I’m not really crazy about church-like atmospheres either, as they make you uncomfortable about having any conversation during the meal. I used to be more tolerant of this in the past, as before I met Normita, I used to travel the world on business alone, and dine in the best places by myself. I could concentrate more on the food, at the detriment of not sharing the experience in those days, but I would not go back to them. Your preference of atmosphere may vary, but you have to be comfortable to enjoy the meal.
Dining companions are important too. I find business meals, especially with new business acquaintances, to be normally strained, as you do not know the people, their tastes, and their ideas. It is a great way to get to know people, and it is one of my prime factors in doing business with anybody. I need to share a nice meal with them so that we can appreciate it together. I tend to stay away from doing business with people who do not share my love of food and wine, and the few times that I have not done so in the past, I paid for it dearly in the long run. Dining with loved ones and close friends is a rewarding experience, and it is one of the nicest things in life.
So, when faced with a question like ‘The Best Restaurant Meal You’ve Ever Had In…’ my answer might disappoint the Trendy Foodies, as the place would most likely not be the latest trendy place or the place to be seen by the proper Foodie crowd. It would likely be a place where I had great food and service, in a relaxed atmosphere, with the people I love. I tend to collect restaurant experiences in my mind as the whole experience, not just the badge of being at the right address. I have been in great restaurants on bad nights, some of my favorite places have also disappointed me at times, and I might have just made the wrong choice on the menu, so the right address is not always the best. The reverse is true and I have had exceptional meals in places where you would expect it the least. With all the ingredients that make a great dining experience put in the equation, the answer might be a big surprise even to you. It is just where you did enjoy yourself the most. What else is there?
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Food Culture
I have been reminded many times recently on the vast contrasts between population with and without food culture. The easiest definition of what is food culture, in my mind, is that populations or people who have food culture live to eat, and those who don’t eat to live. Reduce to its bare essentials this is the simplest definition.
Generally in the northern parts of North America, meaning Canada and the US, the majority of the people do not live to eat, they generally eat to live, thus the great popularity of fast food. The French influence in Quebec is prevalent, though it is moderated by the North American influence, thus the food culture is not uniformly distributed in all the population.
The current climate in North America that is dominated by gourmet food and all of those food channels on TV is not real food culture, as it is a recent fad, and like all fads it will probably fade in the long term. There is also an elitist aspect to that fad that is not part of what I consider food culture. The good thing with such fads is that it may penetrate part of the population and in the long term help establish food culture in some groups of the population.
Our recent trip to Veracruz reminded me of the prevalence of food in my life, and what I consider the tenets of food culture. Like in most regions of Mexico the general population has a much closer relationship with food than elsewhere in North America. It is a cultural thing and people of all classes take their time to eat and enjoy it, and food is an essential part of appreciating daily life.
You see it in the town as people goes out to eat in the middle of the day, and take the time to enjoy the food and relax while eating it. A lot of offices have a 2 hour lunch time, since people like to take the time to enjoy their food. While we were visiting Veracruz we went to various places where the locals congregate to enjoy specialties at various times of the day. On one morning we went to Las Anitas, a little place in the industrial neighborhood that specializes in “Gorditas” and “Picaditas”. We went a little late for breakfast but the place was still crowded and people were eating like there was no tomorrow. On the way out of town we stopped for breakfast at Las Farolitos which was completely full in the middle of the morning, and which specializes in “Tamales De Elote” and other local specialties.
We went to a few seafood restaurants that were both excellent and relatively cheap for the type of meal we could get there. We were in town only for a few days so we did not have a chance to drive a little bit out of the town and visit little fishing villages where supremely good fresh seafood cost less than a fast food meal. We will definitely go back there to visit as the both the food and the people are great and the atmosphere is inviting and relaxing.
Even in Mexico City you see it in the outdoor markets where the food vendors are full of client from early morning to the end of the day, and you can barely move when it is lunch time. On Sunday morning everybody goes out to eat with the family and everywhere from nice restaurants to street vendors are full of clients. The same is true in the evenings where everybody goes out for an evening snack, and itinerant vendors shout their wares even in residential neighborhoods. From “Tamales” to “Sweet Breads”, to “Camotes”, everybody comes out to grab something to eat.
There is a complete obsession for food at all levels of society and traditional food are still king, and the penetration of most fast food place is not as great as other places due to a rich food culture that is shared by everybody. Of course the convenience of fast food is very attractive for the busy families, but a lot of people are more inclined in eating at local fast food concessions, thus in a way the food culture is still prevalent and tied to the local culture.
I will come back to the subject in the coming weeks, and drop me a note in the comments or via email on what is your relationship with food in your neck of the world and how does it compare to the local population.
