General

General posts

Experience

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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Restaurant #Taste #Beer #Spirits #Wine #Consultant

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Experience

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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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Lucito

Short Introduction

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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Restaurant #Taste #Beer #Spirits #Wine #Consultant

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Short Introduction

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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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Lucito

Language

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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Restaurant #Language #Beer #Spirits #Wine #Consultant

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Language

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Language

From experience the only real solution is to practice and practice and practice with a native or very fluent speaker. I am a French Canadian from Québec, though now I think in English because that language has been my work language all of my adult life. It is also the language I use at home as my wife is Mexican and we met years ago when she did not know French and I did no know Spanish.

I am currently living in Mexico, but immersion is not sufficient to actually speak the language very fluently unless you are forced to speak it. After almost 13 years living here I am fluent enough for doing business negotiations in Spanish as I do not have much chance speaking it in that context. I understand everything and watch TV daily in Spanish, but since I never had any grammar classes I still have problems with the verbs as I tend to only speak in the present tense which get to be a pain. The main reason for this is that I work from home and communicate almost entirely in English, when we go out together I got in the habit years ago to let my wife handle most of the general conversations as I did not understand at all in those days, and most business I do locally is normally handled in English. I guess that it is sheer laziness on my part as when I am forced to be on my own for a few days the fluency increases tremendously as I am forced to use the language.

From past research that I did some years back while writing some English as a second language software for my wife to use in some English classes she was giving locally, I found the following:

  • 1. Most word game software are very helpful to build vocabulary, but you eventually hit a wall after a while unless the games also teaches you how to build and structure phrases.
  • 2. The quickest way to gain a working knowledge of a language is to use or take a conversation course where you are forced to use the language.
  • 3. To reinforce your conversation skills you also need to study the grammar as without knowing the rules you cannot logically construct meaningful phrases.

How to make that fun is very different from person to person, and it all depends on the use of the language you will have. To start interaction course can be fun as they help you build vocabulary in a fun way, but they are not enough to really learn a language. Taking a conversation class after some preliminary vocabulary building is probably the most productive and would give you the most rewards as you can interact in the language very quickly. Then, if you want to deepen your knowledge you will need to learn the grammar as without that knowledge you cannot really use the language properly. Of course after learning the basics immersion especially while traveling can be the most fun as it can bring fantastic experiences.

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Lucito

Luc Paquin – Section 2

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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Wine #Beer #Spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #Recipe #Consultant

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Luc Paquin - Section 2

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Luc Paquin - Section 2

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Luc Paquin - Section 2

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Luc Paquin - Section 2

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Luc Paquin - Section 2

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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/
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Lucito

Luc Paquin – Section 1

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#iGourmand #Lucito #LucPaquin #Food #Wine #Beer #Spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #Recipe #Consultant

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Luc Paquin - Section 1

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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
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Lucito

iGourmand – Gastronomy and Luxury Goods Business

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#iGourmand #Lucito #food #recipe #beer #wine #spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #consultant #zoom #videoblog

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iGourmand

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A Concept for a New Kind of Gastronomy and Luxury Goods Business

This document is to outline a business concept that has been in the back of my mind for many years. The main reason that it is still in the back of my mind is that the project requires substantial commitments and financing and that I was always waiting to find a place where I wanted to settle down and for other projects to move forward to be able to start this one.

After postponing it for a couple of decades, I think that it is a good idea to bring it to the forefront and actually work on making it come through as the time seems right. This document is not a business plan, but a way to put all the ideas that have been turning in my head for so many years. I plan to present it to various people to see if the project makes sense and is worth investing substantial efforts in preparing a formal business plan and finding proper financing.

What is missing in most gastronomy business?

For a large part of my live I have been living in areas where the local availably of high-end or gourmet food, wine, beer, spirits and luxury items was at best spotty. You could find some of the things required for gourmet cooking and luxury items in some places, but availability was always difficult, so I normally did my ‘luxury’ shopping when I was traveling to cities where they were available. I remember when I was living in Sudbury, in Northern Ontario; I used to make infrequent trips to Montreal to load up on things from the wine cellar to the kitchen and more. In those days Montreal was always a better choice than Toronto as more was available and at a better price.

The main problem with these trips was finding the time to hit all the right shops in a reasonable amount of time. A typical trip to Montreal would start by me stopping at a large shop that specialized in tableware and cooking tools. I normally picked up some crystal glasses and a variety of kitchen gadgets there. The next step was to stop at the fancy wine, beer, liquor store downtown, the “Maison des Vins” and load up on everything I could find from champagnes, wines, beer, Armagnac, and whatever else I could find. While downtown I would stop at my favorite cigar shop, and also do a bit of shopping for luxury items. I would also visit Chinatown for all my Chinese cooking needs. On my way out of town I would pick up 12 dozen bagels at the Fairmont bagel factory. Next stop was my butcher to pick up some fresh vacuum-packed foie gras, and stop at a nice fish place where I would get some frozen scampi, assorted seafood, smoked salmon, some canned foie gras, oscietra and beluga caviar, truffles, and whatever else I needed back home. I normally drove back to Sudbury straight from the shopping trip several thousands of dollars poorer, but I had my luxury supplies for the next 3-6 months.

