Cooking
holidays and one-day cooking course in South-West France. Traditional French cooking taught by a French
cook in a relaxed atmosphere. Seasonal cooking, French Pastry course, fat duck cooking workshop.
Set in the beautiful Gascony countryside, just 1 hour from Bordeaux.
For
real-food lovers!
French
cookery course with a French cook... because it makes sense!
Creative, all-inclusive
holidays to learn traditional French cuisine.
Mark and Christophe (aka "Topol") cooked fat duck from A to Z
French cuisine is rich in history and tradition. The culinary heritage is
very much alive, being passed from one generation to the next, and we are
giving you an insight into French cuisine by getting you immersed in our
French life, in the heart of beautiful Gascony, South West France.
Our totally informal cooking courses are run in English by French cook Marlène, your host. Passionate about food, experienced both in teaching
and cooking, she is dedicated to sharing with you traditional French
home-cooking techniques and recipes, as well as all the useful tips and
tricks that will make your life easier in the kitchen. And once your day
in the kitchen ends, you will be looked after by Marlene's British husband
Marc, who will no doubt be waiting for you with a nice drink as a
reward...
Marlene (the smile is for the chocolate, not the photo!) Marc (making sure there will
be enough food for his double portion)
Our
cookery courses are designed to demystify French cuisine, and make you practice
the real French food, the one mothers and grand-mothers are cooking in
kitchens all around France, not the single-mouthful dishes with
extravagant garnishes and sprinkles you find in fancy restaurants. We are
all about taste! What
better way of getting acquainted to a country's cuisine than visiting its village markets and farms,
and being introduced to its succulent products? Join us and get a taste of Bazas beef, cèpes
de Bordeaux, prunes of Agen, " gariguette"
strawberries, melon, asparagus, Marmande tomatoes, ...
YOU
WILL LEAVE US HAVING LEARNT MANY OF THE BASIC TECHNIQUES FOR
PREPARING FRENCH DISHESamongst which are: mayonnaise, omelette, pâté, quiche,
finger-licking gravy and sauces,
confit, stews
and gratins, without using any measuring instrument. Our goal is to
teach you so that you have a feel for the food, and thereby increase your confidence so you
can improvise cooking a French meal without a recipe book.
Re-discover
shopping for food, buying products of quality, and experience
cooking from scratch: bone poultry, fillet fish, make bread and pastry, etc...
We source ingredients from local producers, farms and markets. We could be
making bread, stews, roasts, soups, quiches, pâtés, tarts, cakes, or
curing and smoking meat or fish.
Click
here to read
our customer's comments, or just
give us a call
on 0033-553207535 to see how we can accommodate your own special
requirements.
Olivia working
hard at her brioche
Jessica in deep
concentration,
building a
two-chocolate mousse delight
Sandra with sticky
fingers
in her pasta dough
Joanne discovering
the joys of the apple peeler/corer/slicer
Liz making duck ravioli
The
purpose-built kitchen has 4 distinct and fully equipped workstations, each
with its own stainless-steel 5 rings cooker. There is a suggested maximum of
4 participants
per venue, to make sure everyone gets individual attention (and enough
space to "spread out"). But on request, we will accept up to 6
participants.
-
You arrive on
Sunday afternoon. You settle in and make yourself at home. We meet up
before dinner for drinks and canapés, to discuss the program of our week.
-
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we leave after
breakfast to go to a market or visit a producer, to get our ingredients.
We come back for lunch. From 2.00 pm, we meet in the kitchen, where
everyone gets involved in a real team effort to prepare dinner (no
pressure, but the meal you prepare will also be served to all customers of
the guest house!). You can do as little or as much as you like: your
holiday, so your time, your rythm!
- Friday
is free, to give you a chance to relax and visit. Lunch is provided
should you decide to stay at home. We meet up early evening
for our aperitif and dinner.
-
Departure is on Saturday morning.
Depending on the season and on their
availability, we will visit some producers among the following:
cheese maker, duck farm, game farm, wine-producing
château, fish farm ... as well as producers markets.
Sophie Herdman
heads to the ‘garden of France’ for some lessons in cooking to ‘make
your belly smile’.
“I
can’t cook. My cooking consists of heating up ready meals in an oven
or microwave. So a
cooking course in France,
I thought, was a pretty good idea. I headed to Le Gargantua in Anzex,
an hour by train from Bordeaux.
Its a
relaxed, family environment, where all the guests eat a 3 course
evening meal together which they’ve prepared.
‘I want to
demystify French cooking‘ said our teacher Marlene.
We started with a visit to a foie gras farm (to my relief the geese
were still stractching around and not yet on death row). The following
day we visited a bustling local market filled with colourful
vegetables and rare cheeses.
The
afternoons were spent in the kitchen, just myself and one other woman
(there are never more than 4 in a group), learning, in English how to
cook a whole meal from salmon mousse to profiteroles. Making bread was
a particular highlight.
