March 12, 2020 • 52 mins
Living in our hometowns and going to work and living our lives day-to-day, it's easy to forget just how enormous North America is and the wide range of places and experiences it holds. We have a lot of opportunities here to see something different within a short flight, and one of those places that really holds something different and special is a place I used to live in my teens and early 20s, and that's Montreal, Quebec, in Canada. It is an amazingly international and chic, artistic city that's easy to get around on foot. And with its mix of cultures, its open air markets, its architecture and scenery, it may be the closest thing North America has to a European city. And it's right next door.
This episode, I'll also talk to Paul Harry Touissant, executive chef of Agrikol, a Haitian restaurant owned by another pair of Montreal celebrities, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne of the Arcade Fire.
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @hughacheson
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So traveling, it can be an endeavor sometimes to go
a long distance and see something completely different. But in
North America, I think we have a lot of opportunities
to see something completely different within a two our flight,
and oftentimes we we'd neglect to see that. We'd neglect
to open the drapes and and look out the window
(00:22):
to something completely different that's just beyond the horizon. That's
that's really seems so close, and it really is. And
one of those places a place I actually lived for
a while, uh in my late teens and early twenties,
which is Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I'm Hugh Atchison and this
(00:44):
is the passenger from my Heart Radio. I travel a
lot for work as a chef. I'm really interested in
what makes these places tick. So i'll give you my take.
I'm where to go, what to do, what I find intriguing,
and we'll also talk about immersing yourself in the culture
and what it means to go to a place as
a visitor as a passenger. Later on, we're gonna get
(01:10):
Paul Harry Tuson on the phone. He's the chef at Agricole,
a Haitian restaurant in Montreal, and I'll get feedback on
what I've done and where I should have gone at
the travel show. My name's Hugh Atchison. Let's do this.
Montreal is a two hour flight from Atlanta. I live
in Athens, so you know, three hour travel time with
(01:32):
the the drive to the airport. And it is an
amazingly international and sort of chic and artistic and interesting
and pedestrian city. UM. You know, when we talk about
a timeline of Montreal and in a lot of ways
the history of Canada, you talk about the Iroquois people
who are the indigenous natives and Indians of that region.
(01:56):
They occupied the island of Montreal and up comes carch
A car Cha sort of is the first white person
to sort of meet with him, and UM figures this out,
tries to do a settlement there, doesn't really work. Champlain
later on does a settlement there. Uh. Then later on,
in eighteen thirty two, the city of Montreal is actually founded. UM.
(02:18):
Then the real game changer is is a canal built
UM so industry can come in and it becomes one
of the main grain hubs. UM from the interior of
the US and in Canada, where along with St. Lawrence,
UM where all the grain was was coming from farms
and would be put on boats and and shuttled up river.
(02:39):
And the St. Lawrence is just this opening to the Atlantic.
That's a massive, massive economic hub and very important in
a beautiful river, and that's the Lachine Canal was built.
Then we have two marquee points in Kipequa and Montreal history.
The Montreal Expo in the Exposition ninety seven was thought
to be the the pre eminent expo of its time.
(03:02):
And then the nineteen seventy six Olympics, Nadia Comanchi and
people like that. It was a really seminal thing. And
all that campus of crazy Olympic buildings is still there.
It looks kind of like it was designed by some
blind Soviet architect in some ways, but it is all there,
and some of it's pretty amazing, and some of it's
kind of stark brutalist. UH. In the late seventies and
(03:25):
eighties we see the rise of UM Party quebecqua separatist
movement to nationalism, and that really marked a really independent
spirit within Quebec to identify their culture and protect it.
A lot of laws within Montreal and Quebec proper UH
sort of protective French language and the French way of life,
(03:45):
and um, you know, separatism from the rest of Canada
is still a heartbeat, but it's not what it was
in the seventies and eighties. So now we come to
Montreal now, which is this amazing artistic hub that's really nearby.
And there a couple of things that you really need
to know about Montreal because it's a great place to
go that that will be blew your mind with with
(04:07):
how European and interesting it is. Um. When I was
young in Montreal, i lived in the Plateau and the
Plateau is kind of a area that straddles the mountain
and then goes all the way over to pass in
a knee and that that's the North South Street and
then Saint laurents sort of in the center and that's
the North South Street and uh there are bars and um,
(04:29):
different shops and bakeries and bagel places and it just
it it totally changed everything about my way of life
in a number of years, from how do you shop
and you get your bags out and you get your
backpack on, and you go and buy coffee ru up
and you go and buy salami at just down the street,
and then you go to the butcher and you buy
(04:50):
um a pork chop. And you go to um Care,
which is this amazing produced store, and you buy your produce,
and then go up the street to Bout and you
buy bread and rye bread, and and then you go
up to Fairmount Bagel and you buy bagels and you
go to the cheese shop. And that European idea of shopping.
(05:11):
And maybe it's not just European, maybe it's just worldwide,
but it doesn't. You know, it's not big box supermarket
and it it transcended everything, but it brought this joy
and search of rode viva to shop like that. So
what do I do with all this food that I've
accumulated on this wonderful walk around the city. Well, one
of my part time jobs out of cooking was also
(05:32):
being a nanny. So if I didn't have a two
year old or one and a half year old with
me in a baby carriage, I would probably just go
back to my apartment. And I had roommates, and I
had a lot of friends, and you know, I've been
cooking professionally for at that point, since I was fifteen,
so you know, six years. So I knew a fair
(05:52):
bit about food and how to work with it, but
I became the place where people would come over and
give a couple of bucks and to make some food
and uh it you know, taught me so much about
necessity and sustenance and how to feed yourself and how
to make carbonera for a crowd and um, all those
(06:14):
things sort of go directly into still what I do
every day. So Montreal left such an imprint on me,
and even in a four days stint, it'll leave an
impression on you too. So going back now, and you know,
I went to university there for like two years, and
I think they went to bout ten classes dropped out
of the university and I've been cooking the whole time.
(06:36):
But I really got to see Montreal in so many ways,
hanging out of the mountain and uh in bars on celeron,
living in the plateau and having a roommates and uh
living on the cheap and Montreal is that type of
place where you can still do that. I used to
go to Montreal Exposed Games. Montreal expos are now the
Washington Nationals, uh and they played at the Big Oh,
(06:57):
which was the old Olympic Stadium, and the chance of
the bilingual chance of the vendors in the stadium always
struck me as interesting. It's like Shesho hot dog, hot dog,
Bierre beer, Bierre beer, and that's how they would sell things.
And I would play a lot of snooker. I'd go
up to Blue Mareal which is um Mount Royal Street, um,
(07:20):
and go to a place called It was then there
and now it's moved and gotten larger, but it was
called Labinary, which is famous for there are a couple
of iconic kibitua dishes, you know, most notably poutine um.
But this was favoloud, which are navy beans slowly cooked
and braized and with maple syrup. And it's kind of
the baked beans of Canada. And it's got a lot
(07:41):
of pork lard in there, and it's, uh, just a
seminal moment. And at the pool hall, we'd order oh,
these western omelet sandwiches on a white bread toasted um
and drink up, you know, a Molsen beer and play
pool and then you know, at night we'd go and
uh hang out of the bar. We used to go
(08:01):
to this bar on Celarent which is still there, called
bif tech uh and uh, which is was it's an
old Portuguese steak as at one point and really had
reverted being a at the time relatively hipster bar. So
it hang out and Rufus Wainwright would be djaying and
Melissa off Tomorrow would be hanging out, and uh, you know,
Nirvana would come by and when their first one of
(08:23):
their first tours and things like that. So it was
an interesting place to be in Old Montreal, which is
sort of south of the Plateau and south of Sherbrooke.
Um you uh, you've got some really identifiable, amazing buildings
such as the Notre Dunk Cathedral, which was originally built
(08:45):
in sixteen seventy two, but it was was way too
small and uh so in eighteen seventy two to eighteen
seventy nine was rebuilt in this amazing Gothic revival Old
Montreal monolith of a church. And you see that of
architecture that's so important everywhere around Montreal, all the pedestrian
and all the neighborhoods in Old Montreal, and if you
(09:06):
talk about the Mile End and Plateau and even going
uh in in that sort of center of Montreal really
evokes the books of you know st Urbans Horsemen and
all those books about Montreal, uh that that showcase these
three level houses and town houses that are all connected
(09:29):
in a block, and they're all brick. Way back when
they were would but they got really good at using
stone and brick and and so they're each floor is
an individual house in itself, and they kind of go
way back and there's a cutaway in the in the back,
so you have windows in the rear part of it.
But that's pretty much every every house in that region
(09:50):
of Montreal. It's kind of amazing to see that consistency
of architecture. But they don't not look the same because
they're all different colors and things like that. So, but
going to Montreal these days is easy, and you know,
you can get three or four direct flights a day.
You know, Delta is really easy from Atlanta or really
nationwide to get directly to Montreal. Usually are going to
fly on an Embryo or a Canadair type plane uh
(10:16):
bamba j um with the h When you walk past
first class, that's got the single seat and then the
other side it's got the double seat. And that's a
little amazingly fast style of plane. That I'll get you
up there in a jiffy. When you land, you're gonna
be landing at either door Vale or Mirabell Airport. Mirabelle
was built by the government, um years ago and kind
(10:37):
of I don't know exactly when it was built, and
I can look it up, but um, I don't know
why it was built. Must be a strange tax thing
because it's in the middle of nowhere and takes you
an hour and a half to get back to Montreal. Um.
So fly into door Vale. It's much easier fifteen minutes
than into town. Um, because there's this you know, you're
you're in the Laurentian Mountains at this point, or very
(10:59):
close to the around some mountains. On the other side,
the Mountain Ridge is going to be the gat knows
close to Ottawa where I'm from. Um. But so it's
it's just amazing country right outside of Montreal. If you
go south, you're very quickly in the United States. Um.
That's how closed Montreal is to the border. It really is.
Where Montreal is right on the River of St. Lawrence.
