Have just come back over to the house with a much needed glass of wine in hand, after an especially hard hitting Saturday night. Hard in the sense that the kitchen got slammed - both from the sheer volumn of orders that came in, in too short a time span, and from people being difficult and wanting to deviate from whats on the menu, which always creates unwanted spikes in the flow of things. At times like that when the pressure gets really intense, little things have a habit of going awry, and you kind of stand in the middle of it all and wonder what exactly it is that people think is so glamourous about owning a restaurant. As Glennis, our absolutely gorgeous dishwasher has just commented  - it all comes out in the wash! Which it does!  You just have to dig deep at the time, and keep going in a logical fashion - knocking off the dockets one at a time. Sometimes a table may have to wait a little longer on a busy nite, than we would like them too, but that is just a function of the volume of work going thru the kitchen - and we find that most people are OK with that, most of the time. You get the odd one that may have a problem, but that just adds to what we do. If everyone was the same it'd be boring. ...maybe!!

Back to the trip...

After the cookschools were over, and we'd seen everyone off on to the next stage of their travels, we dropt the vans we'd hired back to Bordeaux, and then set about finding ourselves some accomodation for a couple of nights. The hotel we'd been recommended was full, and we didn't start panicing until the hotel that they recommended told us they were also full - at which point I started having visions of us sleeping in the tram shelter. A few phone calls though and we finally found somewhere able to take us, which turned out to be perfect for our needs, becos it was tiny - just 10 rooms, and run by a lovely lady who couldn't get over the fact we'd bought a bike to France, and who fussed about where to put it! We felt like complete noddies wheeling our bags thru this rather sophisticated city as we tried to find the street where the hotel was- and it was with immense relief that we disposed off them there, and then went back out to join the throngs promenading as they seemed to do. Bordeaux is lovely - full of people  coiffered and manicured and very aware of their own gorgeousness. It had a real feeling of affluence, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it - a confidence and presence. It was a big city with a Parisian feel, but minus the hordes of tourists, which we took to be a serious plus.

Was very, very taken with that kind of street frontage - thought the buildings looked absolutely gorgeous, and would like to duplicate them here please!!

Also intrigued by the fact that even though we were only 2 hours drive away from where we'd done the cookschools,  the food was quite different, with a focus away from duck and fois gras, and on charcuterie and pork. They also appear to be obsessed by caneles, with exquisite looking  shops selling only caneles and macaroons - packaged with the same kind of care that we would take with jewellery. The caneles were also available in all the restaurants and cafes and we bought some from a street vendor at one stage also. The only way I can describe them is as kind of doughy, rather chewy  but definitly delectable doughnuts, in a specific shape. Must do some reading to sort out their significance.

We left Bordeaux in the early hours of Monday morning to catch the TGV up to Paris. Our only sighting of Paris this trip, was a  coffee at a cafe outside the Montparnasse railway station as we tried to get a fix on where the taxis were, and then a quick trip on the ring road out to Charles de Gaulle airport. There we meet friends who were coming with us to Cork, and had a short and uneventful flight to Ireland.

We were going to Cork specifically to have a look at the very famous cookschool Ballymaloe, and were not at all sure what to expect, but I have to say we were blown away on every account. We stayed at Ballymaloe House which is a gorgeous country hotel,  in the middle of the large family farm and run by one wing of the Allen family. Ballymaloe Cookery school is further over towards Shanagarry and run by Darina and Tim Allen, and was absolutely enormous in concept.

As I understand it, Tims mother Myrtle started a small restaurant in the large old house that she and her husband owned on their farm, back in the 60s. The restaurant seated about 20 people back then, and the idea of providing accomodation came a few years later, and then things kind of snowballed over the years, with the restaurant now being able to seat up to 150 on a really busy sitting , and the hotel can acommodate up to 30 - although the breakfast waitress whos worked there for 33 years, told me that that was far too much, and she didn't like doing those kind of numbers! Where we had sat for dinner on our first nite with Darina and Tim, was where the kitchen was originally, before it all got extended outwards. The building dates back to the 14th century, so things have a reasonably old and rather precious feel.

