The amazing wedding of Marie-Fleur St-Pierre

Combining local products from her new adopted region, Kamouraska, with Asian influences and flavors, this is chef Marie-Fleur St-Pierre’s astonishing and tasty offer in these festive times. Take out your Quebec ginger and your hoisin sauce, let’s go!

In Montreal, it is associated with Spanish cuisine. But in Kamouraska, where she now lives, it’s Asian cuisine that thrills Marie-Fleur St-Pierre. That, and then the producers and artisans behind the little local treasures, such as the ginger from the Jardin des Essaimés, in Saint-Alexandre, and the smoked sturgeon from the Poissonnerie Lauzon, in Kamouraska.

Marriage may be surprising, but for the chef, it is natural. His love of Asian food goes back a long way. “I really love it! I have nostalgia for the Chinese buffet of my childhood, where I went with my grandmother, in Repentigny. We ate wonton soups, crispy noodles… She also cooked small bones in the sweet sauce. I also love going for a walk in Chinatown”, says the one who learned the basics of this cuisine at the start of her career, while assisting chef Jean Chen at the Culinary Academy.

The stove is nothing of a purist. What she likes is to work on flavors and textures, to marry traditions and culinary influences according to her desires in order to offer comforting dishes.

Change of scenery

It was somewhat on a whim that Marie-Fleur St-Pierre decided to move her life — and that of her family — to the Kamouraska region. It all started after receiving a message from Christian Bégin, whom she knew from having participated in her show Curious Beginand that she sometimes visited in Saint-Germain-de-Kamouraska, where he had been living for a few years.

The host and actor toyed with the idea of ​​buying an inn and was looking for a cook to operate it. “I told him that I was game. It’s like I wanted to provoke something, even though I wasn’t sure if I could,” she recalls.

The inn project finally fell through, but the opportunity to take over Le Jardin du Bedeau, a grocery store in the village of Kamouraska, presented itself. And it all happened quickly.

One of the reasons that pushed the chef to change air was the search for a quality of life more anchored in a certain slowness and the desire to make up for lost time with her children, whom she saw little, since She usually worked evenings. “I wanted to change my routine, to do a reset. »

Since the duo took over the business in the spring of 2021, the shelves of the grocery store have been stocked more than ever with local and regional products: from Saint-Laurent salt to organic ginger syrup from the Coop du Cap, in Cap- au-Renard, in Gaspésie, through the Fou du Cochon sausages, made in La Pocatière. You can find sought-after Quebec wines, ciders and beers there: Auval, Chemin des Sept, Lieux Communs, Domaine des Feux Follets, a young vineyard located in Berthier-sur-Mer. In addition to cooked meals and homemade products made by the chef every week.

Even if Marie-Fleur already knew well what the region offers for the taste buds, her move allowed her to discover all the richness of the terroir.

village canteen

Dreaming of a region and the great outdoors and living there are two things; those who have chosen to move from the city to the countryside know something about it. If Marie-Fleur, her husband Alexandre and their two children have adapted well to their new life, there have been more difficult times, she admits. While the village of Kamouraska is very lively in summer, the area is (very) quiet during the cold season. “My first winter was good. It’s not in March anymore, when it just kept ending… I was bored, so that’s when we decided to go to the canteen! “says the chef, bursting out laughing.

This canteen is the Asian Canteen of the Jardin du Bedeau, a tiny grocery store located in the heart of the village of Saint-Pascal-de-Kamouraska, where the family has established its quarters. The place offers take-out Asian specialties cooked by the chef, including dumplings, and Asian groceries.

Last year, for her very first Christmas in the region, the chef launched the Jardin du Bedeau Christmas Buffet, which is back this year. She offers a range of tempting dishes with a high degree of comfort, some inspired by traditional Quebec cuisine, others by classic Asian cuisine, in a joyful festive mix. Some examples: raclette toast with onion, fried wonton with duck, pea soup with smoked sturgeon, leg stew or the vintage sandwich bread.

You can order the Christmas Buffet menu until December 12, by phone, messenger or email. There will be a delivery in Quebec on December 17, then in Montreal on December 18.