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My Philosophy
I started as a Gourmet, and over the years my love for the pleasures of good food and good drinks became bigger than my love of the rituals, rules and the complications normally associated with the Gourmet world. For the last 20 years I converted myself from a Gourmet to a Gourmand and I have been crusading worldwide to demystify and simplify the pleasures associated with good food and good drinks. My goal is to teach and help everyone who has an interest in good food and good drinks to appreciate this sensual subject. We have to remember that the pleasures of the table are the only ones that are essential for our survival as an individual. That is probably why that some consider them a sin!
Services Offered to the General Public
- Introductory to advanced cooking classes and conferences
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Services Offered to the Food and Drink Industry
Sourcing Services
- Fine wines from a variety of countries
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- Non-perishable luxury/exotic food items
- Cooking utensils and appliances
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IT services
- Wine/Beer/Food/Cigar/Etc… education kiosks
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Consulting
- Food and beverage business planning
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- Staff and restaurant certification programs
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Curriculum Vitae 2021
J. Luc Paquin 2021 – English & Español
Luc Paquin
Languages Spoken and Written: French, English and Spanish.
Citizenship: Canadian
Luc Paquin
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/luc/
English
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPFoodWineCV2021Mk1c.pdf
Español
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPComidaVinosCVMk2021b.pdf
Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: https://www.jlpconsultants.com/
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Over a period of 39 years various investors wanted Luc to open some restaurants in England and Canada, but since he wanted to keep his independent status and creative control of the process, the negotiations with those various groups fell through. To this day Luc still has some plans along those lines, but in a simpler way based on the “Private Kitchen” concept that is popular in Honk Kong. In this way he will be able to concentrate on his restaurant due to the nature of the concept and also have time for his other interests. He is currently looking for the proper place worldwide to settle down and open both a new cooking and wine school and run his “Private Kitchen” restaurant.
For more than 35 years Luc has been organizing events related to food and wine, giving classes, tastings and seminars to professional and the general public alike, designed technological solutions for the industry, offered his services as a professional consultant, gave motivational and other types of conferences, and generally participated in the food and wine business at many levels.
To this day food and wine form an important part of his life and he dedicates himself to teach people the joys of cooking, fine wines and other important pleasures of life. His informal style, great communication skills and passion for the subjects he teaches makes him an outstanding and entertaining lecturer that makes complex and foreboding subjects appear uncomplicated for the casual learner.
Luc describes himself as a “Gourmand” and has owned and managed a web site under the name www.igourmand.com for over 17 years. A “Gourmand” is a person that takes great pleasures with food and drinks. Different than the “Gourmet” who has a sophisticate palate, the “Gourmand” enjoys the pleasures given by great food and drinks, without the complications normally associated with the “Gourmet” world. Of course one does not excludes the other, but to Luc the pleasure part is the most important one.
Private Kitchen
In the fall of 2023-2024 we plan to open a restaurant base on the “Private Kitchen” concept that is popular in Honk Kong, but with a twist…
The private kitchens first started opening when amateur chefs decided to give restaurants a run for their money. Many operate out of office blocks or residential buildings and have little or no signage, you often only find the specific address when you make a booking. A Private Kitchen, sometimes known as a supper club or closed door restaurant, is a social dining restaurant operated out of someone’s home, generally bypassing local zoning and health-code regulations. They are usually advertised by word of mouth or unwanted advertising. Depending on the area’s law, the establishments may be illegal, even though they have been around for decades. They are becoming increasingly popular in the internationally.
Appeal
The attraction of the Private Kitchen for the customer varies. In some cases, it is the opportunity to sample new food, often at low cost outside the traditional restaurant experience. Guests of the Private Kitchen also cite one of the biggest reasons for enjoying the experience is the social interaction with strangers over food, something this would generally be frowned upon in a traditional restaurant setting. Private Kitchen have been described as “anti-restaurants” for the host, the benefit is to make money and experiment with cooking without being required to invest in restaurant property.
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Curriculum Vitae 2021
J. Luc Paquin 2021 – English & Español
Luc Paquin
Languages Spoken and Written: French, English and Spanish.
Citizenship: Canadian
Luc Paquin
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/luc/
English
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPFoodWineCV2021Mk1c.pdf
Español
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPComidaVinosCVMk2021b.pdf
Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: https://www.jlpconsultants.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neosteam.labs.9/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5eRjrGn1CqkkGfZy0jxEdA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/labs_steam
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/NeoSteamLabs/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luc.paquin/
Lucito
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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Wine #Beer #Spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #Recipe #Consultant
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Since Luc also had a profound interest in technology, he started studying the field of computer graphics that was in its infancy at the time. He invested heavily in computer hardware and software and was part of the beta testers of the first version of CorelDraw in 1988. At the time he became involved with clients worldwide as a professional designer of wine labels.