I haven’t
exactly cooked haute cuisine since I got back – perhaps I needed a
more basic course – but I have ditched the ready meals and am cooking
more from scratch. I have also conquered my fear of throwing a dinner
party. That alone is an achievement.
Our 3 nights "Seasonal Cooking"
Course:
Salmon mousse
Ratatouille
Home-made bread
Stuffed belly of veal
Apple tart tatin
- Day 1: You arrive in the afternoon. We get to know each other
over a welcome drink and canapés. Basically, you just settle in and make yourself at home. We meet up
for a 3 course dinner.
- Days 2 and 3: We leave after breakfast to visit a market or a
producer, to get our ingredients. We come back for lunch. From 2.00 pm, we
meet in the kitchen, where everyone gets involved in a real team effort to
prepare dinner (no pressure, but the meal you prepare will also be served
to all customers of the guest house!). You can do as little or as much as
you like: your holiday, so your time, your rythm!
-
Day 4: Breakfast. Departure.
Our 3 nights "French Pastry"
Course:
Lemon tart
Chocolate and
raspberry entremet
Strawberry tartlets
Chocolate
religieuses
Learning to
"build" desserts
- Day 1: You arrive in the afternoon. We get to know each other
over a welcome drink and canapés. Basically, you just settle in and make yourself at home. We meet up
for a 3 course dinner.
- Day 2: After
breakfast we go to a pâtisserie, to get a few classics, that we will
sample at the terrasse of a café (is the weather allows it). We come back
for lunch. From 2.00 pm, we meet in the kitchen, to reproduce some of the pastries
we sampled. They will be served for dessert that very same night.
- Day 3: After
breakfast we meet in the kitchen, to start baking. We will stop for lunch
and finish our pastries early enough in the afternoon to give you some
free time. Once again, your creations will be served for dessert that very
same night.
-
Day 4: Breakfast. Departure.
Examples of pastries we
could make: chocolate and coffee eclairs or religieuses, fruit tartlets,
millefeuilles, bavarois, tarte tatin, charlotte, 2-chocolate-mousse gâteau,
frangipane galettes, lemon tart, brioche.
Fraisier
Millefeuilles
Traditional
apple tart
Brioches
Strawberry bavarois
Sun, Sea & Socrates: great learning breaks
- As seen in Conde Nast Traveller Magazine
Learning to cook a foreign cuisine is an appealing way to
immerse yourself in a new culture, and the benefits are obvious.
Just about everywhere you stay, from the beach shacks of Kerala to
a five-star hotel in Florence, can arrange cookery classes for
you, and even signing up for half a day can give you skills for
life.
A four-day course near Bordeaux, in France, will
teach you how to make authentic French pâtisserie. The course
starts with a visit to a local patisserie to taste what you will
learn to recreate; choose your favourites from delicate
millefeuilles, bavarois, charlotte, paper-thin crêpes, gâteau,
tarte au citron, éclairs and French breads such as brioche and
croissants.
Accommodation is in a traditional 19th-century French farmhouse,
where the grounds have views of the surrounding sunflower fields
and pine forests of the Lot-et-Garonne region, and the rooms are
en-suite, with exposed wooden beams and thick stone walls. All
meals are included - and if you don't like the puddings, you've
only yourself to blame.
Our 3 nights " Fat Duck
Cooking" Course:
- Day 1: You arrive in the afternoon. We get to know each other
over a welcome drink and canapés. Basically, you just settle in and make yourself at home. We meet up
for dinner.
- Day 2: We leave after
breakfast to visit a fat duck producer. We come back for lunch. From 2.00
pm, we meet in the kitchen, to cut up our ducks, cook our foie gras and
salt-cure our meat for the confit.
- Day 3: After
breakfast, we meet in the kitchen to make rillettes. Lunch. Back in the
kitchen form 2:00 pm to cook confit and grattons.
This is the time of year when we have had enough of the cold, when flowers
start blooming, new vegetables appear, everything gets colourful again,
including our plates. Our Spring course celebrates just that!
Among many other ingredients, we could cook with the organic asparagus
grown by our neighbour, prepare succulent desserts with the local
"gariguette" strawberries (from April), ...
Classic Spring dishes
include Navarin of lamb, Blanquette of veal, veloute of asparagus, ...
Local strawberries
Summer
Beautiful & juicy
local tomatoes
Summers in
Lot-et-Garonne are very hot, be prepared!
We will make the
best of the abundant fruit and vegetable that we will pick up from
the market or the organic orchard down the road.
We could prepare the
basque fish soup (the "cousin" of the bouillabaisse), cook
farm-bred poultry, make jellied terrines, fresh pasta, soufflés
with local goat cheese, tarts with the garden peaches, cherry
clafoutis, ... We could also smoke salmon or trout.
