The best place for a picnic is wherever you decide to have a picnic

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For beloved Quebec food personality Josée di Stasio, a salad of watermelon, tomatoes, feta and grilled shrimp is “a beautiful definition of summer.”

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Ditto in-season cantaloupe or honeydew drizzled with a vinaigrette of olive oil, lime juice, chopped mint or lemon balm and maybe a few nasturtiums, if they’re on hand.

Meeting friends in a park, spreading a blanket or a tablecloth, uncorking a bottle, setting out plates and unwrapping a muffuletta — a giant stuffed sandwich meant to be shared — is another way to define summer.

“A simple pleasure,” she observed on Facebook recently.

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“I adore picnics,” di Stasio told the Montreal Gazette. To her, the best place for a picnic is “anywhere. You can have a picnic on a balcony or in a park, or when you are on the road, en route somewhere.”

Just wrapping sandwiches to eat on the road or packing up cheese and bread puts her in a picnic frame of mind, she said. She keeps a dedicated metal box for picnics containing “a little kit” of knives and a small cutting board.

French gastronomy writer Maurice Edmond Sailland, better known by his pen name Curnonsky, observed that “in cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection.”

Di Stasio cites Curnonsky in her sixth and latest cookbook, Mes carnets de saison, printemps-été (KO Éditions, 2022), a book full of enticing and truly simple summer fare.

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“I think it’s important to have super simple recipes, like peaches and prosciutto, together, rather than complicated ones,” she said. Think rolling chèvre into little balls and coating them in chopped herbs or the petals of edible flowers and serving them alongside crackers, with drinks before a meal or at the end of a meal.

Think “pasta with fresh uncooked tomatoes now that the beautiful and flavourful tomatoes of summer are here,” said di Stasio. “It’s about celebrating what we have.”

In addition to recipes, her book, illustrated with gorgeous photos by Dominique T Skoltz, features suggestions on how to embrace a season di Stasio lauds for its late sunsets, birdsong, abundant produce in market stalls, people crowding terrasses and the perfume of fresh herbs.

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Keep a bouquet of fresh herbs in a glass in the kitchen — mint, basil, flat-leaf parsley and chives are good choices — and “use them to the max,” she said.

“I love mint in salads and love basil nearly everywhere,” she said. “Use all the seasonal herbs, and in generous quantities: Put the season in your plate.”

A pesto of mixed herbs and a squeeze of lemon goes well in soup, salad and elsewhere and “perfumes everything,” she said. Instead of marinating meat or poultry before barbecuing, try barbecuing plain and then brushing the meat afterward with a vinaigrette featuring fresh herbs.

To legions of fans, di Stasio is an icon, admired and respected for her knowledge and her abiding curiosity and enthusiasm about food and cooking, and for the good humour and generosity of spirit she has brought to her work and all that she taught them with her award-winning television program À la di Stasio.

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The show aired on Télé-Québec from 2002 through 2014, when di Stasio was blindsided by a diagnosis of breast cancer. She’s fine now, but looking at life through the crucible of a cancer diagnosis changes you, she said. It has made her aware of life’s precarious nature and taught her to appreciate things more.

Di Stasio returned to television in 2016 with a new program, di Stasio. This one took her from the studio into the community: from markets into living rooms.

A couple of years later, she stepped back from television to work on an eponymous bookazine project, part book and part magazine: The first issue, shot in Italy and Montreal, came out in 2018 and was bursting with recipes and profiles: It ran 114 pages. That year she published a fifth cookbook, À la soupe (Flammarion Québec), as a follow to Le Carnet Rouge (Flammarion Québec, 2013), which espoused a quiet, low-key, entertaining philosophy.

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In 2019, a website and terrific weekly newsletter followed. Di Stasio has a strong social media presence, with her Facebook page (@joseedistasio.ca) updated daily and nearly 56,000 followers on Instagram (@joseedistasio).

She likes the immediacy of social media — of having an idea or wanting to share a recipe and doing it right away, she said. “It’s now; it is current.”

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But she also loves books and the art of creating a book, which is one reason she wanted to write another cookbook. “I am a fan of reading and I continue to read,” she said. “And I have lots of friends who are readers.

“I want the object to hold in my hand. I want the photos and the colour. I want the ambience.”

Mes carnets de saison includes “musts” from her television shows and recipes from her website and new recipes: Vegetarian recipes are prominent.

