Mia Stainsby
Sun
JOANNE FACCHIN (with husband Didier) Chef/Owner: Coco Et Olive
Most popular dish: Rustic savoury roasted tomato and goat cheese galette.
In the early 1980s, while living in Vancouver, I looked at all the cooking schools in North America and even asked Gourmet magazine about which cooking school to go to. The one that sounded most interesting was La Varenne in Paris.
After a year at La Varenne, I took a job as a private chef for the Australian ambassador and I did some stages (work experience) in one and two-Michelin star restaurants. If anyone asks me whether to go to cooking school or travel and work in restaurants, I’d say work in restaurants. You get right in there and rub elbows.
I’ve had to do the same task three days in a row — deboning frogs legs, buckets of them. It’s very hands-on. Schools are good for theory.
When I was working in France, I was frequently the only female in the kitchen and I wasn’t taken seriously. I’d studied, worked 16 hours a day and they still treated me as if I didn’t count. At the same time, the structure and hierarchy of a French kitchen is fabulous. There’s a pecking order; everyone understands it, respects it and it runs smoothly.
How did you meet your husband?
My husband and I lived in the same neighbourhood, the 16th [arrondissement]. I was an au pair, supporting myself through school a few evenings a week. Didier [Facchin] and I bumped into each other in the street, literally. I said, “Excuse me” in English or bad French, I can’t remember. He said, “You’re not French.” We got chatting and it led to a hot romance. I was 26. He was 23 and working as an aeronautics engineer.
We spent some time in Paris then came back here. I was a food stylist and still do that. I started a cottage industry making vinegars and salad dressings and Didier took over the sales, and voila! He was in the distribution business, importing and adding on other products.
Didier didn’t want to go through engineering schooling again. He was happy to be here. We made it up as we went along. It was three, four years before we could sit down for a serious conversation. We didn’t know each other as profoundly as we would have if we spoke the same language.
We now have two daughters, 15 and 18. Here, Didier feels like he’s always on vacation, it’s so much simpler. He grew up in Paris and it’s an intense lifestyle. He loves it here, but he misses the French gab. They love to get together and talk about politics.
His French family values are different from mine. He’s a fantastic father but quite strict and expects to be the king of the castle. I’m a hard-working female, very liberated and, within that framework, he isn’t the head of the table. There are three females versus him in our family.
What led to Coco Et Olive?
We found this location to amalgamate the distribution business and it came with a storefront. We put in a little grocery store and cafe. The distribution business had been taking over our lives.
Didier was always in the car, travelling farther and farther and spending more time away from home. Now he manages the show. He’s the barista and takes care of the grocery end. I do the food. I love cooking and I can’t get it out of my system. It’s pleasurable.
What’s dinner like at home?
We sit down for a dinner every night, no matter what. We sit down for a full dinner and discuss.
Didier doesn’t do much cooking at home but one of my daughters cooks all the time. Both my daughters are realizing the food culture in their family now that they’re eating at other people’s homes and in restaurants. It’s like, “Ohhh, mom, thanks for doing all that cooking for all those years!”
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COCO ET OLIVE
3476 West Broadway, 604-736-7080.
A charming, French country-style interior with old wood floors and French cafe-style food — savoury tarts and galettes, soups, salads, a delicious tapenade, cheese plates, several hummus dishes and sandwiches on flat, crusty Georgian baguette and a tempting array of baking. You can call ahead for takeout or eat at one of the tables.
Most popular dish: Rustic savoury roasted tomato and goat cheese galette (right). It feeds about eight people.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
