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The catering chef
Denis Bernatchez considers cooking a passion, not a job

Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, August 19, 2010

THEBACHA/FORT SMITH - Denis Bernatchez is a well-known caterer in Fort Smith, but that job title does not do justice to his background as an experienced chef.

NNSL photo/graphic

On Aug. 14, Denis Bernatchez of Fort Smith carried some just-baked bread from his house to nearby Conibear Park for the South Slave Friendship Festival. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"It's a passion," he said of cooking. "For me, it's not a job."

Bernatchez, 56, owns a catering company called The Old Skillet.

"It's kind of a part-time job, but it's getting to be a full-time job," he said, adding he is assisted by his wife, Margaret Mabbitt.

Bernatchez, who is from the Gaspe Peninsula region of Quebec, first began cooking for summer work when he was barely a teenager.

"At 13 years old, I was a pastry chef. I used to cook for 750 men in a camp," he said, noting the camps were for a hydroelectric construction project in northern Quebec.

"My mom was always a good chef and I learned everything from my mom," he said. "I could cook anything in pastry."

Afterwards he spent five years as an electronics technician in the Canadian navy and then returned to cooking in the merchant marine.

Although he considered himself a good cook, he was sent to cooking school in New Orleans, then to Copenhagen and Belgium for more study.

After six years in the merchant marine, he worked at various other jobs – on a cruise line in the Caribbean, on the Bluenose II, and as head chef at a hotel at the Mont Tremblant, Que., ski resort.

Bernatchez said, through his training and experience, he has learned to prepare many kinds of food – wild meat, Cajun food, pastries, flambes, souffles, bread and various varieties of ethnic foods such as Thai, French, Italian and Chinese.

"Anything, you name it," he said, noting he has about 5,000 cookbooks.

However, he considers his specialty to be seafood, including shrimp, scallop, lobster and crab.

Bernatchez is also well-known for his bread.

Whatever he makes, he said he enjoys the reaction to his cooking.

"It's just to see the smiles on people's faces when they eat," he said.

Before coming to Fort Smith, Bernatchez worked at a Montreal restaurant, where the owner helped him obtain experience as a chef in Europe.

"I owed him a favour because he's the one that was putting me into those nice jobs," Bernatchez recalled. "He said, 'You take a contract in Fort Smith.'"

The restaurant owner knew former Fort Smith mayor Peter Martselos, who had a contract with Aurora College, which was known as Arctic College at the time.

Bernatchez noted he agreed to work as head chef at the college for only six months, but ended up working there for nine years.

"I like the North. I like small towns," he said of deciding to stay. "I didn't like the city very much. It was kind of a pretty fast pace in Montreal and I was tired of it."

After leaving the college, he cooked at GNWT fire camps during the summer for three years, while catering in the fall and winter.

Bernatchez also briefly operated a restaurant at the former Pinecrest Hotel.

Since then, he is often asked about opening another restaurant, but he has no interest in such an endeavour.

That's because it's so hard to find reliable workers, he said.

"You end up working alone, practically," he said.

Bernatchez formed The Old Skillet about 11 years ago.

"I got involved with catering and I never looked back after that," he said. "The demand was so big around here."

That demand – mostly in the fall and winter – comes from private events, and from meetings and conferences by various organizations.

During the warmer months for the last 20 years, Bernatchez has done maintenance work at the Pelican Rapids Golf Club.

"It's just to stay away from the kitchen," he said of his work at the golf course. "Otherwise you'd go crazy cooking steady all the time. You just want to break it up a bit and you do something different. I like that."

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