(11:19):
It's an island in the St. Lawrence and on the
other side is a very brief amount of Canada and
then you're gonna hit the American border. I've been staying
in the last number of trips have done. Um not
(11:41):
either if I'm feeling spending at the Ritz Carlton, which
is a stunning, stunning, beautiful Ritz Carlton right on Sherbrook,
or the Intercontinental which is just off Sherbrooke. Um. The
thing about Canada these days and traveling to places like
Montreal or Vancouver, Otto, or Toronto or St. John or
Fogo Island, um is imagine if you got twenty five
(12:02):
cents back for every dollar you've spent. That's extension essentially
the exchange rate right now. And really things aren't noticeably
more expensive on the valuation in Canada. So your your
your dollar Canadian is costing you seventy five cents Americans.
So your your money is going a really long way
right now. So it's a prime time to get up
and and go to Montreal. Um. There's a big bagel
(12:24):
debate in Montreal, and there are two main bagel companies
who have kind of long been that quiet way war
sometimes in de tont but as Fair Amount Bagel and
San Dia Tar Bagel. If you haven't had a Montreal bagel.
It's very different from what you know is those overblown,
puffy things. What's your New York style bagels? Um Montreal
(12:44):
bagels are well in my case, I in my opinion
that I think they're far superior. Uh, they're more, Uh,
they're denser. Uh, they're smaller um and but in in mass,
but they're kind of larger. And they're cooked and woodburning
ovens on these really long wooden planks. They shovel them
(13:05):
up like large spatula, and then they put that into
the oven and they flip it over and they they
lie on the bottom of this wood hearth and then
they pulled poke it back under or beside them, and
nap underneath the bagels and lift them out. And uh,
you used I used to go to bagel shops at
like four o'clock in the morning because they'd still be
producing for the next day and they were open for sale,
(13:27):
and you'd buy a six six in a steaming paper
bag and take them home with a smear of cream
cheese and toast them to your delight. And they're an
amazing thing. Fairmont bagel and savia Ur bagel are both
to my mind. They're they're very similar styles, but they've
just um argued for space in the market for a
(13:47):
really long time. Uh. There's a similarly important Jewish community
within Montreal, and that's given us great things like Schwartz's
Smoked Meat Um, which is an amaze using smooked meat
classic emporium on Saint Laurent. Uh. There's also Beauties, which
is a great sort of breakfast and lunch place for
(14:08):
bagels and locks and eggs and things like that. And
um Beauties is uh probably my favorite breakfast place in
the entire world. And it just evokes so much and
is so good and it just feels you just feel
like you're in the right place. And it's one of
those places that's been around for eons but has just
(14:30):
pertinent and interesting graphic design. And the patriarch of Beauties
recently passed away um about a year ago, but the
place still lives in infamy and will be continued in
good hands for a long time. Back to Schwartz as
Swartz as Uh you go and you have, you know,
a beautiful, amazing smoked meat sandwiche on steamed seated rye
(14:53):
bread with um yellow mustard and the smoked meat is
cut hot out of the steamer and uh, you know
smoke meats kind of like a stromy and it's just
it's cured for a long time and then lightly smoked
and then uh, setting the steamer and you get it
a medium fat, medium fat or lean or fatty, uh,
(15:14):
depending on how you like it. And it's just it's
stacked high on this classic deli style and then you
get coldslaw various sides with it. And the waiter comes
over and he's worked there for fifty five years and
it's a handwritten ticket that's delivered to you, and it's
just it. You know, it compares to Montreal or Montreal
(15:36):
Delis in that way, compared to New York Delis in
some way. But the key is, you know, New York
delis of a menu that's about eighteen pages long. Uh,
and Montreal just doesn't believe in that. It's like, you
do one thing well, and that's what you that's what
you do, and and that's that's the beauty about that
singular idea uh in food that I think is is
(16:00):
long lived in in in its very uh, it's so
pure in its in its idea, but it's sort of
it's contemporary too now which is really interesting. There's an
amazing selection of I like papers and pens and doodling
and all that, and hence this whole show is about
the lists I write and the places I go. But
there's a paper Japanese paper shop called Peccadio Chapone, which
(16:24):
literally translates to Japanese paper. Amazing paper and pen store.
There's another one on Sherbrook called Peppeteri nota Bene, which
has the most singular and most interesting collection of pins
I've ever seen. Not expensive pens, just really interesting pens
and pencils and paper and envelopes and all these things.
There's an amazing coffee shop which is kind of the
(16:45):
mac Daddy and o g coffee shop right next to
Peppei nota Bene, which is called Piccolo, and Piccolo is
the place to go for a really beautiful espresso. There's
tons of new coffee shops uh in Montreal that have
propped up in the last five years or so. Um.
But that's amazing. And but Sherbrooke is a beautiful street
to wander down because you're gonna go right past McGill University,
(17:07):
You're gonna go towards the museum um the Fine Arts Museum,
which they did bog Um and it's just an amazing strow.
But all of Montreal is that way in a lot
of ways. I like you just you want it. You
want to wear your walking shoes because you're going to
get out there if you get Old Montreal. There's an
amazing restaurant that's been around for a while called Olive
and Gormando. That's great if you're in the Plateau Um.
(17:31):
Recently the New York Times to a piece on this
restaurant and which I've been too many, many many times. Um,
which is called lex Press lex Plus is um, uh
the best b stro outside of France in North America.
It is classic, it's pure, it's simple, amazing wine program,
(17:52):
beautiful girkins and mustard that comes to the table first,
and then you get that. You know, you can get
a walker up late if you don't have trouble with that,
or you can get a beautiful like um muscles and
all these different really classic French dishes. Um. There's just
amazingly done and beautiful. Uh. There's an amazing farmer's market,
(18:14):
Jana Market, which is more north but worth your time
to go to. Uh. There's also a really contemporary sort
of movement of restaurants that started years ago. I worked
at a restaurant called Buen on that day, and right
across the street was a restaurant called the Globe. And
when I was working at Buen on that day, Um,
there are two guys working at the Globe, Um who
(18:36):
were the founders of Joe Beef UM and uh they've
done an amazing job sort of creating a bit of
an empire more in the region of Little Burgundy. Uh.
And Little Burgundy was just a sort of as a
really old school neighborhood when I was there, we lived
in Plateau, and you know, twenty minutes away was a
Little Burgundy. But Little Burgundy has really um been the
(18:59):
home of of so many great restaurants in what we
know as Montreal restaurants in the press these days. So
starting with Joe Beef, then they opened up Liverpool Tavern. Uh,
then they opened up Papillon Um. From there, the chef
from Faint Papillon opened up lape Um. All of those
restaurants in that family and then the subsequent offshoots of
(19:23):
it are amazing worth every dime that you will ever
spend there and The reason is that they've got that
authenticity that you look for in great restaurants that you
rarely rarely find. Like you walk into these restaurants and
you just it just feels right, and the food is rich,
and it's fun and challenging in some ways, but technically
(19:44):
really well done, and it's really really beautiful places. There's
some other really amazing um restaurants that are kind of
really important, Opiate to Clachan, which is one of the
o g s of sort of the new movement of
Kuepequa food Um, long known for crazy uh funk raw
dishes and things like that. The chef from Opiatic Constrol
(20:04):
also has a place out in the country called Cabana
suk which is a old maple sugar shack that is
open seasonally. And if you ever get to Montreal and
can get or drive out there, which is about forty
five minutes away, you're gonna enjoy every moment of Cabanazukre.
When the passenger comes back from break, we're gonna get
(20:25):
Paul Harry Tuson on the phone. He's the chef at
Agri Cole, a Haitian restaurant in Montreal. He is a
Haitian who moved to Montreal when he was eighteen years old.
And he'll tell you about his many passions because he's
a very passionate man. But really he's going to talk
about why Montreal is just so important and why did
she get there. I'm Hugh Atchison and this is the
(20:53):
passenger from my Heart Radio. When you look at Montreal
in a place of what's the future of Montreal, I
think you're seeing a lot of gentrification there. I think
in going back, it's very different from when I went
to school there twenty some odd years ago, almost thirty
years ago. Got him old what happened? Um? But I
think that the place that they are seminole are still
(21:14):
there and uh and worth every penny. There's a place
called Maison Publique that's great. Uh. There is a Daniel
restaurant in the in the Ritz Carlton that's amazing. Um.
But you know, you can see there's so many different
uh styles of food. There's a lot of Greek food
on Duluth Street in the Plateau region. Kind of some
(21:38):
of that's a bit touristy. If you go south, just
entering intold Montreal, you're gonna go into Chinatown, you're gonna
find a lot of really good noodle shops and things
like that. Um, there's a place called La Bremner that's
really good. Uh there's a beautiful restaurant called Le Comptoire.
So you know, there's just so many places to go
and so many excuses to go to a place like Montreal.
(22:00):
It's just I think you just need to really plan
about what you like weatherwise, because if you're talking about
a place that sees four definitive seasons in a year, Uh,
it'll freeze your feet off in winter and it's very
hot and um not air conditioned abundantly in in summer.
(22:23):
So in between is amazing. But summer does have great things.
Uh there's the jazz Festival, which is amazing. Uh. There's
a comedy festival which is unreal as well and gets
is one of the most important comedies festivals in the
United States or in North America. Um. And then in spring,
springs a really special time in Montreal because if you've
(22:46):
been cooped up in an apartment in negative twenty degree
weather for three to four months and you go outside
and the snow is melted and uh, showing off all
the dogship underneath on top of the little bit bits
of grass in the park. But then there are tulips
coming up between those piles. UH, there's a lifting and
(23:13):
a lifting of spirit and this sort of drive of
emotion that makes you just want to go out and
enjoy and an's around and and that's Montreal in the spring.
And so it's to me go in the spring or
go in the summer, and it's a beautiful time. You
will have an amazing time all the time of Montreal,
(23:33):
but those are the times to really go. When I
was growing up, the Canadians and Montreal Canadians, the hockey
team used to play in UH the Forum, the old Forum,
and now they play the Most in Center. It's a
couple of moston Center UM. And we used to go
buy you could buy five or ten dollar seats, but
weren't seats. They're standing room only between the sections. So
(23:57):
you get there and they're very big, lineup and you
can buy your taking your Ushian and you drape your
coat over the part of the railing and that would
automatically save it. In the system that they had of UM,
this sort of kind empathetic system of UH crafting your
space within a very busy Hulla Balue crowd. But going
(24:18):
to a Montreal Canadians game is a seminal experience if
you do go in the winter or spring. Hockey season
starts in October and it seems to end in October.
