About

I’m a Montreal-based freelance food and travel writer and a food features writer for the Montreal Gazette. I throw my whole heart into local, sustainable and organic food when possible. And I’m always looking for the perfect ingredient or flavour that Montreal (or my travels) can provide.

I’ve written for EnRoute (Air Canada), MSN.ca, National Post, National Geographic Traveller UK, Forbes Digital, Maisonneuve and Alive Magazine and am a regularly contributor to FineDiningLovers.com. I used to co-host an indie music podcast and a morning radio show back when I was the food editor at Montreal blog Midnight Poutine. I also used to work as a researcher for a show on The Food Network US and spent days delving into the menus and reviews of up-and-coming restaurants in US food capitals. Though I already had a Masters Degree in Percussion Performance (yeah, that was practical), I went back to school and finished a journalism degree. Now I work as an on-air contributor and a researcher for two television shows at MAtv with Vidéotron in Montreal.

While completing a masters in percussion performance in 2007, I started writing a food blog. My first entry was on a dairy-free chocolate mousse cake from Alice Medrich’s “Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts.” I don’t eat gluten or much caffeinated-anything anymore, but that was one heck of a cake. And I hope lots of people find that now out-of-print cookbook.

I’ve raced around Montreal, Seattle, Toronto, St. John’s, Peru, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia looking for the best ____, from ceviche to poutine to patios (we call them “terrasses” here in La Belle Province). And now I even sometimes get asked to cook at farmers markets or join panels on eating with food intolerances or food entrepreneurship.

I also occasionally teach canning or sustainable sushi classes, sometimes I cater, I interview chefs, farmers and cookbook authors, and sometimes I cover whole lamb butchering throw-downs. I particularly love wine salons and once spent an afternoon spitting out zero dosage Champagne and feeling very guilty, but very lucky (and hoping many people would get to enjoy—or at least read about—the bubbles I loved for a special occasion in the future).

I love (in order of importance):

1. Farmers markets
   2. Rockclimbing
   3. Sustainable vanilla-apple Arctic char from Becky Selengut’s cookbook, “Good Fish”
   4. Writing/cooking/eating/my garden
   5. Figs
   6. Mangoes
   7. The Australian food show, Poh’s Kitchen (Season 1, not 2)

I don’t love:

1. Pesticides, antibiotics, gas-guzzlers
   2. Low quality pork
   3. Snow
   4. MasterChef/Top Chef/Iron Chef

Thanks for checking out my site! It’s nice to know that there are other people into good food, healthy living and passion-led travel. As a Montreal woman once told me while my local blueberries tumbled down the subway stairs, every moment is une expérience de la vie – an experience in life.

Work With Me

Feel free to contact me for freelance articles, recipe development, cookbook reviews, advertising and product reviews. Here’s a link to my advertising rate sheet. If you represent a brand or a company that you think would be a match with what I do (see above), email me!

And to all like-minded food bloggers, please contact me for recipe cross-posts, link exchanges, and to share food ideas.

Contact me:

Amie
watson (dot) amie (at) gmail (dot) com
or on twitter @MissWattson or Facebook