Ballymaloe House

Affiliated to the hotel,and in addition to the restaurant, there is  also a gift shop and cafe, which we didn't get too, but Bridget Healey told us the cheesecake was very fine!

And then you have the cookschool, which is run seperately a few kilometres down the road. We were there while one of the 3, 12 week chefs training courses that they run every year was in progress, and we got to sit in on one of the classes that Darina was demonstrating, have morning tea and lunch with the students, and quizz them as to why they'd come to somewhere like rural Ireland to train to be a chef, and then also got taken on an extraordinary tour of the gardens, glasshouses and extensive manure system by Tim. Simply fascinating. I don't think I'd ever stopped long enough to actually contemplate what it was that I was expecting to see, but I have to say the reality blew me away.

Ballymaloe Cookery school

Not only does this school have room for 60 students training to be chefs, but it can also accomodate most of them, plus grow  most of the vegetables and fruit and meat needed for the school. Self sufficiency is a concept that has increasing resonance with me, and to see it done on that scale was nothing short of inspirational. Darina and Tim are people who count the likes of Marcella Hazan and Alice Waters as close personal friends, so we felt  initially somewhat out of our league, but were in fact made very comfortable and very welcome.  These people were very generous on every level, and we came away feeling totally inspired. I really do hope that some of the extended whanua does come out to NZ at some time in the future so we can return some of the hospitality that was extended to us.  It was a very special closing to what had been a huge few weeks.

Most of the students were young - Rick said the bustle reminded him of his polytech days, but amongst them were a sprinkling of older people from all over the world, who'd come to Ballymaloe to rediscover themselves and their passions. Because of the respect that the Allens are held in, graduates are able to get placement  all over the world, and for those who want to open their own establishments, they have  the indefatigueable and totally upfront Darina prepared to spend time and energy criticing their business plans, and stripping away any rose tinted glasses.

The next generation of Allens - Tim and Darina's children are also involved in the business - it extends out in all directions. It was impossible not to be impressed and inspired - and was just what we needed.

Now we just need to put in a huge compost system for the restaurant,  not to mention  the extensive vege gardens I'm going to develope ( anyone with a spare glasshouse we could use?!), and we'll start thinking  very seriously about that small boutique accomodation that we could build, modeled on what we saw in Bordeaux.

All things are possible!

We have a small private lunch on at the restaurant today, and I've been over there long enough to get everything set up and underway, and have now retreated to the house and my desk, which has pretty much being my modus operandum all week, when I've slunk away leaving customers to Rhonda and the team, cos my head just hasn't quite been in the right place to deal with it all yet. Prefered to sit here and grapple with some of the background stuff instead.

Reality has a way of forcing you into things though - and with the Christmas cookseries starting up this week, and the level of busyness at the restaurant starting to lift to those preChristmas levels, my physical presence will be required, and I will be just fine with that. Have needed a bit of down time to get the notebook done, that I wanted to do as a keepsake for our guests at Le Boudil Blanc - a combination of recipes, notes and photos. And now that that is safely in the hands of Simpson Print to work their particular brand of magic on, I can safely turn to other things.

As the pace of things quickens at Somerset, France will recede dramatically. Rhonda made mention this morning while we were getting the restaurant set up, that she feels the holiday was along time ago. Real life has a way of reinserting itself..

