I do breakfast

I don’t remember, was it in second or third grade that I discovered coloured pencils? Yes, that’s right, it may seem strange today, but in 1954, beautiful Laurentian crayons were something very precious. “Precious and expensive,” said Mom when she read the list of school supplies. She had chosen the little box of six pencils for me: red, blue, green, yellow, orange and purple. I was ecstatic despite the fact that I had insisted on the 12-colour box. Mom controlled the family’s purse strings and every cent counted. Especially since she was also going to have to buy me a block of large sheets of white paper so I could practise drawing. By the look on her face, I knew she would only do it reluctantly. But I learned. I drew the sky and sea so many times that it wasn’t long before the blue pencil was just a stub. I still remember it clearly. I was teary-eyed until Dad returned from his trip and promised to bring me a box of 12 pencils, just for me. I drew fir trees, my favourite, with thick, heavy branches and occasionally a beautiful yellow star, glittering at its peak. The orange pencil was almost never used because at that time oranges were rarely available in the Gaspé. Once, however, I drew Mom in an orange dress with a little matching headband. She had a beautiful figure, but said she would never be caught wearing such a garish dress. Today, like Iris Apfel, orange is one of my favourite colours, along with yellow, pink, mauve and lime green. Yes, I like bold colours because they give me a sense of being alive. By the way, I’m crazy about glasses and I have them in almost every colour. I amuse myself scouring flea markets for retro frames. You might even think that my wardrobe is like a big box of 24-colour Laurentian pencils. I have been drawing for as long as I can remember – on school sheets, the back of calendar pages, on well-kept notebooks, in the margins of my diaries, and later, on the walls of our restaurants. You see, we had no budget to decorate the walls, so I would illustrate and colour in the names of the menu’s dishes. I put up some 10 posters around the restaurant. For almost a decade, with each new opening, I drew these names over and over again until the day arrived when we could afford to have my drawings professionally reproduced. For a long time I drew our menus by hand, creating small illustrations which, over the years, coalesced into a very special communication style. I also designed the upper and lower case characters myself, which became our own typeface. We still use it today in all our marketing communications. The distinctive CORA typeface was programmed with software for our graphic designers to use some 15 years ago and closely reflects the original style of our concept. This achievement makes me especially happy and proud. Not only did I have the pleasure of designing our SUN logo, all our menus and most of our decorative illustrations myself, but I also have the deep satisfaction of knowing that the little boxes of crayons from my childhood served me well. Once again, I realize that the beginnings of the CORA concept started in my childhood. The great importance I gave to the shapes of the alphabet, the constant hunger to learn, my love of reading and great curiosity were cornerstones in my success. I remember all those years ago when I watered every single seed of an idea. I watched every detail, every appetizing colour, every generous plate. Each new tremor excited my curiosity and I gave it my full attention. Even though I faced doubt, uncertainty and even the impossible with every new idea I considered, I had the blessed habit of ALWAYS WANTING TO TRANSFORM THE ORDINARY INTO THE EXTRAORDINARY. This happened so often that I came to believe a kind fairy was whispering my best ideas into my ear and that a benevolent angel at my side was guiding my success. And so, as I was struggling to weed my own garden, an amazing concept for morning gastronomy emerged out of nothing. Cora ❤

Mother 8 Heaven’s Way The great yonder above Dearest Mom, you must be surprised to finally have word from me. Since you left us in a car accident in 1982, I have written to you only once, but I never mailed the letter. Now, being much older than you and still alive, I have finally learned how to bundle all my love together and send it to you in paradise. I remember very clearly, Mom, the day I had to identify your body at the morgue. I especially remember your cracked and bloodied skull, just like your hands had been all your life. I didn’t cry on that day because my own heart was shattered into a thousand pieces too. Walking away from the cold marble, I simply tried to forget your sad life. Dad had died the year before and you decided to take my children with you to Gaspésie as soon as vacation time arrived. It worked out well, since I was working day and night then. The kids could see the sea and spot the small trout hiding in the streams. Do you remember, Mom? You had just passed the village sign when your little Austin Marina collided with a big truck carrying sheep to slaughter. I was so scared, Mom, when I got the call. Even though I had been reassured that my children were safe and sound, for months I imagined them to be those sheep on their way to meet their end. Dearest Mom, I blamed you for my own life’s difficulties for too long. I was angry at you for not loving us properly, for always being unwell in your head, so stingy with your love, so ungenerous when it came to encouraging our dreams. I didn’t want to be like you. And yet when I learned from aunt M at your funeral that your heart was already broken when you married Dad, I realized that I had done exactly what you had: I married a man I didn’t love because I carried his child. Aunt M told me that you loved literature, that you had dreams of writing and artistic aspirations, a desire to see the world and to learn. She teared up as she told me that you had to give it all up because, at that time, a young woman had no choice. Today, I understand you, Mom. And I can no longer blame you. You expressed your rebellion quietly by doing your housework well: cooking, baking, making jams, cleaning, gardening and sewing. But truth be told, your lack of love greatly distressed us children, especially the girls. But it ends now, because together, we are learning that happiness grows from within. I am making my letter longer, dear Mother, because despite everything, I still need you to love me, to rock and sing me to sleep. But don’t worry about me anymore. I instinctively knew what I needed to do. I left my noxious marriage, and in 1987, I set out to build a huge kitchen, between whose walls, my own children and hundreds of other co-workers were welcomed with respect and affection and encouraged to discover their full potential, to trust themselves and to achieve great things. Yes, Mom, it is probably because of you and our troubled family life that I found myself in the hospitality business, opening my arms wide, feeding and loving all who came to sit at our tables. Some healers of the heart might say that my leadership sprung from this need to fulfill my own childhood desires. It doesn’t matter, Mom. Never mind that I wanted to demonstrate that, despite the impoverished model I was given, I was capable of doing better, for longer. I set a big table. I gathered hundreds of entrepreneurs around a creative and rewarding endeavour. I am proud and satisfied to have created a meal here on Earth that will be served long after I join you in your Paradise. Don’t worry anymore, Mom, I am rich because I have discovered that by feeding others I have quelled my heart’s hunger. Today, dear Mom, I write to you with tears of joy; I am so happy to have been born. I thank you for having been my mother, just as you were, because it allowed me to become the person I am. Thank you for passing on to me your love of writing, literature and teaching. You also gave me your talent for sewing, and with it, the magical power to make anything with my hands. You gave me your organizational skills, your sturdy build, your thick, beautiful mane, your ability to endure irritations, pain and the malice of others. I inherited your great physical strength, your keen thriftiness and your extraordinary capacity for self-sacrifice. I remember, Mom, the first time I asked you for a dress, you gave me two yards of fabric and a pattern. And that’s how I learned how to sew all my children’s pretty clothes, dresses for myself, tablecloths, curtains and almost every sweet stuffed animal featured in the big Butterick and McCall pattern books. All of this has served me well, dear Mom, and I am so glad I am like you. I love you, I love you at last, Mom, and it is the most glorious feeling ever. Love is everything, and I know now that the world is full of mothers who, like me, still remember the painful unshackling of their own growth. I will no longer be afraid because only love truly matters. I know that now. And each time a person is gripped with the urgency of the creative act, they stumble their way toward self-knowledge like a newborn releasing their talents into the sunlight one by one. I will be forever grateful to you, dearest Mother, for keeping me alive and clear-headed until I could unravel and understand your life and my own. From up there, reach out and grab my hand, mother dearest. Hold me tight. Now that we have found each other, we are bound by the love that runs through our veins. And today, to wish you a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, I will trace a huge pink HEART in the blue sky above! Your little girl, who loves you very much, Cora 💓 Psst: To all the women in the world who have in one way or another raised a child, to my own daughter and my two granddaughters, I offer you my heart full of love.

