popcorn home

This is how I write, sitting on someone's bed, with increasingly bad posture. Photo by Kristen Hahn.

In September of 2010, I moved to Montreal for love. Somewhere along the way, I got a fabulous job as a baker at a small, fun restaurant called Dépanneur le Pick Up, even though I still had a lot to learn about baking and pastry. Follow my adventures here, where I write about what I bake at work, and what I cook at home.

I love being a writer by morning and baker by night, and often the two practices are joined in a way that has made my life very satisfying. After a hard, frustrating day of writing, it’s nice to escape into my work kitchen, and bake until my arms are sore and tired and speckled with flour and cocoa powder. Writing lacks the physicality that helps me know I’m actually getting something done; it can be so hard to feel a tangible sense of completion with something as abstract and unquantifiable as writing. Baking, though, hits all the sweet spots, and in all the best ways. I love the feeling of collapsing into bed, exhausted after a long day of rolling out dough, melting chocolate, scrubbing fruit, and creaming butter and sugar. It has the most satisfying finality. And it doesn’t hurt that what I make is delicious.

Sometimes other things sneak into this space, like little essays about records I like, or friends I have, or some fashion that’s caught my eye. But it’s always about me, about my journey here in Montreal. Thanks for stopping by.

When I’m not baking up a big mess, you can find me writing up an even bigger mess at Signal to Noise magazine, YETI magazine, Foxy Digitalis, Paris Transatlantic, Montreal Mirror, Serious Eats, Montreal Gazette, and more.

(Oh, and I also organize the popular culinary workshops at Le Pick Up. Voir wrote a nice little piece about it here.)

I also have a Twitter.

Or get in touch via email: natasha.pickowicz [at] gmail [dot] com.

Some recent work:

Whoopie Pies, Morning Buns, enRoute, July 2011

Jerk Chicken: It’s Not Just Hot, Montreal Gazette, July 20, 2011

The Luxury of Legault’s Strawberries, the Montreal Gazette, June 8, 2011

Precious and Dwindling: Quebec’s Wild Leeks, the Montreal Gazette, May 18, 2011

Fleisher’s Meats Hosts Butcher Blackout at Joe Beef, Serious Eats, March 14, 2011

Maple Syrup Season Arrives at Au Pied de Cochon’s Cabane à Sucre, Serious Eats, March 8, 2011

Pizza D’Agostino: Old-School Montreal Pizza at its Best, Slice, Serious Eats, July 7, 2011

Toronto: VPN Pie at Pizzeria Libretto, Slice, Serious Eats, September 2, 2011

Hold the Meat, Montreal Mirror, May 26, 2011

Pieces of the Past, print only, Signal to Noise Magazine #62, 2011

Your Own Personal Vibe Coach, print only, YETI Eleven, 2011

R. Stevie Moore’s Abundant Singularity, essay, print only, POP Montreal Program, 2011

An Interview with founder of Signal to Noise magazine, Peter Gershon, Foxy Digitalis, August 15, 2011

Within Mirrors: An Interview With Filmmaker Paul Clipson, Foxy Digitalis, April 11, 2011

An Interview with Jon Mueller, Paris Transatlantic, June 2011

An Interview with Charles Curtis, Paris Transatlantic, March 2010