At the end of the eighties he was part of the negotiating that closed major wine production and exportation contracts with a large state run agricultural company in Yugoslavia (Agrokombinat “13. Jul” Titograd – Yugoslavia).
After many negotiation trips to Yugoslavia he was all packed up to go manage a huge vineyard (60,000 hectares) in Montenegro, then part of the old Yugoslavia, when the war broke in that part of the world. Luckily this happened before he had moved over there.
In 1990 Luc went to work in the south of England in a renowned vineyard that was famous for its white and sparkling wines (Carr-Taylor Vineyards, Hastings, United Kingdom). He learned a lot about vineyard management, viticulture, vinification and elaboration of fine wines.
When he returned to Canada Luc started to produce his own wines using frozen grape juice concentrate imported from various areas of France and later with fresh grapes. He continued producing his own wines until 2000. He was looking forward to the day that he could settle somewhere and manage his own vineyard, and produce his own wine.
In 1992 Luc was again ready to leave his country to spend over a year in South Africa working at various vineyards. He wanted to deepen his knowledge of winemaking, and the wine industry in general. As with his previous attempt to move to an area of the world that was politically unstable, the trip was cancelled at the last minute due to his sponsor’s concerns about his security as South Africa was in the last throws of Apartheid. Instead Luc spent the next many years traveling the world on short trips to various wine-producing regions to learn more about the wine business.
Since the mid-eighties Luc had been attending various prestigious wine events all over the world including the “Wine Spectator” events in New York and San Francisco. He continued doing so until the late 1990’s. Combined with his constant traveling all over the wine producing areas of the world, this permitted him to deepen his long list of contacts in the wine world.
In the first few years of the nineties Luc took a certification course in restaurant and hotel management. Over the years he has continued to be involved with both the professional and the ludic side of the food, beer and wine business. He also designed and programmed technological solutions for these industries. These includes point of sales solutions, eCommerce solutions, wine cellar management solutions, restaurant management solutions, point of profits solutions, food, beer and wine matching engines and databases, professional and consumer software, education kiosks, and much more.
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Curriculum Vitae 2021
J. Luc Paquin 2021 – English & Español
Luc Paquin
Languages Spoken and Written: French, English and Spanish.
Citizenship: Canadian
Luc Paquin
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/luc/
English
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPFoodWineCV2021Mk1c.pdf
Español
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPComidaVinosCVMk2021b.pdf
Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: https://www.jlpconsultants.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neosteam.labs.9/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5eRjrGn1CqkkGfZy0jxEdA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/labs_steam
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/NeoSteamLabs/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luc.paquin/
Lucito
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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Wine #Beer #Spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #Recipe #Consultant
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Luc was born as the only child of a middle-class family of French descent in a small village famous for its ski resort north of Montréal, Québec, Canada. He has nurtured a lifelong interest in cooking that he developed since early childhood at the side of his mother and his grandmother who were consummate cooks. At an early age he studied French cooking with his mother while she was taking classes with one of the most renowned teachers in Montreal, “Professeur Bernard”
In the late 1970’s while studying at university he developed a great interest in wines. One day he decided to start learning more about wine and like everything else he does in his life he had to do it in great depth. Armed with a series of wine encyclopedias, he started to buy wines from all over the world and learned all that he could about them. By the mid-eighties he was a professional wine consultant and had amassed a collection of close to 5000 bottles of wine.
During that same period in the evenings after university he was taking Chinese cooking and painting classes with Dick Chen at the Chen School of Art. This lasted for over 4 years.
Later he was involved in the professional side of the wine and food business both as a consultant and a buyer for a variety of private concerns during the 1980’s and 1990’s. It permitted him to travel the world extensively.
A renowned British wine merchant was his business partner at the time, and he sponsored many of Luc’s business trips during that period and through various contacts in the wine business in Europe and other parts of the world Luc learned a lot about the wine industry in general and wine as an investment in particular.
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Curriculum Vitae 2021
J. Luc Paquin 2021 – English & Español
Luc Paquin
Languages Spoken and Written: French, English and Spanish.
Citizenship: Canadian
Luc Paquin
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/luc/
English
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPFoodWineCV2021Mk1c.pdf
Español
https://www.jlpconsultants.com/JLPComidaVinosCVMk2021b.pdf
Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: https://www.jlpconsultants.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neosteam.labs.9/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5eRjrGn1CqkkGfZy0jxEdA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/labs_steam
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/NeoSteamLabs/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luc.paquin/
Lucito