Poivre Media

As I am writing the forward for this page, I can’t help but smile with big teary eyes. Poivre Media was the site that started my documentation of edible culture, and it’s been almost 4 years since it started. I think back to buying my MacBook and how exciting it was; as a newbie to Vancouver I spent most afternoons and evenings curled up writing about EVERYTHING. Poivre Media started off as an iWeb site that was deleted once when my hard-drive had to be replaced. This happened before I had the smart idea of “backing things up”. A few months later. I accidentally deleted the website treatment again, while screwing around with program files. After many, many tears I learned the extreme value of wordpress and online blogging.

In any case, after 4 years and close to 300 postings and millions of pictures it seems, I feel that Poivre Media, like a real life mentorship, allowed me to make mistakes, learn from them and become a better writer. Ultimately, I’m just better for having the chance to share my passions with like-minded individuals that are willing to read. If you look at some of the earlier posts, you’ll likely detect some grammatical and spelling errors, or just general thought-process-juxtapositions that make no sense. I chose to leave them as the fossilized remains that they are, afterall these pieces truly show my evolution…

Without further distraction, here lays Poivre Media’s vision.

- Lauren Mote

Back to my roots.

I believe everyone has an natural attraction to their passion. My passion is food and beverage… but it seemed to start out completely involuntary. When I was a wee tot standing in my Nana’s kitchen, I watched intently as she poured the rum over the Christmas ‘Pudd’ shortly before setting it on fire; that was cooking? Or was it simply her way of recreating a holiday classic, word for word out of a cookbook in order to maintain the traditional feast? I always thought it was incredible to watch things unfold in her kitchen. She was my biggest culinary influence. Not to mention she always let me lick the bowl (see From Nana’s Kitchen for full story).

I have spent the last 15 years cooking in an amateur setting; reading cookbooks, magazines and watching the cooking programs. The introduction of the Food Network helped to simplify the process and remove the fear out of cooking for me, and many other people. I cooked wherever possible, when I was growing up, I was the only one who ever took a keen interest in cooking.

Creating our own history.

On a really humid day in early September 2007, I moved to Vancouver. (see Satisfaction guaranteed, welcome to BC for the full story).

I had spent days and days researching restaurants, wineries, markets and individual product to find the right place to start my new adventure, and Lumiere seems to win me over. That was just the beginning.

So here I was, ready and willing to eat, learn and thrive. A passion like this should be shared, never kept to oneself. Since those days, my expertise and happiness has developed into an incorporation of all things consumable. Between food science, culinary arts, classic mixology, contemporary bartending, molecular gastronomy and mixology, and sommelier certification, I have become a monster in my craft – I get the most satisfaction out of teaching others, while continuing to educate myself. Why not continuously document my excerpts? Done and done. Welcome to Poivre. On September 9, 2007, Poivre Media Company was created. I hope you enjoy what you read.

Lauren Mote