We did the 2 weeks of cookschools at this property- Le Bourdil Blanc, which is in a very rural part of the South west of France.  We geared the cooking we did around what was available at the markets, using recipes from cookbooks of those authors we respect who had gone before. And now that we are back in New Zealand and I flick thru some of those books and reread some of the comments, I am quite taken with how much extra resonance it has to me, becos I have been and seen what they are referring too. Stephanie Alexander in her 'Cooking and Travelling in the South West of France' has in her inimitable style, some really indepth descriptions about some of the things we observed. Likewise, I got much more out of 'From here you can't see Paris' by Michael Sanders,  after we'd been taken to the restaurant that he talks about in the book and reread it a second time

I came to really enjoy the french way of doing things - their solemnity and seriousness over all day to day interactions Everyone was greeted with a ' bonjour', and farewelled with ' au revoir' or 'bon journee', and if you didn't respond in kind you were written off as a bad mannered tourist. If you did attempt to slow down and acknowledge each person, we found with noteably few exceptions that they went out of their way to be pleasant and to be helpful. They kiss each other on greeting quite regularly and quite naturally. The cookschool we did at Auberge Lou Peyrol was interupted each morning when the waitress arrived at work for the day and came into the kitchen to say hello to Phillipe, the chef/patron and bissous him on each cheek. We watched with wry amusement becos it just isn't something you would see in the average New Zealand workplace. We acknowledge each other every day, sure - but its usually a yelled greeting, general in nature as you arrive on the scene. The french take time and are more pedantic about doing it properly, and I have to say I rather liked it.

We did virtually all the shopping for the group at the markets each day, and that necessitated working our way around a number of stall holders and asking for what we wanted and  amounts, and then working out the price and the change. There was a little 'un peu anglaise', but not alot, but its amazing how much you can get by with a basic interchange of words and pointing. My school girl french got us there enough, but I have come home in awe of those people who are able to flip between languages nonchantly. We Kiwis are arrogant in our Englishcentricness -we expect others to speak english, and are nonplussed when they don't. Our geographic isolation has diminished the requirement of speaking another language, and it is a skill that as an adult I very much regret not having. I was however delighted at how much of my school girl french had been retained somewhere in my brain, and got retrieved when needed. I figure that if I was to immerse myself in the culture for 6 months or so I would achieve a reasonable level of fluency, and Rick hasn't offered any opposition to the idea. The only proviso is that he comes too.!

Heading to the market at Le Bugue

They love their dogs - they are everywhere, small, big and inbetween. Even in restaurants. Naturally a concept that someone as enthusiatic about dogs as me, has no problem with, but I could see that not everyone in the group shared my viewpoint.

 Blanco - who watched us solemnly from the corner as we had our morning croissants and pain au chocolat, before heading into the kitchen at Auberge Lou Peyrol for the cookschool.

It is very reasonable to eat in France - to eat and drink actually. I didn't  do the euro to dollar conversion, becos it makes more sense to compare in terms of what people are being paid in, and for people being paid in euros, eating out is much cheaper, relative to NZ. I'm very curious to have it explained to me why that should be, becos I happen to know from painful personal experience that people in the hospitality sector in NZ aren't ripping off the public. Most of them are having to work hard to make their profit margins a liveable option. For that reason I'd be fascinated to know how the Profit and Loss breaks down for a french restaurant. We could see from the markets that basic foodstuffs are cheap, and so is wine - but those lower costs were reflected in low  prices on menus. Even in the one star restaurant we ate in - Le Vieux Logis - wine prices were predominantly around the 20 - 50 euro mark. There were a few above 100, but not many.  You can have an extremely good lunch  of 2 courses for 20 euros a head, and that will include more often than not, bread that is constantly replaced, a small dish of olives to start,  and often a complimentary starter like gazpacho. Wine is served readily in the carafe - in a small or normal size one, and no one considers you naff to be requesting it so. I came away with an enormous perception of value. Perhaps the other main difference that I did pick up on, is one I also noted last visit, that as you go up the restaurant chain prices don't just increase incrementally, as they tend to here, but actually double. We ate at a very good bistro in Tremolat - Le Bistro d'en face, and then 2 nites later ate at the affiliated one star restaurant, where we effectively tripled what we paid. Both were extremely good restaurants - one was just offering a far more serious style of ambience, service and food. But I still found the prices good value, as a reflection of what we got, and the special evening that we had.