The other evening the clock turned back. Suddenly I was 30 years old and sitting on my marriage bed, straight as the letter “i,” with the night’s black cheeks observing my movements through the bedroom’s only window. On my lap was a children’s bible, printed in large lettering, on which four lined school sheets were waiting to receive all my sorrows. I hesitated. I was afraid, fearful of the angry husband who insisted until he was blue in the face that women were not meant to write. He hated it when I pulled paragraphs out of my head that he could neither read or understand. As a precaution, I hid my writing, my pens and any pencil that was not part of the kids’ school supplies. Thirteen years of marriage and three young children had taught me to maintain the peace at home. I kept quiet, cooked, cleaned, loved my babies and obeyed the master of the house. Remotely guided by some angel, whose name I didn’t know, I entertained my little ones by reading the Bible to them. Washed, combed and perfumed with talcum powder, the three of them sat around me on the living room carpet. They often interrupted me, asking me a thousand questions about the lives of the first apostles and the parables of Jesus. I particularly remember the story of poor Lazarus, who died and was buried, only to be resurrected. At that time I had no idea that one day I too would rise from my unhappy tomb. To soften my fate, I tried to be kinder than kindness itself at times. My husband only scolded me more in return. He would try to subdue me, to bend me to his authority. But my docile attitude made him furious and I never resisted. The Dalai Lama would have been proud of me if he too had seen me through the bedroom window. Even if I was the only one of the three daughters-in-law to write to the mother-in-law in her own language, the husband still quibbled. He wanted to know what I was writing. Was I complaining? Often in the afternoon I would sit on the small third-floor balcony. I would try to think about my life, but everything would get jumbled up in my head. Each time, my tangled hopes and sorrows disappeared in the deafening noise of the city traffic. Sometimes I implored the city birds to transport my messages to imaginary friends. Once, a squirrel jumped onto my balcony out of nowhere. I reached out to pet it, but its teeth dug deep into my thumb. Apart from my young children, it was easy for me to conclude that I was unlovable in the eyes of this foreign world. Just like in the Cinderella story, the cantankerous daughters-in-law rejoiced at my misfortunes. “What an idea, marrying a foreigner,” they yammered to anyone who would listen. “Sure, she speaks our language, she cooks our food, but what does she really know about us?” In the Greek neighbourhood in the central north area of Montreal, life ground on, and one day, the mother-in-law arrived from Greece. Insisting on living with her new daughter-in-law, I prepared for my daily discomfort to climb a few notches on the Richter scale. The butter on the table upset her, the amount of chamomile in her teacup, the way the grape leaves were folded, the overly mushy orzo, the overcooked lamb… She grumbled about every detail to her favourite child, my husband. Yet occasionally I helped her wash her huge body, sitting on a stool in the small bathroom of the house. I still remember how I had to soap the creases in her neck, her cavernous ears and broad shoulders. I held her heavy breasts in my hand, rubbed her big belly, thick thighs and long legs, down which the soapy lather ran and settled in between her toes. Her body nice and dry, I untangled and combed her long, still-black hair and smeared her face with an anti-wrinkle cream that came in the luggage from Thessaloniki. In those rare moments of intimacy, I often felt that my miserable life was nothing compared to what this woman had endured. I knew her story and strangely enough, I loved her. I loved her resilient heart despite the many unbearable experiences she had endured: the loss of three husbands, her abduction by rebel soldiers, the sexual violence, estrangement from her children and the long years of misery until finally being reunited with her three sons in Canada, a land of new beginnings. All this to say, before throwing stones, it’s good to learn a bit about a person’s life to discover in which marinade they have soaked. Cora ❤