I met Barry Lazar because of his writing. In the mid-90s, I read his articles in the Montreal Gazette, and every time I read them, no matter what the content, I said to myself “This is a great writer.” And Barry is a great writer. He has a way of simplifying things and putting words together that make you want to read on and on, pulling you in with expert writing but somehow fooling you that it’s just some guy telling a story. And it’s always a great story, be it an anecdote about an eccentric candy floss spinner or the boys who hang out at the neighborhood steam bath, or in our case, a piece about food. When you read a Barry piece, you meet the characters, you smell the food, you feel the joy (or the disgruntledom.) So I set about trying to meet him, and now you all luckily share in the result. Barry is one of the most underappreciated writers on this planet, on a par with those other Montrealers, Mordecai Richler and Nick Auf der Maur, and it’s my hope that through these pages, some of his genius will shine through and he’ll make a million dollars and I’ll be rich. In his spare time when not writing for montrealfood, Barry is a documentary filmmaker and teacher of journalism at Concordia University. He’s a former restaurant owner and, like all of us here at montrealfood, also cooks from time to time. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a Barry burger. Or steak. Or sourdough bread, or . . . —Nicholas Robinson