Next time we go back to France we will try a two star, and it will be interesting to see how the prices jump up to that level. We thought the one star was going to be a reasonably sombre experience where everything might be taken a little too seriously, and I was a little concerned becos my daughters don't really do pretty dresses, and needless to say hadn't packed any, and I was therefore not sure how their somewhat casual appearance would be regarded. To give them credit no one blinked . We were treated politely and well- even though virtually every other table was a monied older couple of a certain generation. Definitely not a bracket we fitted in!

Le Bistro d'en face                                                    le Vieux Logis

Oops have just realised that I have some menus to get typed up for a group we have in tonite - something I'd forgotten I needed to do. So had better finish my ruminations at this point and get back to reality.

Well we're back in New Zealand, and even though the wind is blowing and the skies look grey, its still kind of nice to be home.....

We've had an amazing few weeks, and I wouldn't really know where to start to explain it all, so rather than boring you with a myriad of detail, I thought I'd download some of the photos and use those as a base to explain what happened and what we did. Need to sort thru them first, becos I took lots, but as I organise the ones that are useable, I'll gradually  incorporate them into blogs with more detail.

The first thing we did when we got home yesterday was turn on the coffee machine at the restaurant ( that got even higher priority than the hot water in the house- which after being in the air for the equivalent of 2 days is rather saying something!), then unpack and crash. The girls went to school today, both of them looking a little weary - and poor Courteney had the first of her trial exams - Economics, her least favourite subject, so that brought her down to earth with a bump. Hannah, we won't see till early evening, cos she's going kayaking after school - she's being desperate to get on a river, not having been on one for over a month. Rick and I kind of cruised - lunch in town at the Med, catch up chat with Jo, as you do, picked up my months supply of magazines in one hit which wasn't such a good idea, cos it made me realise just how many magazines I actually buy in a month. Ah well - research!!

I've opened all the mail and sorted all the accounts , and tried to get my head around whats due and when, but the brain is feeling a bit fuzzy, so may have to come back to some of that stuff. The accountant in me, has required that I do a quick synopsis of the costs of the trip - I seemed to be forever drawing out cash to buy foodstuffs in the markets, and was curious to see how my original costings panned out and how things compared to the Italian trip. Curiosity has been satiated, and I have a good idea of the  overall picture, with nothing thats causing me undue concern. Will however be nice to reopen the restaurant on Wednesday, and to have some credits going thru to the bank account again!

I've definitely fallen in love with France and am going to need to go back. We were in a very rural part for most of the time, although Rick and I and the girls had a couple of days in Bordeaux before we caught the TGV train up to Paris, to catch our flight to Cork. We all decided that was a seriously gorgeous city, which I wasn't expecting, becos most of the reading I'd done, inferred that Bordeaux was somewhat staid and you had to get out to the outlying towns like St Emilion to really get a feel for the region. Maybe becos we had been staying in such a rural aspect, we found the contrast with the larger city to be an interesting juxtaposition - especially a city with the kind of gorgeous inner city buildings that Bordeaux has. We walked for hours, just soaking up the atmosphere, and will definitely return.

We did the cookschools just outside a tiny village called St Sauveur, which is about 10k from Bergerac, ( 2 hours east of Bordeaux). There are lots and lots of villages in the area - 'village' is almost too grandiose a term for alot of them, they're more like hamlets- just a cluster of old houses, achingly picturesque, and rather rundown. ( Why does 'rundown' in France look romantic, whereas in NZ is looks distinctly scruffy?!). A few of our customers arrived in cars, and their GPS systems invariably took them to a carpark area in St Sauveur,which was about 5 kms away from Le Bourdil Blanc, the house we were staying in - but I wasn't allowed to make rude comments about GPS systems, becos most of these guys had all the zeal of the recently converted, and criticism wasn't brooked!!