It seems like it's almost all year round now. The
playoffs last forever. UH in Montreal is maybe not the
team they once were right now, but it is. You
(24:38):
want hockey culture, go there. The museum, the Fine Arts
Museum on Sherbrooke is an amazing museum, so it goes there.
Um go for high tea at the Ritz because it's
one of the most beautiful ritz Is in the world,
and Saturday high tea in a place like that, and
then wandering down Sherbrooke afterwards is an amazing, amazing thing.
(25:01):
Wander through the the the actual mountain, moreal in the
park and go to the very top and wander back
down and watch the drum circles on a Sunday and
things happening, and then wander over to the plateau and
have an espresso somewhere and then wander around and get
some bagels. To me. It's just it is Europe on
(25:21):
your doorstep. That's a two hour flight away. But in
the twenty years that I've lived there, twenty five years
i've lived there ago, a lot of things have changed.
So let's call somebody and figure out what's changed and
what am I missing these days? So Montreal just has
(25:44):
this amazing aura to it. And one of the big
things about Canadian culture and Montreal is this amazing fabric
of immigrants who come to come to places like Montreal
and really make a really important mark on the culture there.
Um And I'm gonna call Paul Harry Tucson, who's from
Haiti originally, but it's a chef in uh in Montreal
(26:08):
at Agricol. Agrichol is a Haitian inspired restaurant with an
amazing rum program. And Paul Harry Tousson came from Haiti
when he was eighteen to go to law school, dropped
out of law school and really went full on to
be uh with his real passion for food. Paul, how
are you hi? How are you? I am excellent? I
(26:31):
am excellent. How is Montreal? Uh? Two days? Like I
think one of the best day of the year because
like we see like summer commune, we see the sun.
Everyone is at I know restamant. Two day gonna be crazy.
You know, people gonna are they gonna want to go
out and eat outside like see, like you know, the different,
(26:52):
the air is different. It's like you want to it's
like an escape. It's that you're going into Caribbean culture now,
you know, Oh, after the winter, I find Montreal. Or's
like where speedos and bikinis when it's like twelve degrees
celsius Because they're so excited about spring and sums and
then it doesn't even have to have happened yet. They
just they get so excited. So to me, like Montreal
(27:15):
has so many identifiable food things from bagel culture to
Jewish food to you know, Chinese food in Chinatown, two
amazing brasseries and beer culture. But to you, like coming
from Haiti and living there since you're eighteen, identify what
you think is like where where would you tell people
to go to have a perfect Montreal experience for three
(27:37):
hours They're wandering through the streets. Where should they go?
What should they eat? It's hard, it's hard. There's so
many choices because that this is the thing. They used
too many choics. This is the first thing. Because people
need to understand that with Montreal all the community like
they get connect together, you know. And it's like I
(27:59):
have to ask you what experience you want to do?
You know, Montreal is Carribean, Montreal is Drewish, Montreality is
and grew, Montreal is African, montrealis French is everything, you know,
it depends, Like I would ask the person first, what
is the first expense you did on Montreal or what
is the the other expense you did in the world
(28:19):
me and Montreal. I wouldn't make you make like the
world experience, you understand. It's like because I can tell
you go to Agricult to put it all night. You know,
you finished to eat in the restament. After you go
to the bar, you continue like to do like you know,
to drink warm all night, you know. Or I can't
tell you go to Toky because you want to fin cuisine,
you know, or go to Musso you know it's a
(28:41):
fin quisine. It's something different. It's like, and or I
can tell you go to Montreal Plaza. Montreal Plaza for
me is like it's a resturment. You know, it's for me,
it's one agin like it's the restaurants do in Montreal
because like you know you get there your cuisine it's
perfect enoughter this same time. You know you have like
(29:01):
old school wrap. You have everything that which will love
Montreal who want like to share people like what Quebec is?
You know there is a lot of experience or I
can tell you go to Damas deceiving instament data. I
loves so much. Where is Damas is on? I take
it's the one horn Okay, yeah, it's like an it's
(29:24):
for me. It's one of the best persent in town.
You know. It's a mediterranning quisine, you know, and you
have everything is cooked on charcole. You have the smoky
smoky taste like all the seafood grill there are the
rack of flame. Um. That's why I told you it's hard.
It's to tell people to about the three hours, like
(29:45):
I need to know what type of experience you're looking for.
You know, it's hard. So where do you go from Bagels?
Fair Amount. I'm a man of but I can't say
no to Fairmont because I never go there. It's like
for me when I find this port that I love
so much, it's like I don't try to go to
(30:06):
someone else. Always a big on that big on supporting
the places that they love. That's that's the thing. Like
you know, I choose and just in the corner of
my house, I can walk like a week four minutes,
I um and one of the suba they got one
on see Michelle because I'm living in wood you know,
and they got one on Semiche. I can walk there.
(30:28):
You know. They just go get my bagel, you know
fresh this is it and having like you know, they
have a type of someone sauce that you can just
mix it. They have some special drink, you know, like
going with it, like you know, arrange or see through
things like this. It's perfect. It's it's my life, you know,
every like Sunday morning, it's my it's my thing. You know.
(30:49):
I have to wake up, go there and get my
bagel after you know my days that you know, what's
your favorite coffee shop and on your all these days?
Is I love to go off. I don't off, you know, no,
I don't know. They have like a they have it's
like a pastry shop. It's like these guys like if
(31:13):
you Jewish, you know, it's a mix of that. It's perfect.
They're making like the best because me I'm not a
fan of coffee, I'm must a fan of pastry. You know.
That's why I like, I have to go to export.
There's like the best pastry too, because some spot you
have like the good coffee, but you don't have pastry.
And there's another spot and now it's sixty nine. We
(31:40):
send you thick. It's one of the best. Like there
there is good, good, good being yea good everything that
you you're there, like good chocolate. There's a lot of
you know, Italian love that kind of like see throws,
you know, and mix with the chocolate. It's perfect because
me I'm Carribean as I grew up in coffee and
(32:03):
chocolate and citrus. You know, this is when I find
the spot they mixed that, I'm happy. You know, it's
my life. So do you find that Montreal is is it?
Is it in a really good place right now? Or
is it? I mean we're seeing a little bit of
stuff with anglophone francophone friction again that we hadn't seen
(32:23):
a number of years of signage and things like that.
But is it overall? Is it in a good place?
But the first time, you know, when we live in community,
you're always gonna have that you know, some reason. But
they meet on the same page for the culture. You know,
this is that because they love Montreal. They love Montreal
for the culture. But you know, at the same time,
(32:45):
all the phonecal Phone doesn't want to lose their language.
Me I'm a phone Co phone, you know, I don't
want like, you know, I don't want the city to
lose that all the phone Co frond thing because it's
a culture. You know, I grew up in it, you know.
But at the same time, you know, these like it's
more like you know, when election coming, when you have
all that, but after election, after all that, everything is
(33:06):
like they put that aside and they start to think
about how Mantra can be like beautiful, how Mantra can
be better? You know this easy, you know. And right
now I find montreality is it's a better place to
leave now and you feel like the city grew up,
you know. It is that some cities, like New York,
now you'll find like New York is like to condense,
(33:26):
you know, it's like there's nothing else they can put
in New York, you know. But in Montreal you'll find
like you know, every year, the city like again much
of energy, you know, people even people from ton will
leave to Montournal to come in Montreal because they love
the cultural thing or the company in Montreal, because they
find like Montreal is a better plastic party. You know,
(33:49):
I have a good Yes, I have a good friend.
They told me they want to buy two con one
in Montreal for the festival for the summer in Montreal,
one in the Caribbean Sea for the winter, because they
tell me, like, you know, the Montreal is a perfect
place that where everyone meet everyone making everything perfect. I think,
I think I want their bank account to do that.
(34:10):
That sounds great. I would, I would, I would do
that easily. Um. There there's a dining critic who's rights
for the Gazette named Leslie Chester, Chesterman, and she was
putting up on Instagram some interesting stuff yesterday about um
some graffiti covered restaurants that had shut down a while ago,
one of which I loved called Hotel herman Um and
(34:31):
that you know, over three years ago it shut down,
but still nobody's moved in there. And then there's a
beautiful old French restaurant that closed down a number of
years ago called lalu Um, which is actually near just
north of agricole Um. And it's just I think it's
like near like on Saint I or something like that,
right one of those streets. U um. So you see,
(34:54):
I mean a restaurants still good and viable. You see
a lot of openings and things like that. But you
see like Little Burgundy being very popular with all the
children type of restaurants. Is the Plateau and the gay village?
Is it? Is it still supportive of restaurants? Do we
see newer places coming on? But the thing is, you know,
(35:14):
restaurant is like it's a passion thing first. The first
thing you need to understand, person, is not money first.
You all you need to understand what you want to
do well, you want to go. You know, it's like
if you come right now in Montreal, just open like
a French restaurant, I'm sure you're gonna last maybe for
two years. But if you know, if you look at
(35:35):
the city or the city going like, you know, the vibe,
you can make the French restaurant. But you need to
understand you need to bring the vibe. You're gonna bring
the Parisian vibe you're gonna bring. It's not only now
people not not going out only for food. They're going
out for an experience. You know. That's this is like
if you can bring them the responience that repenter restaurant,
(35:56):
because they're not only going out just to eat some
plate and going on. You know. Yeah, I think people
want like authenticity, they want something real. They want they
want to see the the energy. But and those are
the great restaurants, say, and they want to fill your
your passion. You want to see your love for what
you're doing, what you bring to the table. You know,
(36:16):
it is not only try to get their money. They
want you to like, you know, make them dream. You know,
they're looking for for a dream. This is that you
need to understand, like when you have to change, you
need to change. You can't only stay Okay, I'm here
for twenty years. I'm gonna stay like this. I don't care.
They have to just follow me now. People are not
(36:36):
here for that. People are here, like, you know, for
because they spend their money, you know, and everything right
now and you can't see it. Like everything is more expensive,
you know, going out on the instrument ten years before
and right now it's done the same thing. You know,
you have to spend more money in a lot of
people not making more money. You know. That's why you
need you to bring something special to make the spacial
(37:00):
of them all. Like, yes, this is it, you know, Like,
well that's what I mean. You know, I keep every
year I think about another thing. You know, my menu
change like for the terrorists, you know, the party of agricole.