The 255-page book includes everything from tips on how to make pita chips or labneh to advice on how to cut flowers so they last. Di Stasio, who loves having flowers in the house, said she might have liked to become a florist. Indeed, the book opens with a chapter on flowers.

She was researching future editions of her bookazine when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March 2020 “and I could not see a time when we would be travelling.” But she is open to the nature of transition, as she put it: “OK, let’s see what to do next.”

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Mes carnets de saison is described as a first volume; a second volume will be out in September and will have a fall-winter theme and “a different ambience” from the first issue. In August or September, di Stasio will film a television show set to air before the holidays in December on Télé-Québec, marking 20 years from the debut of À la di Stasio. The show will look at how cooking has evolved in two decades and how the culinary landscape has changed. And we’ll see what’s next after that.

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Vegetarian Muffuletta

Serves 8 to 10

Muffuletta, a giant sandwich prepared ahead of time, is ideal picnic fare. It’s made from a large round roll of Italian bread split in two and usually filled with layers of salami, ham, provolone and olive salad, but there is a lot of room for creativity: Di Stasio’s version is vegetarian. Wrap the muffuletta in a dish towel to transport it to a picnic and cut it when you’re ready to eat; you’ll need a sharp bread knife and a board. Spread pesto or tapenade on the bread, use other kinds of cheese or, if you wish, add charcuterie.

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Preheat oven to broil. Set a rack 4 inches (10 cm) from heating element. Place the sliced eggplant and zucchini on a lightly oiled pan. Brush them with oil on both sides and season with salt and pepper.

Bake the eggplant for 6 to 8 minutes and the zucchini for 5 to 7 minutes, turning halfway through. Pat slices dry and set aside.

Slice loaf horizontally, two-thirds of the way up. Remove the equivalent of about two slices from the bottom section and reserve for another use. Brush the interior, top and bottom, with olive oil.

Spread the bottom of the loaf with half the provolone, half the chopped olive and the lemon zest. In layers, spread the eggplant, basil leaves, roasted peppers, rest of the cheese, zucchini slices, rest of the olives and the chèvre.

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Place the top of the loaf over the filling and press down firmly. Wrap the loaf carefully with plastic or foil. Place a weight over the loaf and refrigerate for at least four hours.

Wrapped lettuce leaves

Makes 18 rolls, or 3 to 4 portions

Prepare the filling for this dish in advance — creating it can be such fun — and enjoy eating it with your hands.

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In a bowl, use a whisk to mix together the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, garlic and brown sugar, making sure to dissolve the brown sugar. Set aside.

In a large non-stick frying pan on medium-low, melt the coconut oil. Add the tofu or chicken, celery and carrots. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked but still a bit crisp and the chicken is cooked.

Add the reserved sauce and reheat gently over low heat for a minute or two, mixing all the while to coat the tofu or the chicken.

Remove dish from heat and add green onions, coriander and lime zest. Taste and add hot sauce if desired. (If preparing this dish in advance, add a bit of water or bouillon when you reheat, if needed.)

For serving, place the tofu or chicken mixture on the table, along with lettuce leaves, peanuts, coriander and lime quarters. Let everyone fill their own lettuce leaf.

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Rustic Peach and Ginger Tart

Makes 8 to 10 portions

For the crust:

For the filling:

To make the crust, cut the butter into small cubes. In a bowl, place the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter. With a pastry cutter or two knives, work the mix to come up with pieces the size of peas. Add the ice water and mix until a ball of dough is formed. Form a disk one inch (2.5 cm) thick. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

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On lightly floured parchment paper, roll out the dough to get an oval form about 14 inches (35 cm) in length. Place the dough and the parchment paper on the underside of a baking pan or a pan without sides and refrigerate as you prepare the filling.

For the filling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). In a large bowl, mix the peach quarters with the ginger, sugar, tapioca, vinegar and salt. Leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes, mixing occasionally.

Remove crust from fridge and brush with the egg white, leaving a two-inch (5 cm) border. Spread the crushed biscuits over the crust, avoiding the edges, then spread the peach mixture over the crushed biscuits. Fold the edges over the fruits, making large folds. Fold the border over the fruit with large folds. Brush the border with the egg yolk. Sprinkle the edges and the fruit with sugar.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, rotating halfway through baking. Allow to cool before serving.

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