The main thing was everyone got there, and, I hope, had a relaxing and interesting few days with us. We were able to go to markets every day, to shop for our daily produce - they're in a different village each day of the week. In some ways that was logistically harder for us, becos we were shopping for 30 people, and the quantities needed, and getting everything back to the vans, meant  we really were just shopping for immediate requirements. Supermarkets are more convenient in some ways - but I really didn't want to go to rural France and do the bulk of our shopping in supermarkets. It was our aim to buy fresh and as much as possible, from the people producing the food.And as a result some of my fondest memories are of the dealings we had with  those stall holders. People had warned us that we'd find the French arrogant, but we didn't at all. Quite the reverse in fact. My schoolgirl french came to the fore, and I found that as long as we made an effort, they more than responded in kind. No doubt helped along by the fact we were buying serious quantites of  most of the things we needed. We were given little gifts more often than not, in appreciation of whatever it was we'd bought - a bunch of herbs thrown in, or some tomatoes. They were generous and lovely, and we were delighted.It more than lived up to every romantic notion I had.   I now have to colate all the recipes that we used with the photos of the food to give our guests a record of the cooking and eating.

We also visited a truffiere - a truffle farm, and were enchanted by the exceedingly passionate M.Martin, who gave a witty and informative dissertation on the status of truffle farming in France, all in the most deliciously accented English. His knowledge was wide ranging - small parochial farmer he was most definitley not - but what a labour of love. As he said - you 'wait and you wait and you wait' for a tree to produce truffles, or maybe not, as the case may be, and I'm not sure I have the kind of patience required, for that sort of production. An interesting footnote to that trip was a final mention he made of a visit he'd had a few years back from a lady who had a photographer in tow, and who did the same seminar we did, and who bought some truffles as we did and departed.  He only found out subsequently, that the lady had in fact been Stephanie Alexander, and that she'd very prominantly featured him in her book "Cooking and Travelling in the South West France",( pg 266-270) when a young couple turned up at the farm in a subsequent year, waving their copy of the book around, and telling him that they were making a point of visiting each place she had recommended. It was the first he knew that he'd been featured. I thought it was very gracious of Stephanie Alexander  not to need to make a fuss about who she was and not to be looking for any freebies - but I got outvoted in the van on the way home. The general concensus was that she owed him for taking photos and using them in a publication, without his approval, or asking for his consent. That made me very conscious of asking for permission for each subsequent photo that I took- within reason!

And each week we took the group to a small local restaurant, Auberge Lou Peyrol, owned by a husband and wife team, where Phillipe demonstrate a 2 course meal in the kitchen and then we sat down and had lunch. I felt somewhat patronising when I kept commenting on how far out in the middle of nowhere they were - but they really were off the beaten track. The restaurant was a gem, and Fiona and Phillipe were just lovely. We can't get fois gras in NZ, but we will be putting some dish on Somersets menu, that will have had its origins there, and it will give us much pleasure to credit it to Phillipe. In the second week he demonstrated cooking a souffle, and I came home to Rick enchanted with the technique, and especially by the information that a souffles could be fully prepped up to 2 hours before its cooked, without any loss of rising.  Ricks always resisted putting one on our menu becos of the last minute preparation involved - but that excuse doesn't wash anymore, and even he was impressed by the photos I took of the elevation that Phillipe got. Most impressive!