Every year we change it. We're gonna keep like the classic,
but we're gonna bring all the cocktail. We're gonna bring
other type of food, like another experience. You know, aren't
(37:22):
gonna change you know, everything, because there's an experience. You know,
you need people to come back. It's not a big
city like Toronto once is still like a small city.
But when you have a client, you you wanted to
be a fan, you know, you needed to be back
at least like once a month, you know. But to
(37:44):
make that you make they need to feel special. Yeah,
people need to business owners and customers need to understand
that that we open up these places to get to
have regulars and and to be copuler with people on
a very regular basis. And that's really important to the
best bit. You know. So the business model that we
set forward, Um, so what do you what do you
(38:05):
want to stay in Montreal. I mean, you could move
back to Haiti. You could get a you know, you
taught down there for a long time and culinary and
but what makes you want to stay in Montreal. Me
it's like I remember when I moved when Canada are
going out of our office. But I when I see
at all, I say myself like I don't see me
in Canada for ten years, because I thought like Canada
(38:28):
was that experience only you know, when I moved to Montreal. Yes,
sometimes winter is hard, you know you want to It's
just like Queen winter is hard. I buy a ticket
for New Orleans or for d you know, I'm gonna
be happy. I know, like you know, I'm gonna have
the carnival. But after this Montreal it's more like the
multi cultural like you know, uh thing like making it
(38:50):
like very different. Like I can't see a lot of
people right now see the Montreal They're not Quebec, they're
not Canadian. You know, they find themselves in Montreal teop
because of the vibe of the culture. It's like like
you start in Aple and of Apple all the festival
stuff and me you know, you you have just festival coming,
(39:11):
you have a ful festival coming after. That's really interesting
that people do say they're montreal is because nobody says
I'm a Trontonian. I mean, you know you're not gonna
but you do say, you know, I'm a prision or,
I'm a New Yorker. And Montreal is in that status
of city. It's such an exciting place that people feel
like they belong to so much that they want to
(39:33):
take the citizenship of the city because there's a lot
of things like you don't have to deal with, you know.
You it's like there's a lot of sea you find
people like, you know, there is mutri cultural, yes, but
everyone that is spot. You know. It's like if you
want to have the best experience of acient food like before,
you will need to come like in Montreal, not you know,
(39:54):
when Montreal just start. You know, you need to come
like in the East part, you know, to have that
kind of resience. Everything was a bit like you know,
uh selection and you know everyone next stay in Desport.
Now it's done. It's a mismashed, like you know, people
like you get mixed, you know, everything like you know
is that me we got our estimate and the gay village,
(40:14):
you know, and we you know, we have the mix
like everyone gave people like you know, sweet people like
you know, it's trust people. Everyone is there. They didn't together,
they put you together. You know. We don't try to say, look,
you need to stay in your corner now. We don't
have that right now. In Montreal, people understand that and
they feel to this is what the world need right now.
(40:35):
You know, we need to get connect together. If we
are not connect together, we're gonna we're gonna get destroyed
together too. Everyone have their energy to bring everyone out there,
like you know, a knowledge to bring. Everyone has something
to bring to make that world perfect. But that's what
Montreal is. Montreal is every shape and size, every different color.
It's everyone, but it's in the true essence of community.
(41:00):
They all get along. And that's the most important thing.
Is that community should be about understanding that everyone's different,
but we all try and get along um and Montreal
is very much like that. So I think in closing,
I think what what I want to get across the
people always is Montreal is probably to me the most
exciting city in North America that's so accessible and so
(41:21):
closed and two hours away from so many other places,
and that you just need to go. H So, Paul,
thanks a lot, man. I'm Hugh Atchison. You're listening to
The Passenger from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after
this quick break. I'm Hugh Atchison. This is The Passenger.
(41:49):
One good way to prepare for a trip beyond packing
your suitcase, is through media and for some recommendations, I'm
going to hand it over to Jennet get Us, the
owner and founder of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, a
wonderful independent bookstore. Jenne GaAs wanted to be sure to
remind you that if you're going to check out her recommendations,
(42:11):
to visit your local independent bookstore. Like a lot of
music fans, um, I've long since been a fan of
Leonard Cohen, his music, especially his lyrics, and what I
(42:32):
came to a little later were his poems and stories,
many of which you can find online. He read them
better than I ever could. But he was born and
raised in Montreal, and I particularly enjoyed reading the Book
of Longing, which has never gone out of print, but
(42:55):
they have released some newer editions of it over the years. Um.
He it truly loves where he's from, and as much
as he traveled during his long career, he would come
back to Montreal. It was a touchstone for him. His
mom lived there alongside a park for a long time,
(43:15):
and so he would go back home, get reconnected with
the family, and then of course wander the streets of Montreal.
Once in a reading he described the magic of his
childhood spent in a Montreal park, and he said the
park nourished all the sleepers in the surrounding houses. It
(43:37):
was the green heart. It gave the children dangerous bushes
and heroic landscapes so they could imagine bravery. It gave
the nurses and maids winding walks so they could imagine beauty.
He was able to find such beauty even in stark images.
As you know, the Montreal winters can be very tough,
(43:59):
and he still is able to write about them with
just such intense beauty and magic. It makes me want
to visit the city, Uh, even in the winter, as
long as I'm dressed very warmly. He was always tuned
into the pulse of life, what was going on just
underneath the surface and um. He also, at one point
(44:21):
when traveling, Uh said the following, which I can definitely
identify with and I'm sure that those of us who
are frequent travelers can also agree with He said, you
always have a feeling in a hotel room like you're
on the lamb. And I love that idea that you're
you're out of your element, you're away from your home,
(44:43):
and if you're a solo traveler, no one else knows
where you are. Right in that moment. It almost as
if you've run away from your regular life. So I
would recommend anything by him, but if you are new
to him, I would start with a book of longing
and then maybe que up So Long Marianne. Perhaps my
favorite song by him. One of my favorite novelists is
(45:17):
named Emily Saint John Mandel. I've been reading her since
her debut novel, which is called Last Night in Montreal.
It was originally published by a small publisher called Unbridled Books,
and then as she achieved more fame in her career,
she now publishes with a larger publishing house. She is
best known for a more contemporary work, dystopian beautiful literature
(45:42):
called Station eleven that won many awards, but I still
have a particular fondness for Last Night in Montreal, her debut.
When I think of her novel, I think about Montreal
train stations, I think about bundling up in a warm coat.
The story is full of intrigue and mystery. She is
(46:04):
able to weave together seemingly disparate storylines and character studies,
and they all come together in just these fascinating ways.
But one of her descriptions of Montreal night in the cold,
really really evokes the actual reality of being there. He
(46:28):
forced himself to leave the station, walking into the cold
evening air. The street outside was all but deserted, urban
in a way that reminded him of medium sized cities. Everywhere,
wind sweat plazas, hard angles of glass and concrete. Across
the street, a low, anonymous glass tower reflected lights in sky.
A few cars passed, boxy and random, and it took
(46:51):
him a few minutes to recognize them as taxi cabs.
They weren't yellow. There was, in fact, nothing identifiable about
them at all. This was a random, remnant fleet, gray
Toyota Tursells, an old blue Valiants, boxy red Fords with
failing mufflers, and squarish minivans with rust around the fenders,
all with some variation on a taxi sign bolted to
(47:13):
the roof. Emily St. John Mandel is so talented at
dropping easter eggs into the story. Sometimes you'll be reading
and realized that fifty pages ago she's made reference to
the same suitcase, the same hotel, and you find yourself, uh,
scrolling back through the pages. This is one reason why
(47:35):
holding the physical book is so much easier than maybe
reading on an e reader an audio book in this case,
because you're you're just so curious to know what happened
and how it got to where she is now. Um,
if you like traveling through fiction, all of her stories
would be excellent. But Last Night in Montreal is a
(47:57):
great place to start from Avid bookshop in Athens, Georgia.
This is Janet Gettis. So we're is Montreal headed? I
mean when I lived there and when my older sisters
lived there before me, it was the place to go
that you know, Toronto was even at that time a
little bit more expensive. But Toronto, uh, you know, as
(48:21):
has always been sort of the behemoth in the room
of Canadian cities. Montreal is kind of half the size,
but also has clung to being its own place for
so long and still clings to that through gentrification through change.
(48:41):
It's still an artist city. It's still has relatively affordable
rents and real estate pricing. Uh, it's still has a
heartbeat of of that solidly French backbone that it refuses
to give up. And for good reason. There are lots
of anti English language laws being enacted and sort of
(49:05):
now put into effect or they've been long on the
books but never really enforced, and so that we're seeing
this push towards enforcement of those again. Whether that's a
good thing or a bad thing, I don't really know.
And I mean I have opinions on it. What I
what I really want Montreal to keep is it is
being such an international place. Um. That is, you know,
(49:31):
so important, I don't know, to be so reflective of
so many different cultures, with the backbone being the strong
kibbequa Montreal or culture. And I think that's the future
of it. Um. You know, it's got amazing universities and
UM invested in Mareal, that's got McGill, It's got Concordia
(49:52):
where I went. So it's uh, you know, platy technique,
all those in the chest system and which is the
sort of HGH school finishes at grade ten eleven and
then you go off to SIP which is kind of
like pre college college, UM, and then you go to university.
And I think that that those type of things mean
a lot of youthful culture, a lot of artists, a
(50:14):
lot of really interesting spread of things happening, great music culture.
When you're jack music culture there, you just there's there's arcade,
fire and uh, bands like that that have just really
been seminal for so long. Uh and they're still so
identifiably Montreal. Circula is from Montreal, UM and still has
(50:38):
their main campus there. The you know, really mostly they're
in Vegas and touring around. Uh. So it's just it's
that type of city. It's just got these economic engines
of the arts that make it so important. Um. The
economic engine of the comedy festival is so important, the
economic engine of the jazz festival is so important. The
(50:59):
economic of tourism around Old Mountreal is so important. But
there it's such an interesting place to go and again
realize how utterly close it is and going through customs
as a breeze. Uh. If you go there a lot,
you can always get the faster line systems like global
entry and things like that. But it is a breeze
(51:22):
to fly into Door Valle, it's breezed to fly out
of Door Vale, so there's no excuse not together. You've
been listening to The Passenger. This is a production of
I Heart Radio created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hassiotas.
