°fine foods °lush lunches and tasty treats °catering for all occasions

Paris and Provence Trip

If you wanted the trip of a lifetime, you should have been one of the happy group of fourteen prancing around Paris and Provence with Liz of Luscious Affairs and Sue Heine on the Flavours of Provence tour they organized in May. The trip emphasis was emphatically on Provence and food, but there were sufficient historical and cultural experiences to provide a balance.

Having met and dined in Paris, the following day the group sped south on the TGV train first class to Avignon. The general consensus was that one of the great advantages of the tour was staying most of the time in the one location and taking day trips from there. No suitcases on the run! The Mas de la SÚnancole in the village of Gordes provided an ideal base and very comfortable accommodation. Another plus was the balance of special gourmet meals (and special was the word!) with times when you could eat where you pleased or just buy some local goodies and enjoy them with a glass of wine back at the Mas. In fact, the local rosÚ was a great hit!

There were so many picturesque places to visit, and so much local and seasonal produce to view at the markets and take home to sample, it's hard to select the highlights. Two very special meals were at the world famous L'Oustau de Baumani¶re at les Baux and at le Mas de Tourteron. A tour of the winery and gardens at the ChÅteau Val Joanis followed by a wine and olive oil tasting, a visit to the wellknown textile factory of Les Olivades where some serious shopping took place, and a picnic at Orange where there are fabulous Roman edifices followed by a visit to the winery of ChÅteauneuf du Pape were enjoyed by all.

Of course, for all those would be or actual gourmet cooks on the tour, the visits to Tamara Milstein's great farmhouse and cooking school and Nito Carpita's palatial cooking school/guesthouse were highlights of the trip. You, too, can experience these and other French delights next May with Sue and Liz. Just a word of advice, don't eat too much before you go, and you won't need much food or wine for a while after!