Picnic Perfect
There are few better ways to celebrate summer than a meal outside on a blanket. Picnic meals don't have to be complicated. In fact, the easiest way to get ready for a picnic is to grab some items from stores who specialize in takeout or prepared items. Here are a few suggestions to help make your next picnic great.
A Taste of France
“We only sell our favourite things,” says Jesse Hawes, who, together with his partner Triet Duong, owns Marché Mon Pitou, which opened on Fairview Slopes just east of the South Granville neighbourhood in November 2020. Besides French chocolates and mustards, those favourite things include local picks such as Avalon milk and meats from Two Rivers. Their French-style baguettes are the perfect addition to your picnic basket or give them a call and let them put together a basket for you. For the summer season, they will be offering baskets filled with fresh fruit, charcuterie and sandwich and dessert options.
Hawes took early retirement from WestJet Airlines, leaving a life of flying five to six days per week, while Duong left a career as a biotech recruiter to open Mon Pitou. The pair wanted to open something for a while and had previously operated Le Bouldogue, specializing in home-style French pastries with occasional dates at Vancouver Farmers Markets, while still at their day jobs.
“People were surprised that we would open up during a pandemic. To be honest, we were as well,” Duong explains. But the pair had confidence in their business model. Duong explains that the “three-in-one combination of bistro, café and grocery has served the neighbourhood and themselves well, allowing them to leverage different parts of the business amid ever-changing operational restrictions. Duong and Hawes are enthusiastic about the future, planning to focus more on in- house dining when the pandemic restrictions ease.
Along with Mon Pitou, Duong and Hawes own a couple of bulldogs named Ru and Jellybean. Ru features prominently on their social media accounts. “He’s the maître d’,” Hawes says, laughing. Mon Pitou translates as “my pooch,” a French term of endearment that Hawes, who has French heritage, had as a childhood nickname.
Marché Mon Pitou
1387 West 7th Ave., Vancouver, B.C.
marchemonpitou.ca | @marchemonpitou
Don't Forget the Dessert
The Pie Hole’s box of nine assorted mini pies helps you pack a picnic with a dessert for everyone. The boxes are filled with a baker’s choice of five flavours that change weekly. But “we always try to include the classics,” says owner Jenell Parsons. The classics include apple, the company’s best-selling pie, and, for the summer season, favourites such as blueberry goat cheese basil, raspberry cream crumble and strawberry rhubarb, with fruit from Aldergrove’s Black Table Farm. The company also plans to add custom picnic boxes this summer.
Parsons sold her first pie at a 1950s car show, or “Show & Shine,” at the Main Street institution, The Whip. “There I was dressed up as this 50s housewife in high heels, selling pies among the 1950s cars,” Parsons says. That theme has carried through to the retro branding of The Pie Hole when she opened her first location on Fraser Street late in 2011. She eventually closed that location due to redevelopment and now operates two locations, one in Burnaby, where all the pies are made, and a second satellite location in Kitsilano. She added a cookbook in 2020 and has also appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
Parsons is a painter and artist and sees pie as just another medium, acknowledging that she enjoys the instant gratification that comes with the positive customer feedback. But the reasons she’s “into pie” go much deeper. “The memories we create around pie are so powerful. We’ve had people have some pretty emotional reactions,” she says, adding that pie often reminds us of other pie makers in our past.
The Pie Hole
1864 West 4th Ave., Vancouver, 7832 6th St., Burnaby, B.C.
thepiehole.com | @thepiehole
To Your Health
Santé en Cannette is a mix of Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc, gently carbonated and packaged in a sleek can. Intentionally crafted to have lower alcohol and thus calories, it’s a lighter and convenient option for days spent at the beach or in the park, fitting ever so neatly into your picnic basket.
Situated in the Similkameen Valley on approximately 150 acres outside of Keremeos, Corcelettes Estate Winery has about 27 acres of vines planted, and is led by Jesce and Charlie Baessler. The couple describe themselves as transplants. Jesce hails from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut and Charlie’s roots are in Switzerland, where his family farm was called Corcelettes. They met in the Similkameen Valley while they were spending the summer with their respective parents, who had moved there at the same time. In 2011, they had what Charlie calls their first “meaningful release” and today they produce 5,500 cases a year with their portfolio consisting primarily of Bordeaux varietals, Syrah and Pinot Noir.
To produce Santé en Cannette, all vines and fruit are tended, harvested and sorted by hand. Charlie uses a process of reverse osmosis, where ethanol is isolated and removed from the wine to drop the alcohol content. The base wine is then carbonated at canning time. “Stone fruits really come through from the Pinot Gris with the Pinot Blanc, bringing in notes of citrus. There is a lasting zip of acidity that makes this really clean and fresh,” he says, explaining that the experience of drinking from the can is immediate — all the flavours and aromas are preserved.”
Corcelettes Estate Winery
2582 Upper Bench Rd, Keremeos, B.C.
corceletteswine.ca | @corcelettes_winery