Were produced and edited by Mike Johns. A researcher is
(51:45):
Jescelyn Shields and Christopher Hassiotas is our executive producer. Special
thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters, and the rest of
the crew. If you like The Passenger, leave us a
review on Apple podcast It helps other people like you
in the show. If you're a local and you want
to let me know what I missed and where should
go on my next visit, or if you've recently been
(52:08):
a Passenger like me and want to share your experience,
hit me up on Instagram and Twitter at Hugh Atchison.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, use the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
So traveling, it can be an endeavor sometimes to go
a long distance and see something completely different. But in
North America, I think we have a lot of opportunities
to see something completely different within a two our flight,
and oftentimes we we'd neglect to see that. We'd neglect
to open the drapes and and look out the window
(00:22):
to something completely different that's just beyond the horizon. That's
that's really seems so close, and it really is. And
one of those places a place I actually lived for
a while, uh in my late teens and early twenties,
which is Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I'm Hugh Atchison and this
(00:44):
is the passenger from my Heart Radio. I travel a
lot for work as a chef. I'm really interested in
what makes these places tick. So i'll give you my take.
I'm where to go, what to do, what I find intriguing,
and we'll also talk about immersing yourself in the culture
and what it means to go to a place as
a visitor as a passenger. Later on, we're gonna get
(01:10):
Paul Harry Tuson on the phone. He's the chef at Agricole,
a Haitian restaurant in Montreal, and I'll get feedback on
what I've done and where I should have gone at
the travel show. My name's Hugh Atchison. Let's do this.
Montreal is a two hour flight from Atlanta. I live
in Athens, so you know, three hour travel time with
(01:32):
the the drive to the airport. And it is an
amazingly international and sort of chic and artistic and interesting
and pedestrian city. UM. You know, when we talk about
a timeline of Montreal and in a lot of ways
the history of Canada, you talk about the Iroquois people
who are the indigenous natives and Indians of that region.
(01:56):
They occupied the island of Montreal and up comes carch
A car Cha sort of is the first white person
to sort of meet with him, and UM figures this out,
tries to do a settlement there, doesn't really work. Champlain
later on does a settlement there. Uh. Then later on,
in eighteen thirty two, the city of Montreal is actually founded. UM.
(02:18):
Then the real game changer is is a canal built
UM so industry can come in and it becomes one
of the main grain hubs. UM from the interior of
the US and in Canada, where along with St. Lawrence,
UM where all the grain was was coming from farms
and would be put on boats and and shuttled up river.
(02:39):
And the St. Lawrence is just this opening to the Atlantic.
That's a massive, massive economic hub and very important in
a beautiful river, and that's the Lachine Canal was built.
Then we have two marquee points in Kipequa and Montreal history.
The Montreal Expo in the Exposition ninety seven was thought
to be the the pre eminent expo of its time.
(03:02):
And then the nineteen seventy six Olympics, Nadia Comanchi and
people like that. It was a really seminal thing. And
all that campus of crazy Olympic buildings is still there.
It looks kind of like it was designed by some
blind Soviet architect in some ways, but it is all there,
and some of it's pretty amazing, and some of it's
kind of stark brutalist. UH. In the late seventies and
(03:25):
eighties we see the rise of UM Party quebecqua separatist
movement to nationalism, and that really marked a really independent
spirit within Quebec to identify their culture and protect it.
A lot of laws within Montreal and Quebec proper UH
sort of protective French language and the French way of life,
(03:45):
and um, you know, separatism from the rest of Canada
is still a heartbeat, but it's not what it was
in the seventies and eighties. So now we come to
Montreal now, which is this amazing artistic hub that's really nearby.
And there a couple of things that you really need
to know about Montreal because it's a great place to
go that that will be blew your mind with with
(04:07):
how European and interesting it is. Um. When I was
young in Montreal, i lived in the Plateau and the
Plateau is kind of a area that straddles the mountain
and then goes all the way over to pass in
a knee and that that's the North South Street and
then Saint laurents sort of in the center and that's
the North South Street and uh there are bars and um,
(04:29):
different shops and bakeries and bagel places and it just
it it totally changed everything about my way of life
in a number of years, from how do you shop
and you get your bags out and you get your
backpack on, and you go and buy coffee ru up
and you go and buy salami at just down the street,
and then you go to the butcher and you buy
(04:50):
um a pork chop. And you go to um Care,
which is this amazing produced store, and you buy your produce,
and then go up the street to Bout and you
buy bread and rye bread, and and then you go
up to Fairmount Bagel and you buy bagels and you
go to the cheese shop. And that European idea of shopping.
(05:11):
And maybe it's not just European, maybe it's just worldwide,
but it doesn't. You know, it's not big box supermarket
and it it transcended everything, but it brought this joy
and search of rode viva to shop like that. So
what do I do with all this food that I've
accumulated on this wonderful walk around the city. Well, one
of my part time jobs out of cooking was also
(05:32):
being a nanny. So if I didn't have a two
year old or one and a half year old with
me in a baby carriage, I would probably just go
back to my apartment. And I had roommates, and I
had a lot of friends, and you know, I've been
cooking professionally for at that point, since I was fifteen,
so you know, six years. So I knew a fair
(05:52):
bit about food and how to work with it, but
I became the place where people would come over and
give a couple of bucks and to make some food
and uh it you know, taught me so much about
necessity and sustenance and how to feed yourself and how
to make carbonera for a crowd and um, all those
(06:14):
things sort of go directly into still what I do
every day. So Montreal left such an imprint on me,
and even in a four days stint, it'll leave an
impression on you too. So going back now, and you know,
I went to university there for like two years, and
I think they went to bout ten classes dropped out
of the university and I've been cooking the whole time.
(06:36):
But I really got to see Montreal in so many ways,
hanging out of the mountain and uh in bars on celeron,
living in the plateau and having a roommates and uh
living on the cheap and Montreal is that type of
place where you can still do that. I used to
go to Montreal Exposed Games. Montreal expos are now the
Washington Nationals, uh and they played at the Big Oh,
(06:57):
which was the old Olympic Stadium, and the chance of
the bilingual chance of the vendors in the stadium always
struck me as interesting. It's like Shesho hot dog, hot dog,
Bierre beer, Bierre beer, and that's how they would sell things.
And I would play a lot of snooker. I'd go
up to Blue Mareal which is um Mount Royal Street, um,
(07:20):
and go to a place called It was then there
and now it's moved and gotten larger, but it was
called Labinary, which is famous for there are a couple
of iconic kibitua dishes, you know, most notably poutine um.
But this was favoloud, which are navy beans slowly cooked
and braized and with maple syrup. And it's kind of
the baked beans of Canada. And it's got a lot
(07:41):
of pork lard in there, and it's, uh, just a
seminal moment. And at the pool hall, we'd order oh,
these western omelet sandwiches on a white bread toasted um
and drink up, you know, a Molsen beer and play
pool and then you know, at night we'd go and
uh hang out of the bar. We used to go
(08:01):
to this bar on Celarent which is still there, called
bif tech uh and uh, which is was it's an
old Portuguese steak as at one point and really had
reverted being a at the time relatively hipster bar. So
it hang out and Rufus Wainwright would be djaying and
Melissa off Tomorrow would be hanging out, and uh, you know,
Nirvana would come by and when their first one of
(08:23):
their first tours and things like that. So it was
an interesting place to be in Old Montreal, which is
sort of south of the Plateau and south of Sherbrooke.
Um you uh, you've got some really identifiable, amazing buildings
such as the Notre Dunk Cathedral, which was originally built
(08:45):
in sixteen seventy two, but it was was way too
small and uh so in eighteen seventy two to eighteen
seventy nine was rebuilt in this amazing Gothic revival Old
Montreal monolith of a church. And you see that of
architecture that's so important everywhere around Montreal, all the pedestrian
and all the neighborhoods in Old Montreal, and if you
(09:06):
talk about the Mile End and Plateau and even going
uh in in that sort of center of Montreal really
evokes the books of you know st Urbans Horsemen and
all those books about Montreal, uh that that showcase these
three level houses and town houses that are all connected
(09:29):
in a block, and they're all brick. Way back when
they were would but they got really good at using
stone and brick and and so they're each floor is
an individual house in itself, and they kind of go
way back and there's a cutaway in the in the back,
so you have windows in the rear part of it.
But that's pretty much every every house in that region
(09:50):
of Montreal. It's kind of amazing to see that consistency
of architecture. But they don't not look the same because
they're all different colors and things like that. So, but
going to Montreal these days is easy, and you know,
you can get three or four direct flights a day.
You know, Delta is really easy from Atlanta or really
nationwide to get directly to Montreal. Usually are going to
fly on an Embryo or a Canadair type plane uh
(10:16):
bamba j um with the h When you walk past
first class, that's got the single seat and then the
other side it's got the double seat. And that's a
little amazingly fast style of plane. That I'll get you
up there in a jiffy. When you land, you're gonna
be landing at either door Vale or Mirabell Airport. Mirabelle
was built by the government, um years ago and kind
(10:37):
of I don't know exactly when it was built, and
I can look it up, but um, I don't know
why it was built. Must be a strange tax thing
because it's in the middle of nowhere and takes you
an hour and a half to get back to Montreal. Um.
So fly into door Vale. It's much easier fifteen minutes
than into town. Um, because there's this you know, you're
you're in the Laurentian Mountains at this point, or very
(10:59):
close to the around some mountains. On the other side,
the Mountain Ridge is going to be the gat knows
close to Ottawa where I'm from. Um. But so it's
it's just amazing country right outside of Montreal. If you
go south, you're very quickly in the United States. Um.
That's how closed Montreal is to the border. It really is.
Where Montreal is right on the River of St. Lawrence.
(11:19):
It's an island in the St. Lawrence and on the
other side is a very brief amount of Canada and
then you're gonna hit the American border. I've been staying
in the last number of trips have done. Um not
(11:41):
either if I'm feeling spending at the Ritz Carlton, which
is a stunning, stunning, beautiful Ritz Carlton right on Sherbrook,
or the Intercontinental which is just off Sherbrooke. Um. The
thing about Canada these days and traveling to places like
Montreal or Vancouver, Otto, or Toronto or St. John or
Fogo Island, um is imagine if you got twenty five
(12:02):
cents back for every dollar you've spent. That's extension essentially
the exchange rate right now. And really things aren't noticeably
more expensive on the valuation in Canada. So your your
your dollar Canadian is costing you seventy five cents Americans.