Our eating out experiences were very interesting and ran the gamut from god awful, to quite stunning. Sometimes what impressed us the most was the sheer simplicity - menus with only a couple of choices in each course, at a set and very reasonable price.  Made us wonder whether we make things too complicated for ourselves, just by feeling obligated to offer a large range of options. A special meal was had at Le Gourmand Cafe in Bordeaux, where just the 4 of us ate, on what was almost our last nite in France. It also happened to be the nite of the rugby match that can't be discussed, and I hate to concede that part of our decision to eat there, was becos Rick spotted a TV screen. He wore his Allblack top that Dave and Gail had bought him,  against my better instincts ,and we arrived and were given a table in full view of the TV - us and one other table, which was the chef/patron and a few of his cronies. Most of the other tables were oblivious to the proceedings on the TV, but Ricks top was noted, and much banter ensued. Fortunetely the restaurant also just happened to be exceedingly good,  a seriously run kitchen in a classical style, owned by the 5th generation - a man who was very comfortable in his skin, and familiar with his customers. Rick rather took to the idea, of the chef being out front watching a large TV screen, and just heading into the kitchen to do a bit of occasional garnishing, and to update the troops on the score.  I do believe there was even some mention of us duplicating that idea when the Cup comes to NZ,  and I must have had too much to drink, cos I do believe I was even part way receptive to the idea - but naturally I changed my mind the next day, becos I'd never live down the ribbing I'd get from certain quarters, if I ever allowed a TV screen into Somerset for the rugby. Somehow in France it just felt quite normal - not tacky at all.

There were about 6 really positive eating out experiences which I'll come back to at a later date, cos would like to include contact details for those places, for people heading over that way  in the future.

Our last few days were spent in Cork in Ireland, where we had the most amazing time. We'd met Darina and Tim Allen from Ballymaloe Cookschool a few years back when they popped into the restaurant one Christmas Eve, becos we'd been mentioned in Margaret Brookers book, and Ruth Pretty, who they'd been staying with had  said we also did cookschools. We were closed at the time for our Christmas break, and I so nearly turned this vibrant Irish lady away when she knocked at the door, cos I was tired and seriously over people - but she burst in, and introduced herself, and something in the dim recesses of my brain kicked in at the mention of her name, and we ended up having a cup of coffee and a chat. That cup of coffee, has been repaid in the most extraordinarily generous manner, by the hospitality extended to us while we were there, and now I can't wait for part of the extended whanau to come to NZ so we can show a little bit of the same kind of generosity.  Ballymaloe is huge. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the reality was so much more than I'd envisaged,  and we were quite enchanted - but again, more of that at a later date.

We also got to catch up with Bridget Healey ex of Cafe Paradiso, a bright, bubbly special lady who may even end up working at Somerset over summer, while she's out here visiting family. We ate at Cafe Paradiso, curious to try after hearing so much about it, and  also having stayed the previous night at the B & B, Gort Na Nain, owned by the  delightful couple who grow the organic vegetables used by this iconic vegetarian restaurant. Stunning  food, and I've just been on Amazon to order a copy of the cookbook 'Cafe Paradiso Seasons", becos we were so impressed by the range of the vegetarian ideas. You can never have too much inspiration!

By pure fluck we also got to catch up with Donald, who'd been our very first apprentice, here at Somerset, some 21 odd years ago. Via the website he'd heard we were due to be in town, and tracked us down, much to our surprise and delight, becos we had no idea he was in Cork.  Very special to catch up with him and his family and to chat about all manner of things, as you do.

The trip was inspirational on a number of levels - but more than anything, what I've brought home is a sense of how much people make up the sum of your experiences, good and bad. We were lucky - spoilt actually- all sorts of lovely things happened, which made the time a very special experience, and all of that positiveness was generated by the thoughtfulness of people who simply went out of their way. And for that I will be eternally grateful, becos its all a bit nerve racking being on the other side of the world and totally out of your comfort zone.

( And as a totally irrelevant footnote, I'd like to add that its really nice to be using a keyboard with the keys where I expect them to be!)

Its early Friday morning and I've been woken by the crowing of a rooster and cooing of doves - as you are in rural France! Our bedroom window is right next door to the church and I'm expecting the bell to chime at 7am, a sound I look forward too, becos for me its the quintessential echo of Europe. My brain is too over stuffed with  myriad detail buzzing around, so not able to go back to sleep, and seeing as how the house we've just arrived at happens to have a computor in the bedroom - I thought I'd fill in some time before the rest of the household rouses itself.

