Poached in honey-sweetened water, here's the story behind a Montréal-style bagel recipe adapted for my little home kitchen in Australia. Homemade Montreal-style bagels • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2021 For years, I kept telling myself that I would try making bagels at home, but it wasn't until the pandemic lockdowns that I finally gave it a go. I don't know why I waited so long—they are so good! One of the things I love most about making Montréal-style bagels at ho

Discover what makes Montréal bagels so special! Montreal-style bagels, always best fresh out of the bag © Bottle and Brush Studio 2021 Having lived fifteen years of my adult life in Montréal, I sometimes miss the city's vibrant food scene and the iconic foods available at almost any hour of the day. Montréal is a multicultural city shaped by generations of immigrants who brought their culinary traditions, creating the unique gastronomic identity for which the city is known to

Québec’s unique traditional meat spread, an essential element for a Sugar Shack-style brunch! Pork cretons homemade in Australia with garden seasoning • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2021 "Cretons" is a pork-based pâté generally served on toasted bread with breakfast. This forcemeat-style spread is typically French Canadian, and there is no English word for it. “Toasts with creton, please », my friend Valérie asked as a breakfast order in a Tim Horton café in the wes

How I managed to recreate a cabane à sucre experience… far from Québec! Homemade sugar shack feast in my Australian home • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2025 After a few years living abroad, I started to miss the food of the cabanes à sucre (sugar shacks), those generous, maple-filled meals that mark the arrival of spring during the maple syrup harvest in Québec and share a story about it on this blog. At first, this post was about a food photography challenge (and lo

A sweet and savoury Québec-style baked beans recipe, re-adapted in Australia. Maple & bacon baked beans dish • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2023 We all know this iconic comfort dish, but in Québec, you'll find old-fashioned maple baked beans served with a classic lumberjack-style breakfast or at sugar shacks throughout the province. Québec-style baked beans are called fèves au lard("lard beans"), although in everyday Québec French we often use the slang term bines (p