So your your money is going a really long way
right now. So it's a prime time to get up
and and go to Montreal. Um. There's a big bagel
(12:24):
debate in Montreal, and there are two main bagel companies
who have kind of long been that quiet way war
sometimes in de tont but as Fair Amount Bagel and
San Dia Tar Bagel. If you haven't had a Montreal bagel.
It's very different from what you know is those overblown,
puffy things. What's your New York style bagels? Um Montreal
(12:44):
bagels are well in my case, I in my opinion
that I think they're far superior. Uh, they're more, Uh,
they're denser. Uh, they're smaller um and but in in mass,
but they're kind of larger. And they're cooked and woodburning
ovens on these really long wooden planks. They shovel them
(13:05):
up like large spatula, and then they put that into
the oven and they flip it over and they they
lie on the bottom of this wood hearth and then
they pulled poke it back under or beside them, and
nap underneath the bagels and lift them out. And uh,
you used I used to go to bagel shops at
like four o'clock in the morning because they'd still be
producing for the next day and they were open for sale,
(13:27):
and you'd buy a six six in a steaming paper
bag and take them home with a smear of cream
cheese and toast them to your delight. And they're an
amazing thing. Fairmont bagel and savia Ur bagel are both
to my mind. They're they're very similar styles, but they've
just um argued for space in the market for a
(13:47):
really long time. Uh. There's a similarly important Jewish community
within Montreal, and that's given us great things like Schwartz's
Smoked Meat Um, which is an amaze using smooked meat
classic emporium on Saint Laurent. Uh. There's also Beauties, which
is a great sort of breakfast and lunch place for
(14:08):
bagels and locks and eggs and things like that. And
um Beauties is uh probably my favorite breakfast place in
the entire world. And it just evokes so much and
is so good and it just feels you just feel
like you're in the right place. And it's one of
those places that's been around for eons but has just
(14:30):
pertinent and interesting graphic design. And the patriarch of Beauties
recently passed away um about a year ago, but the
place still lives in infamy and will be continued in
good hands for a long time. Back to Schwartz as
Swartz as Uh you go and you have, you know,
a beautiful, amazing smoked meat sandwiche on steamed seated rye
(14:53):
bread with um yellow mustard and the smoked meat is
cut hot out of the steamer and uh, you know
smoke meats kind of like a stromy and it's just
it's cured for a long time and then lightly smoked
and then uh, setting the steamer and you get it
a medium fat, medium fat or lean or fatty, uh,
(15:14):
depending on how you like it. And it's just it's
stacked high on this classic deli style and then you
get coldslaw various sides with it. And the waiter comes
over and he's worked there for fifty five years and
it's a handwritten ticket that's delivered to you, and it's
just it. You know, it compares to Montreal or Montreal
(15:36):
Delis in that way, compared to New York Delis in
some way. But the key is, you know, New York
delis of a menu that's about eighteen pages long. Uh,
and Montreal just doesn't believe in that. It's like, you
do one thing well, and that's what you that's what
you do, and and that's that's the beauty about that
singular idea uh in food that I think is is
(16:00):
long lived in in in its very uh, it's so
pure in its in its idea, but it's sort of
it's contemporary too now which is really interesting. There's an
amazing selection of I like papers and pens and doodling
and all that, and hence this whole show is about
the lists I write and the places I go. But
there's a paper Japanese paper shop called Peccadio Chapone, which
(16:24):
literally translates to Japanese paper. Amazing paper and pen store.
There's another one on Sherbrook called Peppeteri nota Bene, which
has the most singular and most interesting collection of pins
I've ever seen. Not expensive pens, just really interesting pens
and pencils and paper and envelopes and all these things.
There's an amazing coffee shop which is kind of the
(16:45):
mac Daddy and o g coffee shop right next to
Peppei nota Bene, which is called Piccolo, and Piccolo is
the place to go for a really beautiful espresso. There's
tons of new coffee shops uh in Montreal that have
propped up in the last five years or so. Um.
But that's amazing. And but Sherbrooke is a beautiful street
to wander down because you're gonna go right past McGill University,
(17:07):
You're gonna go towards the museum um the Fine Arts Museum,
which they did bog Um and it's just an amazing strow.
But all of Montreal is that way in a lot
of ways. I like you just you want it. You
want to wear your walking shoes because you're going to
get out there if you get Old Montreal. There's an
amazing restaurant that's been around for a while called Olive
and Gormando. That's great if you're in the Plateau Um.
(17:31):
Recently the New York Times to a piece on this
restaurant and which I've been too many, many many times. Um,
which is called lex Press lex Plus is um, uh
the best b stro outside of France in North America.
It is classic, it's pure, it's simple, amazing wine program,
(17:52):
beautiful girkins and mustard that comes to the table first,
and then you get that. You know, you can get
a walker up late if you don't have trouble with that,
or you can get a beautiful like um muscles and
all these different really classic French dishes. Um. There's just
amazingly done and beautiful. Uh. There's an amazing farmer's market,
(18:14):
Jana Market, which is more north but worth your time
to go to. Uh. There's also a really contemporary sort
of movement of restaurants that started years ago. I worked
at a restaurant called Buen on that day, and right
across the street was a restaurant called the Globe. And
when I was working at Buen on that day, Um,
there are two guys working at the Globe, Um who
(18:36):
were the founders of Joe Beef UM and uh they've
done an amazing job sort of creating a bit of
an empire more in the region of Little Burgundy. Uh.
And Little Burgundy was just a sort of as a
really old school neighborhood when I was there, we lived
in Plateau, and you know, twenty minutes away was a
Little Burgundy. But Little Burgundy has really um been the
(18:59):
home of of so many great restaurants in what we
know as Montreal restaurants in the press these days. So
starting with Joe Beef, then they opened up Liverpool Tavern. Uh,
then they opened up Papillon Um. From there, the chef
from Faint Papillon opened up lape Um. All of those
restaurants in that family and then the subsequent offshoots of
(19:23):
it are amazing worth every dime that you will ever
spend there and The reason is that they've got that
authenticity that you look for in great restaurants that you
rarely rarely find. Like you walk into these restaurants and
you just it just feels right, and the food is rich,
and it's fun and challenging in some ways, but technically
(19:44):
really well done, and it's really really beautiful places. There's
some other really amazing um restaurants that are kind of
really important, Opiate to Clachan, which is one of the
o g s of sort of the new movement of
Kuepequa food Um, long known for crazy uh funk raw
dishes and things like that. The chef from Opiatic Constrol
(20:04):
also has a place out in the country called Cabana
suk which is a old maple sugar shack that is
open seasonally. And if you ever get to Montreal and
can get or drive out there, which is about forty
five minutes away, you're gonna enjoy every moment of Cabanazukre.
When the passenger comes back from break, we're gonna get
(20:25):
Paul Harry Tuson on the phone. He's the chef at
Agri Cole, a Haitian restaurant in Montreal. He is a
Haitian who moved to Montreal when he was eighteen years old.
And he'll tell you about his many passions because he's
a very passionate man. But really he's going to talk
about why Montreal is just so important and why did
she get there. I'm Hugh Atchison and this is the
(20:53):
passenger from my Heart Radio. When you look at Montreal
in a place of what's the future of Montreal, I
think you're seeing a lot of gentrification there. I think
in going back, it's very different from when I went
to school there twenty some odd years ago, almost thirty
years ago. Got him old what happened? Um? But I
think that the place that they are seminole are still
(21:14):
there and uh and worth every penny. There's a place
called Maison Publique that's great. Uh. There is a Daniel
restaurant in the in the Ritz Carlton that's amazing. Um.
But you know, you can see there's so many different
uh styles of food. There's a lot of Greek food
on Duluth Street in the Plateau region. Kind of some
(21:38):
of that's a bit touristy. If you go south, just
entering intold Montreal, you're gonna go into Chinatown, you're gonna
find a lot of really good noodle shops and things
like that. Um, there's a place called La Bremner that's
really good. Uh there's a beautiful restaurant called Le Comptoire.
So you know, there's just so many places to go
and so many excuses to go to a place like Montreal.
(22:00):
It's just I think you just need to really plan
about what you like weatherwise, because if you're talking about
a place that sees four definitive seasons in a year, Uh,
it'll freeze your feet off in winter and it's very
hot and um not air conditioned abundantly in in summer.
(22:23):
So in between is amazing. But summer does have great things.
Uh there's the jazz Festival, which is amazing. Uh. There's
a comedy festival which is unreal as well and gets
is one of the most important comedies festivals in the
United States or in North America. Um. And then in spring,
springs a really special time in Montreal because if you've
(22:46):
been cooped up in an apartment in negative twenty degree
weather for three to four months and you go outside
and the snow is melted and uh, showing off all
the dogship underneath on top of the little bit bits
of grass in the park. But then there are tulips
coming up between those piles. UH, there's a lifting and
(23:13):
a lifting of spirit and this sort of drive of
emotion that makes you just want to go out and
enjoy and an's around and and that's Montreal in the spring.
And so it's to me go in the spring or
go in the summer, and it's a beautiful time. You
will have an amazing time all the time of Montreal,
(23:33):
but those are the times to really go. When I
was growing up, the Canadians and Montreal Canadians, the hockey
team used to play in UH the Forum, the old Forum,
and now they play the Most in Center. It's a
couple of moston Center UM. And we used to go
buy you could buy five or ten dollar seats, but
weren't seats. They're standing room only between the sections. So
(23:57):
you get there and they're very big, lineup and you
can buy your taking your Ushian and you drape your
coat over the part of the railing and that would
automatically save it. In the system that they had of UM,
this sort of kind empathetic system of UH crafting your
space within a very busy Hulla Balue crowd. But going
(24:18):
to a Montreal Canadians game is a seminal experience if
you do go in the winter or spring. Hockey season
starts in October and it seems to end in October.
It seems like it's almost all year round now. The
playoffs last forever. UH in Montreal is maybe not the
team they once were right now, but it is. You
(24:38):
want hockey culture, go there. The museum, the Fine Arts
Museum on Sherbrooke is an amazing museum, so it goes there.
Um go for high tea at the Ritz because it's
one of the most beautiful ritz Is in the world,
and Saturday high tea in a place like that, and
then wandering down Sherbrooke afterwards is an amazing, amazing thing.
