Photo Book | Spiral-bound with flaps | 80 pages | 8″ x 10″ | ISBN 978-1-942953-77-7
NOT A COOKBOOK is a photo book that blurs the line between documentary and art. The project was first developed through the Magnum Photo Long Term Mentorship Program with Susan Meiselas and Matt Black (October 2021–May 2022).
Combining photo collages with recipes, the work explores the artist’s friendship with Ralph and Lee-Anne, owners of PALME—a restaurant celebrating their Caribbean heritage in the heart of Montreal’s Village, formerly known as the Gay Village.
A non-traditional cookbook, it uses humour and anecdotes to recount Ralph and Lee-Anne’s decades-long partnership, their passion for merging culture and food, their commitment to balancing work and family life, and the challenges of running a business during a pandemic. Vibrant and playful, it affirms why one would risk so much to pursue a dream.
NOT A COOKBOOK is published and sold by TBW Books and is now available to purchase HERE.
“Fifteen years ago, I met Ralph and Lee-Anne through a mutual friend. We immediately connected over our shared love of music, art, and stand-up comedy. Over time, the couple opened PALME, a restaurant that celebrated their Caribbean roots in the heart of The Village. It was then that I discovered their remarkable entrepreneurial spirit and a work ethic that reminded me of my Portuguese grandparents—immigrants to Montreal in the 1950s who were among the first of their cohort to open several successful businesses, including a grocery store, a tavern, a restaurant, and a social club. I realized that, like me, Ralph and Lee-Anne were business-minded artists and children of immigrants—a connection that drew me closer to them. At the same time, I became aware of how much of their story I did not yet know. This was why I pursued a documentary photo-collage project about them, which I called Not a Cookbook.”
-Robby Reis
“As a restaurant owner we are constantly on the go and have a single minded vision of making the next day, week, or month work. We often don’t get a chance to reflect on our accomplishments, our success and what will be the next step until we are forced to look into it. When the project was first presented to us, we had an opportunity to live something different for a moment, and still be able to work, that was all it took to get us interested. When we started working on the project and having someone follow us around and document our everyday life, we soon realized that this was also an opportunity to look at our lives and really see ourselves as entrepreneurs, restaurant owners and parents. We discovered that we had lived for the past 5 years in each other’s space as business partners and husband and wife seeing each other everyday for hours on end, yet we still managed to have lived the same experiences differently. Having a cookbook for the restaurant was always someplace in the back of our minds, like most restaurant owners or chefs. We were happy to have had this chance, that allowed us to have a representation of our work and ourselves, that was real and honest.”
-Lee-anne Millaire Lafleur