We drove over to Gourdon yesterday to spend a couple of days with friends, Trevor and Kay Mitchell, who've been staying in this house for 4 weeks - and who are going to come with us on Saturday, to help us with our 2 weeks of cookschools. The girls and Rick and I have spent the preceeding few days since we arrived in the country on Monday, getting our bearings in and around Bergerac, and meeting the people that are going to be essential to the smooth running of everything. We've had an extraodinary few days.

Tomorrow we drive back over to Bergerac and take possesion of the  houses that we'll be using for the next 2 weeks to house ourselves, our guests, and our helpers. In the meantime Rick and I have to do the penultimate shopping list of all those supermarket requirements, and also finalise the menus for the week. We cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for 30 people all week - so there's a reasonable amount of organisation to be done between here and settling in - hence all the unrest in my brain. I noticed today in the supermarket I called into with Kay, that they don't offer you plastic bags to pack stuff, and I've just been lying in bed wondering how the hell we're going to get what will amount to 3 trollies worth of stuff from supermarket to car to house - if we can't pack it into bags... We'll sort it!

We've had real fun these last few days - eaten out alot as you do, and in doing so had the range of experiences from simply awful through to totally divine.  When the French do food well it is stunning, with service to match - that is neither patronising nor fawning, but man, they can do bloody awful food too. Our 2 bad experiences have shared the common denominator of harrassed looking waitresses - so maybe that is what we will look for when deciding whether or not to go into a restaurant. Does the waitress look like she cares?

Today Trevor and Kay are taking us to Le Recreation - the restaurant that the book 'From here you can't see Paris' is written about, which I read a couple of years back  - so looking forward to that. We'll try and find Hannah a kayak to hire after that, cos she's having withdrawal symptons, and sit on the bank of the Dordogne, and write our lists.Courteney brought her bike to France - don't ask- its a long involved story, and I was totally opposed to it coming, but its here, and driving past her riding on these country roads with a look of pure joy on her face, has somewhat abated my indignation at the hassles we encountered over it at Shanghai airport.  I suspect theres more to come as we negotiate our way up to Cork at the end of the cookschools, but I'll worry about that another day.

We've also eaten this week at Le Bistro d'en Face,  and Le Veux Logis, a one star restaurant that was a sublime experience - both in Tremolat. And the other superb restaurant was Auberge Lou Peyrol in a tiny little village not far from where the house we'll be doing the cookschools is situated. The couple that own the Auberge will be doing classes at the restaurant for both our weeks  of cookschools - not unlike the way we do them at Somerset, and we went for lunch to meet Phillipe and Fiona, only having dealt with them by email up until then, had a beautiful lunch and informative chat and come away excited about what is to come.

We arrived in France with a sort of structure for how we wanted the cookschool week to flow, based on what we learnt in Italy, and having now got our heads around the actual physical reality of some of the distances between places, and how long it takes to go to a market and mooch around, we've shuffled around a few of those  ideas. The property where the guest will be staying is truly beautiful - the owner Jane, describes it as 'shabby chic', but I think shes being a little disengenious. Its gorgeous (photos will follow at some point, I promise!), and has acres of ground to spread out under and relax in, so the thought of spending hours every day rushing around the countryside to yet another village of repute, just doesn't make sense. We'd rather people got to totally relax with us - and did the sightseeing part under their own steam. We drove  thru Sarlat on our way here yesterday and there was traffic everywhere, and a sea of people, and it felt pressurised and horrible by comparison to the few days we'd just had in our little quiet part of the Dordogne. So the trip to Sarlat that was going to be part of the week has been changed, and we've redesigned that day. Flexibility is good!!