(25:01):
Wander through the the the actual mountain, moreal in the
park and go to the very top and wander back
down and watch the drum circles on a Sunday and
things happening, and then wander over to the plateau and
have an espresso somewhere and then wander around and get
some bagels. To me. It's just it is Europe on
(25:21):
your doorstep. That's a two hour flight away. But in
the twenty years that I've lived there, twenty five years
i've lived there ago, a lot of things have changed.
So let's call somebody and figure out what's changed and
what am I missing these days? So Montreal just has
(25:44):
this amazing aura to it. And one of the big
things about Canadian culture and Montreal is this amazing fabric
of immigrants who come to come to places like Montreal
and really make a really important mark on the culture there.
Um And I'm gonna call Paul Harry Tucson, who's from
Haiti originally, but it's a chef in uh in Montreal
(26:08):
at Agricol. Agrichol is a Haitian inspired restaurant with an
amazing rum program. And Paul Harry Tousson came from Haiti
when he was eighteen to go to law school, dropped
out of law school and really went full on to
be uh with his real passion for food. Paul, how
are you hi? How are you? I am excellent? I
(26:31):
am excellent. How is Montreal? Uh? Two days? Like I
think one of the best day of the year because
like we see like summer commune, we see the sun.
Everyone is at I know restamant. Two day gonna be crazy.
You know, people gonna are they gonna want to go
out and eat outside like see, like you know, the different,
(26:52):
the air is different. It's like you want to it's
like an escape. It's that you're going into Caribbean culture now,
you know, Oh, after the winter, I find Montreal. Or's
like where speedos and bikinis when it's like twelve degrees
celsius Because they're so excited about spring and sums and
then it doesn't even have to have happened yet. They
just they get so excited. So to me, like Montreal
(27:15):
has so many identifiable food things from bagel culture to
Jewish food to you know, Chinese food in Chinatown, two
amazing brasseries and beer culture. But to you, like coming
from Haiti and living there since you're eighteen, identify what
you think is like where where would you tell people
to go to have a perfect Montreal experience for three
(27:37):
hours They're wandering through the streets. Where should they go?
What should they eat? It's hard, it's hard. There's so
many choices because that this is the thing. They used
too many choics. This is the first thing. Because people
need to understand that with Montreal all the community like
they get connect together, you know. And it's like I
(27:59):
have to ask you what experience you want to do?
You know, Montreal is Carribean, Montreal is Drewish, Montreality is
and grew, Montreal is African, montrealis French is everything, you know,
it depends, Like I would ask the person first, what
is the first expense you did on Montreal or what
is the the other expense you did in the world
(28:19):
me and Montreal. I wouldn't make you make like the
world experience, you understand. It's like because I can tell
you go to Agricult to put it all night. You know,
you finished to eat in the restament. After you go
to the bar, you continue like to do like you know,
to drink warm all night, you know. Or I can't
tell you go to Toky because you want to fin cuisine,
you know, or go to Musso you know it's a
(28:41):
fin quisine. It's something different. It's like, and or I
can tell you go to Montreal Plaza. Montreal Plaza for
me is like it's a resturment. You know, it's for me,
it's one agin like it's the restaurants do in Montreal
because like you know you get there your cuisine it's
perfect enoughter this same time. You know you have like
(29:01):
old school wrap. You have everything that which will love
Montreal who want like to share people like what Quebec is?
You know there is a lot of experience or I
can tell you go to Damas deceiving instament data. I
loves so much. Where is Damas is on? I take
it's the one horn Okay, yeah, it's like an it's
(29:24):
for me. It's one of the best persent in town.
You know. It's a mediterranning quisine, you know, and you
have everything is cooked on charcole. You have the smoky
smoky taste like all the seafood grill there are the
rack of flame. Um. That's why I told you it's hard.
It's to tell people to about the three hours, like
(29:45):
I need to know what type of experience you're looking for.
You know, it's hard. So where do you go from Bagels?
Fair Amount. I'm a man of but I can't say
no to Fairmont because I never go there. It's like
for me when I find this port that I love
so much, it's like I don't try to go to
(30:06):
someone else. Always a big on that big on supporting
the places that they love. That's that's the thing. Like
you know, I choose and just in the corner of
my house, I can walk like a week four minutes,
I um and one of the suba they got one
on see Michelle because I'm living in wood you know,
and they got one on Semiche. I can walk there.
(30:28):
You know. They just go get my bagel, you know
fresh this is it and having like you know, they
have a type of someone sauce that you can just
mix it. They have some special drink, you know, like
going with it, like you know, arrange or see through
things like this. It's perfect. It's it's my life, you know,
every like Sunday morning, it's my it's my thing. You know.
(30:49):
I have to wake up, go there and get my
bagel after you know my days that you know, what's
your favorite coffee shop and on your all these days?
Is I love to go off. I don't off, you know, no,
I don't know. They have like a they have it's
like a pastry shop. It's like these guys like if
(31:13):
you Jewish, you know, it's a mix of that. It's perfect.
They're making like the best because me I'm not a
fan of coffee, I'm must a fan of pastry. You know.
That's why I like, I have to go to export.
There's like the best pastry too, because some spot you
have like the good coffee, but you don't have pastry.
And there's another spot and now it's sixty nine. We
(31:40):
send you thick. It's one of the best. Like there
there is good, good, good being yea good everything that
you you're there, like good chocolate. There's a lot of
you know, Italian love that kind of like see throws,
you know, and mix with the chocolate. It's perfect because
me I'm Carribean as I grew up in coffee and
(32:03):
chocolate and citrus. You know, this is when I find
the spot they mixed that, I'm happy. You know, it's
my life. So do you find that Montreal is is it?
Is it in a really good place right now? Or
is it? I mean we're seeing a little bit of
stuff with anglophone francophone friction again that we hadn't seen
(32:23):
a number of years of signage and things like that.
But is it overall? Is it in a good place?
But the first time, you know, when we live in community,
you're always gonna have that you know, some reason. But
they meet on the same page for the culture. You know,
this is that because they love Montreal. They love Montreal
for the culture. But you know, at the same time,
(32:45):
all the phonecal Phone doesn't want to lose their language.
Me I'm a phone Co phone, you know, I don't
want like, you know, I don't want the city to
lose that all the phone Co frond thing because it's
a culture. You know, I grew up in it, you know.
But at the same time, you know, these like it's
more like you know, when election coming, when you have
all that, but after election, after all that, everything is
(33:06):
like they put that aside and they start to think
about how Mantra can be like beautiful, how Mantra can
be better? You know this easy, you know. And right
now I find montreality is it's a better place to
leave now and you feel like the city grew up,
you know. It is that some cities, like New York,
now you'll find like New York is like to condense,
(33:26):
you know, it's like there's nothing else they can put
in New York, you know. But in Montreal you'll find
like you know, every year, the city like again much
of energy, you know, people even people from ton will
leave to Montournal to come in Montreal because they love
the cultural thing or the company in Montreal, because they
find like Montreal is a better plastic party. You know,
(33:49):
I have a good Yes, I have a good friend.
They told me they want to buy two con one
in Montreal for the festival for the summer in Montreal,
one in the Caribbean Sea for the winter, because they
tell me, like, you know, the Montreal is a perfect
place that where everyone meet everyone making everything perfect. I think,
I think I want their bank account to do that.
(34:10):
That sounds great. I would, I would, I would do
that easily. Um. There there's a dining critic who's rights
for the Gazette named Leslie Chester, Chesterman, and she was
putting up on Instagram some interesting stuff yesterday about um
some graffiti covered restaurants that had shut down a while ago,
one of which I loved called Hotel herman Um and
(34:31):
that you know, over three years ago it shut down,
but still nobody's moved in there. And then there's a
beautiful old French restaurant that closed down a number of
years ago called lalu Um, which is actually near just
north of agricole Um. And it's just I think it's
like near like on Saint I or something like that,
right one of those streets. U um. So you see,
(34:54):
I mean a restaurants still good and viable. You see
a lot of openings and things like that. But you
see like Little Burgundy being very popular with all the
children type of restaurants. Is the Plateau and the gay village?
Is it? Is it still supportive of restaurants? Do we
see newer places coming on? But the thing is, you know,
(35:14):
restaurant is like it's a passion thing first. The first
thing you need to understand, person, is not money first.
You all you need to understand what you want to
do well, you want to go. You know, it's like
if you come right now in Montreal, just open like
a French restaurant, I'm sure you're gonna last maybe for
two years. But if you know, if you look at
(35:35):
the city or the city going like, you know, the vibe,
you can make the French restaurant. But you need to
understand you need to bring the vibe. You're gonna bring
the Parisian vibe you're gonna bring. It's not only now
people not not going out only for food. They're going
out for an experience. You know. That's this is like
if you can bring them the responience that repenter restaurant,
(35:56):
because they're not only going out just to eat some
plate and going on. You know. Yeah, I think people
want like authenticity, they want something real. They want they
want to see the the energy. But and those are
the great restaurants, say, and they want to fill your
your passion. You want to see your love for what
you're doing, what you bring to the table. You know,
(36:16):
it is not only try to get their money. They
want you to like, you know, make them dream. You know,
they're looking for for a dream. This is that you
need to understand, like when you have to change, you
need to change. You can't only stay Okay, I'm here
for twenty years. I'm gonna stay like this. I don't care.
They have to just follow me now. People are not
(36:36):
here for that. People are here, like, you know, for
because they spend their money, you know, and everything right
now and you can't see it. Like everything is more expensive,
you know, going out on the instrument ten years before
and right now it's done the same thing. You know,
you have to spend more money in a lot of
people not making more money. You know. That's why you
need you to bring something special to make the spacial
(37:00):
of them all. Like, yes, this is it, you know, Like,
well that's what I mean. You know, I keep every
year I think about another thing. You know, my menu
change like for the terrorists, you know, the party of agricole.
Every year we change it. We're gonna keep like the classic,
but we're gonna bring all the cocktail. We're gonna bring
other type of food, like another experience. You know, aren't
(37:22):
gonna change you know, everything, because there's an experience. You know,
you need people to come back. It's not a big
city like Toronto once is still like a small city.
