Master Chef

How Jean Paré, author of the Company’s Coming books, taught our country to cook

- Kristy Woudstra

SIX YEARS LATER, Gail Lovig still remembers the afternoon her mom taught her how to make pie crust. Lovig laid out the required ingredients in her kitchen in Fanny Bay, B.C., while her mother—who happens to be Jean Paré, of Company’s Coming cookbook fame—perched on a stool nearby, a glass of white wine in hand. When she was ready, Lovig looked at her mother and said, “Okay, tell me what to do.”

Paré had always made pies for get together, so Lovig had never felt the need to make her own. But as Paré got older, her daughter wanted to carry on the tradition. “It’s food, it’s connection to your family,” reflects Lovig, now 60.

Just as Paré showed her daughter tricks for achieving perfect pastry that day, she helped a generation of Canadians learn how to cook and bake. She launched Company’s Coming Publishing Limited with her bestselling cookbook 150 Delicious Squares in 1981 from her home in Vermilion, Alta. By the time Paré hung up her apron 30 years later, she’d won numerous awards, authored and self-published more than 200 books (which have collectively sold more than 30 million copies) and established herself as one of the most successful cookbook authors in the world.

One of Paré’s great insights was seeing the potential in “a book about bars and squares,” says fellow Canadian cookbook author Elizabeth Baird. “She had an eye for what people really wanted, and she did a good job in giving it to them.” Paré’s books looked and felt like heartwarming instruction manuals, with knee-slapping puns and colourful photos of comfort food scattered throughout.