The French people have been delightful - with the notable exception of one particulary surly waitress. I've found without exception, that if you exchange greetings on arrival, and make an effort, they will more than meet you half way. And more often than not, their 'un peu anglais' is an awful lot more more comprehensive than my 'un peu francais'.  So far we've managed with out  any drama.  I've been chuffed with how much of my school girl french has bubbled to the surface. Not at the stage where I'll be holding any conversations in French on deep philosophical matters, but I'm getting thru on the rudimentaries - something I couldn't do in Italy, becos I had no Italian at all, and I found that horrible limiting, being the verbal type that I am...The supermarket tomorrow will be an interesting challenge. I bought some clothes soap powder the other day and nearly ended up with dish washing machine powder!

The 4 of us stayed in a small gite in St Alvere for the first 3 nites here - a chance to recover from the 2 days of travel, and get our bearings. The markets go to different villages every day, so we've sought them out each day, to see what is available, and how consistent the supply is. Ricks then come home and written down menu ideas, and we've just about sorted what we're going to cook for the week. (Each cookschool week is a repeat - so what we do the first week, we will repeat the next, becos we have a new 'batch' of guests.) We're right on the cusp of the weather changing though, so we don't want to get too locked in on ideas - becos things like berryfruit which are around the first week, might well have fanished by the second. When we get back to NZ I'm going to put together  a book of the recipes that we end up using - both for our attendees and for others who are interested.

The clock has chimed 7 times so should perhaps finish here, becos the rules of this house , Trevor has told us,are to assemble for a walk at 8am and I think that will be rather a good idea for moi- meme, given the bread, bread and more bread that I've been consuming this week.Not to mention the fois gras and confit...

Have just got home from having lunch out with our daughters, and Rick and I are about to head out to watch the movie 'Ratatouille", that I've read rave reviews about. Appropriate way to spend a grey, blustery Sunday afternoon I figure.

We are now 6 days away from leaving for France - and I woke up this morning with a distinct feeling of nerves. Told someone in the restaurant the other nite that I was starting to get butterflies, and she told me that the trick was to get them to all fly in formation. Rather liked that depiction!

My nerves are due to my natural uneasiness about stepping outside my comfort zone - I don't gracefully do the unknown. I'd far rather get in a stew, in advance, about all the possible scenarios of stuff that can go wrong . I justify that approach by telling myself that it means we're prepared for any eventualitly, but even I have to confess that its a little self defeating if it ends up undermining, a sense of excitement about what is going to be a fantastic opportunity.

We're repeating the experience we had in Tuscany 3 years ago, when customers of ours from Somerset, joined us half way around the world and spent a week living in a rural farm house, ejoying the food and wine and lifestyle of the region. This time we head for Perigord in France - an hour and a half away from Bordeaux ( and not near any rugby venues as far as I can discern!), where we're taking over a beautiful manor house, and will do 2 seperate weeks of cookschools. I have done all the organising I can, from a distance, and now we must just wait till we get there, to do what is required. Rick has photocopied lots of food ideas - he wants to wait and see whats available in the markets, before we plan the menus for each week.  We have friends, current staff and also old staff who now live in the UK coming to give us a hand - so we're not exactly doing it alone.

 Over the last 3 weeks or so, we've had a number of customers/friends who will be joining us in France coming in for dinner at Somerset, before they leave - and the farewell rejoinder as they leave the restaurant, 'see you in France' has had a rather nice ring to it I have to say. We've timed our trip around our daughters school holidays, so as to minimise the amount of school that they will miss - but other people are travelling to different schedules. I do however have the feeling that half of Tauranga is going to be at Auckland International airport on Sat 15th -we know of so many people who are heading over to the World Cup - so I expect it to be rather a social gathering, which is just as well ,cos I don't enjoy international airports. Too much officialdom which I find intimidating, which I know is pathetic!

I have finally found a new handbag which is big enough to handle my camera, travel documents and passports, and which I can strap accross my body for security ( I worry about these things!) , and finding the perfect handbag has been a serious mission - so now its just down to packing, and going over the lists with the staff who remain to keep the restaurant open for a week after we leave. They will then close it down for 3 weeks, so everyone gets the bulk of their annual leave, and those that are joining us in France will fly over.

Simple really!!