CHAMBERS — The story of Edmond and Tiffani Davis’s exodus from New York City, to Virginia, then to Navajo, Arizona, is definitely a tale of survival and of lives led by headline news. Equally amazing is how they came to bring one of Canada’s signature dishes to Arizona.
The couple had planned to leave New York City back in 2001, but a national tragedy reaffirmed their decision.
“The towers fell on Tuesday (Sept. 11, 2001), we left New York City on Friday,” Edmond explained.
The couple bought a house in Virginia, where they stayed for 20 years.
“I’d had lots of jobs and careers, but in 2012-13, I got into cooking,” he continued. “I started as a dishwasher, to cold station making salads, to frying.”
“Tiffani went back to New York for her birthday, and she was taken to a restaurant that served poutine.”
“I said no, it sounds nasty!” Tiffani laughed. “But when we arrived, the line waiting went around the corner. I tasted it, and it was so good!”
What is poutine? I had to ask the question as well. Traditional poutine is French fries, cheese curds and brown gravy.
Edmond had his own chance to taste poutine in Florida’s Disney Springs, where someone had a poutine kiosk.
“I tried it, and it was good. Tiffani and I started spinning out ideas to make something interesting,” Edmond said. “I had started cooking at a seafood restaurant in Virginia, and I started harassing the owners to let me make seafood poutine.”
The head chef was not impressed and refused. However, during his sabbatical, he talked the owners into trying Edmond’s idea.
“I told them they wouldn’t have to buy new ingredients; I would create the dish with foods on hand in their kitchen.”
So she-crab soup, seared scallops with bacon crumbles and Colby cheese cubes was put on the menu for a week.
“We sold 50 servings that week, and nobody even knew what poutine was,” Edmond laughed. “Chef came back and he wasn’t thrilled, but he tried to redo my recipe and his version didn’t sell. So my version was back on the menu, and the dish he wanted nothing to do with was selling, and he was claiming it as his creation.”
Chef’s excuse was that everything that came out of his kitchen, good or bad, fell on his reputation. Edmond didn’t like it, but couldn’t do much about it.
Six months later, burned out, Edmond went into an electrical business with his son in the fall of 2019. And only months later, in 2020, a global pandemic — COVID-19 — caused another bump in the Davis family’s lives. Quarantined, the couple continued to dream about a business.
“She finally said, ‘Let’s just go for it.’ We put a menu together, and in the summer of ‘22 we were making our versions of poutine from our house out of the kitchen window, then from a gazebo, to a converted shack, and finally their food trailer.”
And thus, “Not Your Routine Poutine” was born.
So, how in the world did the couple end up in Navajo, Arizona?
Tiffani explained that they had lived in Hampton Roads, Virginia, home of a massive military complex, since 2011.
“We loved it. It was safe, it was by the ocean. We had our babies, and homeschooled them. But things changed. After COVID-19, we would be walking at night and began hearing shooting, stray bullets were reported. We were now uncomfortable.”
So, an adept user of Google, Tiffani started looking for a new home.
“I saw some land in Colorado, but as I searched, Navajo, Arizona kept showing up. We bought land in July, sight unseen, out in the middle of nowhere.”
A visit to the site revealed surprises, but the best was the quiet, and the stars, the couple agreed. They set about building a cabin on their site, then returned to Virginia.
“It was July 2, around 1 p.m. Tiffani was out front with our seven-year-old, watching him ride his bike. I was in the back yard getting our chickens in. I heard gunshots.”
Edmond rushed through the house and opened the front door. Bullets were literally passing, rapid fire, past their faces.
“You can literally hear the bullets go by us,” Edmond remembered. “There were two cars, one in my driveway, another in the neighbor’s. Kids had been caught going through the car of another man’s and this led to a two-mile chase and shoot-out. It took 40 minutes for the police to arrive, and when Edmond opened the door, the officers asked if this was the house ‘causing the disturbance.’ Because no one was hurt, they couldn’t do anything.”
The couple put the house up for sale and moved the family to Navajo, permanently. Their food truck travels about northern Arizona, including across the road from the Navajo Travel Center. One can follow their schedule on their website, nyrpoutine.square.site, or reach them at nyrpoutine@gmail.com.
Dining and Cooking