{"id":31163,"date":"2018-12-14T03:51:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T11:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=31163"},"modified":"2018-12-12T12:20:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T20:20:24","slug":"gourmet-anything-but-lazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/12\/14\/gourmet-anything-but-lazy\/","title":{"rendered":"Gourmet anything but lazy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Susan Mendelson, founder of the Lazy\nGourmet, shares a little about herself and her business at the launch of this\nyear\u2019s The Scribe<\/em>. (photo by Kenneth I. Swartz)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Vancouver\u2019s most successful food\nindustry professionals shared her story recently, helping to launch this year\u2019s\nedition of The Scribe<\/em>, the journal of the Jewish Museum and Archives of\nBritish Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The topic of the 2018 issue is food, covering\nrestaurants and related sectors from the early days of the community up to destinations\nthat are still operating today. Susan Mendelson, best known around town as\nfounder of the Lazy Gourmet, brought her thespian side to the audience at the\nWestern Front Nov. 28, eliciting laughter as she guided the packed hall on a\ntour through her remarkable career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mother\u2019s mother, Grandma Faye, was a large\ninfluence in my life,\u201d Mendelson said. An extraordinary baker and cook renowned\nin her small Jewish community of Quebec City, Grandma Faye took it as a\nchallenge to keep a deep freezer filled with baking for when friends dropped by\nor to be ready for a tea party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child, Mendelson loved to cook and bake.\nWhen the Six Day War broke out in Israel, in 1967, the family rallied to raise\nfunds to send to Israel. Young Susan planned a bake sale in their backyard. She\nmade all of her favourite squares and cookies and the neighbours snapped them\nup. Mendelson\u2019s mother only told her years later that the cost of the\ningredients was on par with what was raised that day. Thankfully, Mendelson told\nthe audience, that wasn\u2019t a harbinger of things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendelson came to Vancouver to study at the\nUniversity of British Columbia and gravitated to the theatre department. Her\ntheatre professor, Larry Lillo, became a close friend. He broke the news to Mendelson\nthat she would never be a great actress \u2026 though he really loved her\ncheesecake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After third year, Mendelson took a break from\nschool and worked in a group home for troubled teens. There, she met Deborah\nRoitberg, with whom she made the food for the kids in the group home. An\ninstant friendship developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After traveling to Europe and Israel, Mendelson\nthought she would return to school and pursue social work. Around that time,\nLillo had founded Tamahnous Theatre, an experimental ensemble that was becoming\nthe resident company at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He hired Mendelson\nas house manager, which allowed her to go to school during the day and work at\nthe Cultch, as the institution is familiarly known, at night. But the salary\ndidn\u2019t cover her expenses, so she began to make cheesecake to sell at\nintermission, later adding carrot cake and Nanaimo bars to her repertoire \u2013\n\u201cwhen the curtain came down at intermission, the lobby was stormed by people\npushing in line to make sure that they got their piece of the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Petrie of CBC radio\u2019s afternoon show\ncalled Mendelson, having heard about the cheesecake phenomenon, and asked her\nto come on the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told her that I was putting myself through\nuniversity with the recipe, but that I would come onto her show to tell her\nlisteners how to make chocolate cheesecake, a recipe that my friend Miriam\nGropper had given me,\u201d Mendelson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her cheeky attitude was a hit with audiences,\nand she was asked back. She returned for Valentine\u2019s Day, talking about\naphrodisiacs. Soon she had a regular radio gig paying $25 per appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendelson\u2019s boss at the Cultch started asking\nher to cater opening night parties. Wedding catering followed and then\nMendelson was given the responsibility of catering to all the performers at the\nfirst iteration of the Vancouver Children\u2019s Festival. She and Roitberg\ndiscussed opening a take-out food business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur concept was that people would bring in\ntheir casserole dishes and platters and we would fill them with our food and\nthey would take them home and pretend that they had made them themselves,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cWe would call ourselves the Lazy Gourmet, in honour of