This was over 38 years ago and even back in those days I was always thinking that somebody should put together a proper gourmet, luxury item shop so that people looking for the best could have a one stop place to go for all of their needs. Some large department stores offer a lot of those items, but normally at a huge premium and choice can be spotty in periods outside of the holiday season. Another problem with most large department stores is that they do not normally group these various items in a way that is shopper friendly and you end up going up and down the store with heavy bags to do all of your shopping.

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Curriculum Vitae 2021

English
https://www.igourmand.com/cv/JLPFoodWineCV2021Mk1c.pdf

Español
https://www.igourmand.com/cv/JLPComidaVinosCVMk2021b.pdf

Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: http://www.jlpconsultants.com/
Web: https://zoom.us/
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Lucito

iGourmand – Eat, Drink, Man, Woman – Where ‘La Gourmandise’ is not a sin!

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#iGourmand #Lucito #food #recipe #beer #wine #spirits #FoodDrinkIndustry #FoodIndustry #DrinkIndustry #consultant #zoom #videoblog

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iGourmand

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iGourmand

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iGourmand

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iGourmand

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iGourmand

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What is a Gourmand?

A Gourmand is a person who takes great pleasure in food and drinks. Different than the Gourmet who is someone that has a sophisticated palate, the Gourmand enjoys the pleasures given by good food and drinks, without the complication normally associated with the Gourmet world.

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 16 years I converted myself to a Gourmand and I have been crusading 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
Introductory to advanced wine/spirits/beer classes and conferences
Introductory to advanced food and wine/spirits/beer matching classes
Wine/spirits/beer tastings
Food and wine/spirits/beer events for singles
Romantic food and wine/spirits/beer events for couples
Seminars on food/wine/spirits/beer/cigars/luxury items/etc topics
Event planning and catering
Home kitchen design services
Wine cellar design services
Wine collection evaluation services
Wine investment consulting services
Motivational classes

Services Offered to the Food and Drink Industry

Sourcing Services

Fine wines from a variety of countries
Fine spirits from a variety of countries
Fine beers from a variety of countries
Non-perishable luxury/exotic food items
Cooking utensils and appliances
Fine tableware and crystal
Perishable luxury/exotic food items
Fine cigars
Other luxury items

IT services

Wine/Beer/Food/Cigar/Etc education kiosks
Client reward programs
Branded cooking and other software
Food/Wine matching engine
Cutting edge web-portal
Cutting edge POS and management software
Multilingual food and wine blogs

Consulting

Food and beverage business planning
Business plan analysis
Restaurant analysis and consulting
Menu analysis and preparation
Wine list analysis and preparation
Professional classes (cooking, food prep, sanitation, wine, spirits, beer, sommelier, etc)
Staff motivation seminars
Event planning and catering
Restaurant design
Franchising
Software and IT consulting
Software POS and management solutions
Vineyard Weather Monitoring
Vineyard Automation and Machine Learning Grapevines
Wine and viticulture consulting
Commercial kitchen design services
Wine cellar design services
Wine collection and cellar evaluation services
Wine investment consulting services
Staff and restaurant certification programs

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Curriculum Vitae 2021

Curriculum Vitae – English

Curriculum Vitae – Español

Web: https://www.igourmand.com/
Web: http://www.jlpconsultants.com/
Web: https://zoom.us/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neosteam.labs.9/
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Lucito

Lucito – Speaking

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#Lucito #iGourmand #Speaking #Vlog #Aphasia

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Lucito - Speaking

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Montreal, Canada – 2002
Mexico City, Mexico – 2010
Mexico City, Mexico – 2012
Aphasia – 2018
Aphasia – 2019
Aphasia – 2020

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Lucito

Lee Valley – Stainless-Steel Rasp and Zester Holder

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Lee Valley: 27W02.12

This rasp has been the subject of articles in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), and dozens of other newspapers. It can be seen regularly on TV cooking shows and is enthusiastically praised by leading chefs. For a tool that started life as a lowly wood rasp, this is high living.

Fame in the food world came about when a Lee Valley woodworker’s wife discovered that her husband’s new wood rasp would zest oranges. This discovery rapidly led to expanded uses such as zesting lemons, grating nuts and ginger, reducing a clove of garlic to near liquid in seconds, etc.

The single most spectacular and practical use was with hard cheese for use on pasta or in salads. Because it actually cuts the cheese into gossamer-thin shavings rather than grating it into small chunks, it is possible to use much less cheese for equivalent flavor impact when compared with grated cheese. Rasp is stainless steel, 12″ long.

All of this utility has been enhanced by our patented design of a stainless-steel base that makes the rasp easier to hold and also contains the zested material.

Rasp made in USA, zester holder made in Canada.

Lucito

Measures for Pans and Dishes

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Measures for Pans and Dishes
InchesCentimeters
9 by 13 inches baking dish22 by 33 centimeter baking dish
8 by 8 inches baking dish20 by 20 centimeter baking dish
9 by 5 inches loaf pan (8 cups in capacity)23 by 12 centimeter loaf pan (2 liters in capacity)
10 inch tart or cake pan25 centimeter tart or cake pan
9 inch cake pan22 centimeter cake pan

Lucito

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