Vanessa Le Page
Vanessa Le Page (February 24, 1970 - ) is a Canadian chef. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the daughter of Canadian artist T. Denis Le Page, Emily Carr School of Art graduate (1959 - winner of Emily Carr Award), and Alidë Camilleri-Kohlhaas (formerly Lorraine Le Page), journalist and author. At the age of three, her family moved to Niagara Falls, where she grew up an only child, just a stone's throw from the Falls themselves, and from all of Clifton Hill's wax museums, and amusement park rides at Maple Leaf Village (now the site of the casino).
Music and the arts were an integral part of her upbringing, regularly attending the plays, concerts and dance performances her mother critiqued for a living, after having spent a few years on the police beat - of which a few late night fire scenes Vanessa also attended, in her early youth. Not being very physically inclined, arts and crafts, and sewing and crochet were a constant distraction. From 1979 to 1985 she attended the Ray Wickens' School of Drama.
After her parents' separation in 1985, she helped her father establish the T. Denis Le Page School of Fine Arts (SOFA) - small, private art classes in his home. In the Fall of 1988 she moved back to Toronto (along with new boyfriend, musician, Richard Konik) to attend the Ontario College of Art (OCA, now OCAD), which she promptly withdrew from by Christmas time. In January 1989 she began working at Dufflet Pastries as a cake 'finisher'. Within 6 months she was a night supervisor, and also began specialty cake work on the side, for which she was soon winning awards from the Canadian Society of Sugar Artistry (CSSA), as well as designed and created window displays for Dufflet's retail outlet. In January of 1994 she left Dufflet Pastries to pursue specialty cake-making full-time, under the banner The Cake Lady - Edible Art by Vanessa Le Page.
Her mother worked for a time as a promotion manager for The Skylon Tower, in Niagara Falls when Vanessa was aged four. Vanessa was enamoured of the head chef there at the time, and all of his creations, including elaborate specialty cakes. At home, helping Mom to cook and bake began quite early on. At age 12 the profession of pastry chef became a strong contender for future plans, inspired, in part, by Jacqueline Bisset's role as such in the caper Who Is [...] The Great Chefs of Europe? But by age 14, after having picked up some sewing machine skills, she began sewing her own clothes and decided upon fashion design as her ultimate career choice. Plans in that direction went awry after deciding to attend OCA instead of Sheridan College's fashion program, but fate quickly intervened when the bakery job presented itself and she fell back on her original plans.
She has been featured on television several times over the years (including one appearance to speak about her Le Page's Glue collection), and from 1999 to 2006 she occasionally took time out to work as a 'background performer' on many of the film and TV productions being shot in and around Toronto during its filming peak. She has produced cakes for use on screen including for the film The Fives Senses, the programme My Fabulous Gay Wedding, and for various advertisements. Her secret desire is to, someday, have a 'quirky' cooking show of some kind, and author accompanying cookbooks.