Kathy Richardier editor of The City Palate food magazine in Calgary celebrates its 25th anniversary on Sept. 12, 2018.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Calgary lost food media pioneer Kathy Richardier on Sept. 16 after a difficult battle with dementia.
I distinctly remember the first time I met the iconic and impassioned woman as if it were yesterday.
In August, 2010, I was just breaking into the food writing world with online writing contributions to Food Network Canada and my own food blog. For all intents and purposes, I was the new kid on the block.
Invitations to culinary events were uncommon in those days, but on this particular evening I was lucky enough to attend the second annual Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival. As I reached the media table, I saw a place setting marked “Kathy Richardier, City Palate” next to me.
With a résumé – and a charming, vivacious reputation – that preceded her, I recall being equal parts nervous and eager to meet the long-standing food writer. Ms. Richardier wasn’t just a food writer in Alberta, she was the food writer.
After a few oysters and glasses of bubbly, it wasn’t long before I was swept up in her engaging inquisitiveness, infectious laugh and warmth.
Yes, she was food media royalty here in Alberta. Let me be the first to tell you, this monarch had a heck of a fun, decades-long reign that helped expand Calgary’s restaurant scene into what it is today.
Anyone that has spent time in Calgary between 1993 and 2019 knows the grassroots food and drink magazine that celebrated everything from home cooking to local restaurants to global travels, wine, spirits and beer. It was available in almost every grocery store, specialty food retailer and liquor store in town, as well as many restaurants and bars.
City Palate was brought to life by three women, Ms. Richardier, Gail Norton (The Cookbook Co. Cooks) and Ellen Kelly. But Ms. Richardier was the publication personified. Vibrant, thought-provoking, funny and inspiring are a few descriptors that come to mind when I think of both her and her magazine.
Over two decades, she had been working to establish herself beyond-prolific writer, editor and world traveller. She knew the world and she knew it well, but at the epicentre of her writing lay Calgary.
“Kathy and I first met 40 years ago when she was a food columnist with the Calgary Herald, which evolved into a great friendship and then partners in City Palate for over 22 years,” says Ms. Norton. “She was an unfailingly fun and curious editor that could make sense out of any writing.”
A then-burgeoning city with an equally burgeoning restaurant scene, her work with both local newspapers over the years helped uplift and celebrate the restaurateurs working to put Calgary on the map while bucking its steak and potatoes reputation.
“She was a brilliant wordsmith and had the ability to clarify the most muddy of sentences – she had a gift. With the City Palate she was pivotal in gathering the food community and celebrating the best of chefs, good food, restaurants and cool things,” Ms. Norton adds.
Cookbook author, Globe and Mail columnist and long-time City Palate contributor Julie Van Rosendaal said she will never forget the impact Richardier has had on her career and the local food scene.
“I’ll always remember her smile, her laugh, her easy willingness to let me run with ideas and cheer me on,” said Ms. Rosendaal. “She was an innovator, a collaborator, and a huge supporter of both our hospitality industry and everyone who appreciated a good meal.”
While I did not contribute as regularly as Ms. Van Rosendaal to the magazine, my writing would grace its pages intermittently between 2012 and 2019. I can’t echo enough her comment of allowing a writer to run with an idea.
“Sure, I think that sounds pretty fun!” was not an uncommon response from Ms. Richardier after pitching her an article. She allowed me to do plenty of fun things over the years, including attending culinary school for a few days to write about the student experience first-hand.
She was right, that was pretty fun.
Not surprisingly, chefs, culinary instructors and restaurateurs all loved her.
She watched many now-notable Calgary culinary minds such as Duncan Ly (Bar Chouette), Rogelio Herrera and Uri Heilik (Alloy), Sal Howell (River Café) and Michael Allemieir (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology’s culinary instructor) grow into their own over the years.
Mr. Ly explained that he knew Ms. Richardier for over two decades and had always appreciated her ability to bolster the profiles of local restaurateurs.
“I’ll always remember her as a kind and passionate soul. Her articles and reviews were honest and witty without being degrading. She loved the Calgary food scene and was always supportive of its chefs,” recalled Mr. Ly.
In 2018, I sat down with Ms. Richardier to talk about the 25th anniversary of City Palate. We happily devoured BLTs at the Lazy Loaf and Kettle, her favourite sandwich at one of her favourite Calgary haunts. She brought a stack of vintage magazines and we flipped through the pages, stumbling upon everything from print ads for the original Good Earth location to The Curious Cook , a general advice column for home cooks.
It was all right there, sitting in front of me, Calgary’s food scene from infancy to (then) present day … and Ms. Richardier had been there for it all.
I snapped a photo of an especially poignant opinion piece she wrote for a 1994 issue of City Palate. I found it inspiring – and still do, as it spoke to the dramatic evolution of the city’s food scene from the 1980s to 1990s.
I wound up quoting one of her thoughts in a 2018 article, and it feels fitting to excerpt it once again.
“Calgary now can be compared with Calgary then, and those of us passionately interested in food and the food scene (and the food nerds) realize how astoundingly the city’s culinary scene has changed in a mere historic blink of an eye. Even more, we appreciate how the culinary scene has changed [over the years]. And then, dammit, we get on with the business of eating!”
Damn right, Kathy.