As we will rather
grill meat and fish in summer than stew them(!!), it is the
perfect occasion to practice all classic French sauces like
mayonnaise, aïoli, béarnaise, beurre blanc, etc....
The weather is also
perfect to prepare beautiful sweet iced parfaits, chilled
chocolate or fruit mousses, entremets, mille-feuilles...
Tatin of cherry
tomatoes
Autumn
Braised beef
cheek
The
scenery is changing, getting ready for winter, so are we. This is the
return of the pot-roasts, the season of game. The whole region catches the
"blue disease" (this is how they call the hunt for wild
pigeons). It also is the time to pick mushrooms, and
the "season" of the fat duck. When possible, will enjoy our evenings
outside, gathered around the outdoor chimney.
We
could go to the forest down the road to pick wild mushrooms or gather
chestnuts, we could get
our fat ducks from the farm and make our own confit, rillettes and cook the
foie gras, we could make game pâté, onion jam, coq au vin, rabbit in prunes with home made fresh
pasta, tarte Tatin, ...
Selection of squash
at the market
Winter
Garbure
At
this time of year, we need to come back to a cosy home, enjoy the warmth
of the wood-burning stove, and give in to our appetite for rich soups,
stews and other belly-warmers! It is also time to make good use of the
confits made earlier in the year.
We
could make the local garlic soup, the unmissable and hearty Cassoulet or Garbure, we could use Bazas beef for a beautiful
Daube" we
could make
the famous "poule au pot" (one-pot-hen), the Gascon Tourtiere
(apples, prunes and armagnac pastry)...
cooking
workshop, all ingredients, equipment and apron.
recipe book to take home
water,
tea, coffee and biscuits throughout the day
outings, tastings
and entrance fees
The
holidays take place all year round, just inquire about the dates that suit
you, and do not hesitate to contact us to find out when you can join an
existing party.
Keep in mind that you can create your own customized holiday, and
mix the activities (see our "short
breaks" page). Why not try a wine-tasting and cooking
holiday?
Mother & daughter
Helen and Julie
Jane & Janet putting
the last touch
to their strawberry
tart
Rosie & Frans working
on
their Strawberry
tartlets
Jane & Jarrah
building a millefeuille
Sarien & Mirte doing
their happy dance
Click
here to read
our customer's comments, or just
give us a call
on 0033-553207535 to see how we can accommodate your own special
requirements.
VENUES
PART-BOOKED DATES 2012
(any other date
possible, please inquire)
PRICE PER PARTICIPANT
(inclusive of all
taxes)
On the basis of 2 people sharing a room
Seasonal
cooking
all year round (7 days/6 nights)
2 places to fill 18th
to 24th March 2012
895 EUR
Short
break Seasonal
cooking all
year round (4 days/3 nights)
2 places to fill 1st
to 4th March 2012
3 places to fill 15th
to 18th July 2012
450 EUR
Short break French Pastry all
year round (4 days/3 nights)
3 places to fill 2nd
to 5th May 2012
3 places to fill 19th
to 22nd June 2012
450 EUR
Short
break Fat duck all
year round (3 nights)
-
450 EUR
Seasonal
cooking for a party of 4 all
year round (6 nights)
N/A
850 EUR
Short
break Seasonal
cooking for a party of 4 all
year round (3 nights)
Short break French Pastry for a party of 4 all
year round (3 nights)
N/A
425 EUR
Short
break Fat duck for a party of 4 all
year round (3 nights)
N/A
425 EUR
Prices
quoted above are per person. Maximum 2 occupants per room.
Accompanying
non-participants quoted as follows: 215 EUR for 3 nights and 420 EUR
for 6 nights
For
individual occupancy: 34 EUR/night extra.
The
rooms will be allocated on a first come - first served basis, on
confirmation and payment of your deposit.
A deposit of 25% is payable
on booking, balance is due on check-in. The deposit is fully refundable up to 30
days before arrival.
If
you are having a holiday in the area you can join us for a one-day-cooking
course:
We
can plan together a whole day of cooking, for that little extra French
experience in your holiday. We can concentrate on local cuisine, or on
French pastries, or
explore a broader range of classic French cuisine.
In the morning, you can choose to spend the morning at a market or a
producer's, or to spend it cooking. We share lunch, then head back to the
kitchen early afternoon for more cooking. You will take away the fruits of
your labour to enjoy with your family, or you can choose to have it here
at the guest table (supplement will apply).
Price
of the one-day-course: 125 EUR/pers. including one day tuition, all
ingredients, utensils and aprons, light lunch, take-away for 1 (pastries
or meal based on what your chosen theme was), and hot/soft drinks throughout the day.
Why
not treat friends and family to a cooking course, for a very special and
personal gift... we
will be happy to send a personalised gift voucher and information pack to the person of your
choice should you wish to book a cooking holiday or a one-day-course as a
present.
Marlene (the smile is for the chocolate, not the photo!)
Marc (making sure there will
be enough food for his double portion)
