Fête Accomplie Culinary Trip Rajasthan 2009


Amanbagh (peaceful garden) resort in deepest, desert Rajasthan, North-Western India, comes upon you as in a dream. If you fly into Delhi, an orange-turbaned gentleman will drive you for four hours through the land of the horn. Indians adore noise, particularly tooting which they indulge in flamboyantly. You will be driven through fields of wheat, medieval villages and forts to the dreamland - Amanbagh, former walled tiger camp. Soon you are sipping pomegranate juice while listening to a haunting bansi (flute) playing somewhere on this amazing property - new home of NZer Robyn Bickford and Indian Manav Garewal. Peacocks and monkeys cross your path. You acclimatize to being called Sahiba and gently looked after like a princess in approximately five minutes.

On my research trip in April, I went completely native in a few days and found myself wearing my version of faux-Rajasthani outfits, which the village women were very patient about. To give you a clue - for Rajasthani women there is no such thing as too much colour, in your face, over-decoration or excessive jewelry. They love all that shines and even wear tinsel! - searing purple, hot pink, turquoise, canary yellow, crimson and lots of silver jewelry. Robyn dresses exclusively in hand-blocked or embroidered cotton, silk or muslin kurtas (tunics) and pants and in the evening adds gossamer shawls which seemed to float around her independently as she walks.

Rajasthani cooking is a mix - spicy and derived from meagre desert resources but also influenced by the Muslims who arrived in the 16th century, making a lasting impact on the culture and cuisine. The muslims used liberal amounts of cream and ghee; they added yoghurt, raisins and spices and introduced elaborate rice dishes like biryanis and pulaos; they increased the number of meat dishes in what was a largely vegetarian cuisine. The kitchen at Amanbagh produces very good Rajasthani, tandoori, western and fusion cuisine and the vegetables come from their huge organic garden; but the food I enjoyed most was the local, simple things.

One morning, a staff member presented me with a bowl of fresh buffalo ‘curd’ (yoghurt) from his village - naturally sweet and slightly sour, sprinkled with salt and toasted cumin. They are very good at anything to do with a lentil at Amanbagh - heavenly dal makhani (black dahl), dal moth (lentil salad with lemon and coriander) and dal palak (yellow lentils with spinach and cumin). I also became fond of a heavenly dish, Lucknowi Champ - NZ lamb chops Amanbagh style. The head chef at Amanbagh is a great Indian chef and we got to experimenting with cheesemaking. Got 4 litres of buffalo milk and made really good haloumi. As soon as we warmed the milk it separated into curds and whey without any rennet or lemon juice or anything. It is the most amazing, sweet, silky milk. Then we tried to make feta from 4 litres of goat milk and had to put 11 tsp of lemon juice in the get it to separate.

From Amanbagh we will do walking trips visiting the villages. I watched the women milking buffalo, making yoghurt, making buttermilk with huge wooden churns and grinding their own flour. You sit down, exchange niceties and sip masala chai - green cardamom, black peppercorn and cinnamon tea. For breakfast I had pomegranate juice, fresh fruit salad, curd sprinkled with roasted cumin and chaat masala ( the most divine sour masala) then masala chai (spicy tea) and always accompanied by the kindness and gentleness of the staff.

On this ten day gastronomic adventure we will spend 2 days in Jaipur, the pink city - the best lassi shop in the area, outrageous cheap pretty clothes and VERY expensive and breathtaking Kashmiri shawls. It's the gem palace of the area and yes I am wearing a new jem - giant watery green amathyst (they get the colour to change by heating). Also it's a big centre for hand made paper and hand blocked fabric and yes I packed a suitcase full of it. Took a driver for the whole day in Jaipur and we drove around sipping lime soda and coke - I find I have to drink sweet things in the afternoon or I seriously feel weird. Thanks to Robyn, have found a lovely private house just outside Jaipur called Loharu House, where we will stay one night. They have a large organic garden, simple but very charming rooms and very good cooking - sweet, friendly people. We will also be having dinner at a beautiful private house with lake, cooking lessons in the Amanbagh kitchen and as much yoga and meditation as you like.


If you think the best way to access a culture is through it’s food, this is the way to do it. As they say in Rajasthan - Jai Siya Ram - glory to Lord Ram and Goddess Sita. The dates are:

Saturday 7 - 17th March - 10 days - 7500 euros

Saturday 10 - 20 October - 10 days - 7500 euros

www.amanbagh.com

AMANPETA
Celebrity Kiwi Chef turns Sahiba for Luxury Indian Culinary Adventure

If variety is the spice of life, Peta Mathias is the pimento. Now you have the chance to join this exuberant self-styled Gastro-Nomad on a ten-day culinary adventure - from making chapatti in a villager’s hut to the secrets of Indian princely dining - in the luxuriance and legendary service of Amanbagh, Aman Resorts’ jewel in the crown of ‘Incredible India’.

Peta – part Zandra Rhodes, part Graham Kerr and New Zealand’s most revered food presenter, writer and chef - symbolises the culinary down-to-earth-get-up-and-go that has made that country such a gastronomic inspiration.

Following on from her highly successful ‘culinary adventure’ weeks in Morocco and the South of France, Peta, with her faithful Sancho Panza, David Horsman, and Amanabagh Joint General Manager, Robyn Bickford, have created the perfect programme for the most discerning and adventurous gastronome. Combining local colour, authentic dining, legendary shopping and Maharani style pampering, this is ten days of pure luxury.

Enwalled within a verdantly lush oasis, Amanbagh was once the site of the Maharajah of Alwar’s hunting camp, his favourite garden retreat and an important victualling centre. Its exotic and diverse display of fruiting plants and trees now also includes an extensive organic vegetable garden.

