Académie du gourmet in Embrun
For food-preneur Maryse Lapalme, it’s 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.
“It was probably around 2009,” says Lapalme, who says food and cooking is a true passion. “I decided I wanted a change, so I started the Academy.”
Located on Notre-Dame Street in Embrun, Académie du gourmet provides a wide range of foods, kitchen tools and services that, according to Lapalme, the community around her has embraced.
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.
But times changed and so did peoples’ awareness of the importance of a healthy diet.
“It has gotten a lot better now, including at grocery stores, but we focus on making healthier foods and prepare our menu from scratch,” she says.
The Academy’s meals-to-go, made weekly in the Academy’s kitchen and with a relatively small staff, feature local ingredients and avoid preservatives and additives whenever possible.
Citing what she discovered was a “need” 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’s pie, salmon dishes, pasta sauce, beef Bourguignon and a variety of baked goods, among others dishes.
Tradition plays a role in her cooking, and Lapalme, who is also a certified holistic nutritionist, says her meat pies are very traditional, “very French Canadian.
For more, visit Reflet-News.
[Photo/Gourmet Academie]