our customers who\nwanted gourmet food but were too lazy to make it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Mendelson had shared scores of\nrecipes with radio listeners and some asked her to put them in book form. Mama\nNever Cooked Like This<\/em> sold out and went into reprints; it was picked up by\nan American publisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To coincide with the publication of her second\nbook, which was written for children and titled Let me in the Kitchen<\/em>,\nthe producer of the Children\u2019s Festival, Chris Wootten, asked Mendelson to\nproduce her own show. The best part of that experience, Mendelson recalled, was\nthat a single dad in the audience brought his 7-year-old son and they bought\nthe cookbook and made recipes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from it. \u201cSix years later, I met those two,\u201d\nshe said. \u201cAnd, seven years later, I married the dad and became stepmother to\nthe most wonderful young teen. I was so happy that Jack and Soleil had experienced\nthat show and that in some way we shared that amazing experience of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV appearances followed and Mendelson was asked\nto write a souvenir cookbook for Expo 86. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the trajectory was not entirely positive.\nAfter expanding the Lazy Gourmet from one store to three, the company began\nlosing money. They eventually abandoned two of the storefronts and Roitberg\nleft the business to raise a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after the birth of daughter Mira,\nMendelson was invited to cater a new event that was coming to Vancouver: the\nMolson Indy Vancouver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you thought that the Children\u2019s Festival\nwore me out \u2026 you can\u2019t even imagine what that event did to me physically,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cBut, of course, I loved it and, by the last few years of the race, which\ntook place on Labour Day weekend \u2013 Jack will tell you that it was our\nanniversary weekend that we didn\u2019t celebrate for nine years \u2013 we were also\ncatering the Abbotsford Airshow, which took place two weeks beforehand and, two\nweeks before that, we catered the Skins Game at Predator Ridge in the\nOkanagan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to hard work, Mendelson credits her\nsuccess to hiring people who she says are smarter and more talented than\nherself. A couple of years ago, she gave shares in the company to two long-term\nteam members and moved into a part-time role. The company continues to expand,\nincluding a lifecycle catering department. \u201cWe call it womb-to-tomb catering,\u201d\nshe said, citing baby-namings, britot milah, b\u2019nai mitzvah, weddings and\nfunerals, as well as personal events. More recently, Mendelson took on catering\nthe lunches at Vancouver Talmud Torah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Scribe<\/em> launch also\nincluded words from Cynthia Ramsay, editor and publisher of the Independent<\/em>,\nwho has also, for the past nine years, edited The Scribe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I started the job, the journal was a mix\nof academic essays and community-related history,\u201d Ramsay said. \u201cBut it soon\nchanged to become a means by which the museum could highlight its collection;\nthe oral histories, photographs and other artifacts that it houses on the\ncommunity\u2019s behalf. We\u2019ve done issues on the Jewish Western Bulletin<\/em>,\nthe Jewish Independent<\/em>\u2019s predecessor; on the furniture industry; scrap\nmetal dealers; the clothing industry; on some of the community pioneers who are\nburied in our cemeteries all around the province; and, this year, of course,\nour issue is on the food and service industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She credited museum staff Alysa Routtenberg,\nMarcy Babins and Michael Schwartz, and the publications committee, which this\nyear included Routtenberg, Perry Seidelman, Gary Averbach, Debby Freiman, Fred\nSwartz and Ronnie Tessler. The JI<\/em>\u2019s production manager, Josie Tonio\nMcCarthy, does the layout for the journals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seidelman, president of the JMABC, urged audience members not to\nthrow out photographs or documents. \u201cGive them to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susan Mendelson, founder of the Lazy Gourmet, shares a little about herself and her business at the launch of this year\u2019s The Scribe. (photo by Kenneth I. Swartz) One of Vancouver\u2019s most successful food industry professionals shared her story recently, helping to launch this year\u2019s edition of The Scribe, the journal of the Jewish Museum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[6073,4242,6684,6427,8584,8585],"class_list":["post-31163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-food","tag-history","tag-jewish-museum","tag-lazy-gourmet","tag-scribe","tag-susan-mendelson"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}