Today, Amanbagh is a refined, modern day interpretation of a classic Mughal palace, evoking the lifestyle of emperors, maharajas and maharani’s, and offering you unprecedented opportunities to explore the extraordinary local cuisine, culture and wildlife that flourish to this day.

www.amanbagh.com

Newsletter June 2008 Uzès

Uzès is wonderful, it's so much fun catching up with my friends and I just slip right back in - driving on the right, euros, espadrilles (white with red dots this time - I just throw them away at the end of summer). The market is full of spring cherries, strawberries, broadbeans, baby artichokes, tellines (tiny shellfish) and the famous Bouzigues oysters. Everyone seems to be in a good mood, the weather is really hot one day then rainy the next. Now that the culinary week is finished and my teaching is over, I am living and writing in the countryside outside St-Quentin-la-Poterie, near Uzès.

This year's culinary week went off with a joyous clink of wine glasses, asparagus peelers and opening of Cyril’s escargot jars. On visiting the snail farm (who knew there was such a thing?) we got to see snails having sex. In case you're interested, and how could you not be, they are hermaphrodite and stick themselves together for a few days exchanging bodily fluids, eggs are produced and get deposited on the ground where they grow for a few weeks then hatch baby snails. Snail eggs or caviar are white, very pretty and a delicacy – we ate some and found them completely tasteless. We found the year old goat cheese at Annie’s goat farm much more tasty. Annie made us a wonderful rustic lunch of baby goat and rice (don’t ask) and everyone loved going into her farm kitchen full of dogs, cats, her sons and her husband philosophizing on life.

As with previous sessions, we made new friends, made clear decisions on how many anchovies we could eat without seeking outside help and gorged on David’s octopus dinner. The gypsy village of St-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue was a big hit with huge seafood platters. Our new location at the Mas des Oules in St-Victor-des-Oules near Uzès worked extremely well - beautiful old property, huge swimming pool, individual gites so we are all housed on one site, restaurant and professional kitchen to cook and learn in and charming hosts in Sylvie and Jean-Marc.

Newsletter November 2007

The structure of the culinary weeks has changed a little in that they are no longer a cooking school but a gastronomic adventure. There will still be some cooking classes and guest chefs and more culinary and cultural visits, wine tastings, day trips etc. We have a new location in a lovely old Mas in St-Victor-des-Oules, just outside Uzès. It is absolutely perfect because it is not only beautiful and charming but has a professional kitchen, swimming pool, lots of space and lots of accommodation.

Due to years of people asking me to do a Moroccan tour, my business partner David and I have finally put together a fabulous culinary week in Marrakesh - in fact two of them for October 2008. We will spend half the week in the medina in a riad and half the week in a country house 40 mins outside Marrakesh. I spent a couple of weeks there researching and setting up the experience. Cried all the way to the airport when I had to leave.

I visited lots of hamams - bath and massage houses (in the interest of research you understand) - the best ones are the middle of the road outfits - not so terrifying you need a counsellor afterwards but not so luxurious you could be anywhere. They're traditional but not hard core like the 9 dirham ones where they scrub half your body weight in skin off and throw you around like a dead fish. You get a massage, scrub, wash and steam room. I tried out a lot of restaurants from the outrageously fabulous Yacout in a restored palace to cheap tagine joints in the souk. My mate Amina in the old slave's market in the medina makes a very refined tagine of sardine keftas and it costs $5. You take what you're given, it changes every day and is a tiny hole in the wall with no name and lovely ladies cooking. Some of the bars overlooking the medina are fabulously chic - you go there for G&Ts and watch the sunset and stalks flying in to the palace at night. They have giant nests perched on the ramparts. I went to one and ate some of the best sushi I ever eaten. Believe it or not, sushi with imported Japanese chefs is all the rage in Marrakesh.

Did a sleep-over at Dar Tasmayoun, the country house we will stay in. The owner is French and her wonderful, wildly extrovert gardener/gardian/chief rabbit throat slitter and guinea hen strangler, is fab. Mohammed and the lovely, shy cook Radiga are definitely the ticket. She cooked us beautiful light salads and a very good trid - a chicken (she did it with afore mentioned strangled bird) and warka (Moroccan pastry) dish. She can make couscous from semolina and water and also demonstrate warka making and bread making in the outside clay oven. Everything I ate - meat, vegies, fruit etc is all grown organically on the property. There are lots of things to do including a wild-west-cowboy-food-crafts-horse and donkey souk in the nearby town of Ait Ourir. These mountain markets are very 'authentic' - you can buy a girl (just kidding), a horse, a basket or a kilo of broadbeans AND you can eat there.

David and I found a newly renovated riad in the medina, owned by an Italian film costume designer, Adriano, which is divine. There is a little swimming pool and a very tall orange tree going up three floors through the courtyard. Lit lanterns hang in the tree, birdies sing and heavy curtains surround the pool. It is small but absolutely charming. My room was like a princess's with Arabic writing on the walls, sparkly bedspread, ornate tiled walls and white stucco ceiling. It's a mad mixture of Moroccan and Italian. There will cooking classes and gastronomic experiences like visits to organic herb farms, restaurants, horse riding, souks, visits to Berber homes, cultural visits, berber musicians, belly dancing etc. I have engaged a Moroccan girl Amina to cook with me for the short classes. We will do dishes like briouats (pastries) stuffed with seafood; lamb tagine with artichokes and saffron; and pastilla (pigeon pie). Are you ready?

The dates are:
October 4th - 11th, 2008 - full
October 18th - 25th, 2008