But when you have a client, you you wanted to
be a fan, you know, you needed to be back
at least like once a month, you know. But to
(37:44):
make that you make they need to feel special. Yeah,
people need to business owners and customers need to understand
that that we open up these places to get to
have regulars and and to be copuler with people on
a very regular basis. And that's really important to the
best bit. You know. So the business model that we
set forward, Um, so what do you what do you
(38:05):
want to stay in Montreal. I mean, you could move
back to Haiti. You could get a you know, you
taught down there for a long time and culinary and
but what makes you want to stay in Montreal. Me
it's like I remember when I moved when Canada are
going out of our office. But I when I see
at all, I say myself like I don't see me
in Canada for ten years, because I thought like Canada
(38:28):
was that experience only you know, when I moved to Montreal. Yes,
sometimes winter is hard, you know you want to It's
just like Queen winter is hard. I buy a ticket
for New Orleans or for d you know, I'm gonna
be happy. I know, like you know, I'm gonna have
the carnival. But after this Montreal it's more like the
multi cultural like you know, uh thing like making it
(38:50):
like very different. Like I can't see a lot of
people right now see the Montreal They're not Quebec, they're
not Canadian. You know, they find themselves in Montreal teop
because of the vibe of the culture. It's like like
you start in Aple and of Apple all the festival
stuff and me you know, you you have just festival coming,
(39:11):
you have a ful festival coming after. That's really interesting
that people do say they're montreal is because nobody says
I'm a Trontonian. I mean, you know you're not gonna
but you do say, you know, I'm a prision or,
I'm a New Yorker. And Montreal is in that status
of city. It's such an exciting place that people feel
like they belong to so much that they want to
(39:33):
take the citizenship of the city because there's a lot
of things like you don't have to deal with, you know.
You it's like there's a lot of sea you find
people like, you know, there is mutri cultural, yes, but
everyone that is spot. You know. It's like if you
want to have the best experience of acient food like before,
you will need to come like in Montreal, not you know,
(39:54):
when Montreal just start. You know, you need to come
like in the East part, you know, to have that
kind of resience. Everything was a bit like you know,
uh selection and you know everyone next stay in Desport.
Now it's done. It's a mismashed, like you know, people
like you get mixed, you know, everything like you know
is that me we got our estimate and the gay village,
(40:14):
you know, and we you know, we have the mix
like everyone gave people like you know, sweet people like
you know, it's trust people. Everyone is there. They didn't together,
they put you together. You know. We don't try to say, look,
you need to stay in your corner now. We don't
have that right now. In Montreal, people understand that and
they feel to this is what the world need right now.
(40:35):
You know, we need to get connect together. If we
are not connect together, we're gonna we're gonna get destroyed
together too. Everyone have their energy to bring everyone out there,
like you know, a knowledge to bring. Everyone has something
to bring to make that world perfect. But that's what
Montreal is. Montreal is every shape and size, every different color.
It's everyone, but it's in the true essence of community.
(41:00):
They all get along. And that's the most important thing.
Is that community should be about understanding that everyone's different,
but we all try and get along um and Montreal
is very much like that. So I think in closing,
I think what what I want to get across the
people always is Montreal is probably to me the most
exciting city in North America that's so accessible and so
(41:21):
closed and two hours away from so many other places,
and that you just need to go. H So, Paul,
thanks a lot, man. I'm Hugh Atchison. You're listening to
The Passenger from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after
this quick break. I'm Hugh Atchison. This is The Passenger.
(41:49):
One good way to prepare for a trip beyond packing
your suitcase, is through media and for some recommendations, I'm
going to hand it over to Jennet get Us, the
owner and founder of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, a
wonderful independent bookstore. Jenne GaAs wanted to be sure to
remind you that if you're going to check out her recommendations,
(42:11):
to visit your local independent bookstore. Like a lot of
music fans, um, I've long since been a fan of
Leonard Cohen, his music, especially his lyrics, and what I
(42:32):
came to a little later were his poems and stories,
many of which you can find online. He read them
better than I ever could. But he was born and
raised in Montreal, and I particularly enjoyed reading the Book
of Longing, which has never gone out of print, but
(42:55):
they have released some newer editions of it over the years. Um.
He it truly loves where he's from, and as much
as he traveled during his long career, he would come
back to Montreal. It was a touchstone for him. His
mom lived there alongside a park for a long time,
(43:15):
and so he would go back home, get reconnected with
the family, and then of course wander the streets of Montreal.
Once in a reading he described the magic of his
childhood spent in a Montreal park, and he said the
park nourished all the sleepers in the surrounding houses. It
(43:37):
was the green heart. It gave the children dangerous bushes
and heroic landscapes so they could imagine bravery. It gave
the nurses and maids winding walks so they could imagine beauty.
He was able to find such beauty even in stark images.
As you know, the Montreal winters can be very tough,
(43:59):
and he still is able to write about them with
just such intense beauty and magic. It makes me want
to visit the city, Uh, even in the winter, as
long as I'm dressed very warmly. He was always tuned
into the pulse of life, what was going on just
underneath the surface and um. He also, at one point
(44:21):
when traveling, Uh said the following, which I can definitely
identify with and I'm sure that those of us who
are frequent travelers can also agree with He said, you
always have a feeling in a hotel room like you're
on the lamb. And I love that idea that you're
you're out of your element, you're away from your home,
(44:43):
and if you're a solo traveler, no one else knows
where you are. Right in that moment. It almost as
if you've run away from your regular life. So I
would recommend anything by him, but if you are new
to him, I would start with a book of longing
and then maybe que up So Long Marianne. Perhaps my
favorite song by him. One of my favorite novelists is
(45:17):
named Emily Saint John Mandel. I've been reading her since
her debut novel, which is called Last Night in Montreal.
It was originally published by a small publisher called Unbridled Books,
and then as she achieved more fame in her career,
she now publishes with a larger publishing house. She is
best known for a more contemporary work, dystopian beautiful literature
(45:42):
called Station eleven that won many awards, but I still
have a particular fondness for Last Night in Montreal, her debut.
When I think of her novel, I think about Montreal
train stations, I think about bundling up in a warm coat.
The story is full of intrigue and mystery. She is
(46:04):
able to weave together seemingly disparate storylines and character studies,
and they all come together in just these fascinating ways.
But one of her descriptions of Montreal night in the cold,
really really evokes the actual reality of being there. He
(46:28):
forced himself to leave the station, walking into the cold
evening air. The street outside was all but deserted, urban
in a way that reminded him of medium sized cities. Everywhere,
wind sweat plazas, hard angles of glass and concrete. Across
the street, a low, anonymous glass tower reflected lights in sky.
A few cars passed, boxy and random, and it took
(46:51):
him a few minutes to recognize them as taxi cabs.
They weren't yellow. There was, in fact, nothing identifiable about
them at all. This was a random, remnant fleet, gray
Toyota Tursells, an old blue Valiants, boxy red Fords with
failing mufflers, and squarish minivans with rust around the fenders,
all with some variation on a taxi sign bolted to
(47:13):
the roof. Emily St. John Mandel is so talented at
dropping easter eggs into the story. Sometimes you'll be reading
and realized that fifty pages ago she's made reference to
the same suitcase, the same hotel, and you find yourself, uh,
scrolling back through the pages. This is one reason why
(47:35):
holding the physical book is so much easier than maybe
reading on an e reader an audio book in this case,
because you're you're just so curious to know what happened
and how it got to where she is now. Um,
if you like traveling through fiction, all of her stories
would be excellent. But Last Night in Montreal is a
(47:57):
great place to start from Avid bookshop in Athens, Georgia.
This is Janet Gettis. So we're is Montreal headed? I
mean when I lived there and when my older sisters
lived there before me, it was the place to go
that you know, Toronto was even at that time a
little bit more expensive. But Toronto, uh, you know, as
(48:21):
has always been sort of the behemoth in the room
of Canadian cities. Montreal is kind of half the size,
but also has clung to being its own place for
so long and still clings to that through gentrification through change.
(48:41):
It's still an artist city. It's still has relatively affordable
rents and real estate pricing. Uh, it's still has a
heartbeat of of that solidly French backbone that it refuses
to give up. And for good reason. There are lots
of anti English language laws being enacted and sort of
(49:05):
now put into effect or they've been long on the
books but never really enforced, and so that we're seeing
this push towards enforcement of those again. Whether that's a
good thing or a bad thing, I don't really know.
And I mean I have opinions on it. What I
what I really want Montreal to keep is it is
being such an international place. Um. That is, you know,
(49:31):
so important, I don't know, to be so reflective of
so many different cultures, with the backbone being the strong
kibbequa Montreal or culture. And I think that's the future
of it. Um. You know, it's got amazing universities and
UM invested in Mareal, that's got McGill, It's got Concordia
(49:52):
where I went. So it's uh, you know, platy technique,
all those in the chest system and which is the
sort of HGH school finishes at grade ten eleven and
then you go off to SIP which is kind of
like pre college college, UM, and then you go to university.
And I think that that those type of things mean
a lot of youthful culture, a lot of artists, a
(50:14):
lot of really interesting spread of things happening, great music culture.
When you're jack music culture there, you just there's there's arcade,
fire and uh, bands like that that have just really
been seminal for so long. Uh and they're still so
identifiably Montreal. Circula is from Montreal, UM and still has
(50:38):
their main campus there. The you know, really mostly they're
in Vegas and touring around. Uh. So it's just it's
that type of city. It's just got these economic engines
of the arts that make it so important. Um. The
economic engine of the comedy festival is so important, the
economic engine of the jazz festival is so important. The
(50:59):
economic of tourism around Old Mountreal is so important. But
there it's such an interesting place to go and again
realize how utterly close it is and going through customs
as a breeze. Uh. If you go there a lot,
you can always get the faster line systems like global
entry and things like that. But it is a breeze
(51:22):
to fly into Door Valle, it's breezed to fly out
of Door Vale, so there's no excuse not together. You've
been listening to The Passenger. This is a production of
I Heart Radio created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hassiotas.
Were produced and edited by Mike Johns. A researcher is
(51:45):
Jescelyn Shields and Christopher Hassiotas is our executive producer. Special
thanks to Gabrielle Collins, Crystal Waters, and the rest of
the crew. If you like The Passenger, leave us a
review on Apple podcast It helps other people like you
in the show. If you're a local and you want
to let me know what I missed and where should
go on my next visit, or if you've recently been
(52:08):
a Passenger like me and want to share your experience,
hit me up on Instagram and Twitter at Hugh Atchison.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, use the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
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