“I understood that eating healthy did not necessarily mean being sectarian and hairy”

I was lucky to have parents who were sensitive to nature and a family very interested in the arts. On my father’s side, it’s a tribe of funny and jovial actors and directors (the Trintignants and the Marquands). On my mother’s side, there were also good-natured art dealers and gallery owners. My great-grandparents opened the Maeght gallery in Paris in 1945, then the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. [Alpes-Maritimes] in the 1960s. The artists felt at home there.

My grandmother Marguerite was renowned for her cooking and creators loved to sit at her table. Even back then, there was something about food in our house that brought people together – an excuse for moments of joy. Wherever we are, cooking has held a central place in our family. My father always prepared sophisticated dishes, my mother simpler things – pancakes or dumplings – and my maternal grandmother a kitchen ” the hard “, between the burnt, the smoked against his will and the fried without knowing it.

For my mother, who is a little wild and didn’t really find herself in the summer excitement of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, my grandfather bought a farm above Grasse, where I spent a lot of time. child time. Back then, there was nothing but us and nature. We lit ourselves with candles in the evening, we drew water from the well and, when I think about it, it seems to me an absolute luxury. My brothers and I spent our time outside, we watched the fruit trees bud then flower, we waited for the apples to ripen.

The vegan revelation

There were animals on the farm, beehives and a barnyard, we raised chickens, we killed rabbits and wild boars. I saw them alive, then I saw them dead, I smelled blood. So, very early on, I became aware of the value of things, in time, in work, in life, through what we ate… I lived there until the age of 6. Then we had to go to school and we moved to Paris. The farm has been restored. Today, it is a vacation spot with electrical outlets, clean rooms and no animals. It’s not the same.

During adolescence, I went through a period of discomfort where I didn’t feel at all like I belonged. I moved to San Francisco at 18, worked at the Ferry Building and its incredible organic farmers’ market. Everything then dusted off in my head: we could sell sprouts, carrots of all colors and be cool. I understood that eating healthy did not necessarily mean being sectarian and hairy.

Back in France, I tried to study medicine, before going on a fast and discovering naturopathy. For three years, I worked with naturopath Céleste Candido, for whom I cooked raw, vegan, local, gluten-free meals. This is where I saw the incredible potential of cauliflower, with which we can make semolina, for tabbouleh, or flour, for cakes, pie bases or pizzas. Cauliflower introduced me to the excitement of vegetables that has never left me.