It's when you walk into the foyer of the fairytale five star Imperial hotel after driving through the madness of loud, overcrowded Delhi, that you get your first hit of the contrasts that make up Indian life. My recent textile/shopping tour to the land of the hot pink spice saga was ten days of gin and tonic, Indian beer and enough rose flavoured icecream to sink a ship. In between that and eating refined fusion Indian food we touched every beautiful piece of fabric, draped every elaborate shawl around ourselves and fearlessly enjoyed being wrapped into possibly the most elegant, feminine garment ever invented – the sari.

Finally Summer is here, Christmas parties are falling out of the trees and the pohutukawa are blooming, spreading their crimson joy everywhere. The Auckland Supper Club is also blooming with vaguely red and green themed recipes like pintxos (tapas) with roasted red peppers and parsley; taboulé with tomatoes and mint and Christmas mince sunshine tart sprinkled with pistachios and rose petals. I will be teaching and hosting the Supper Club on Wednesdays and Saturdays till I return to France for the European Summer in May. 

It's smashing being back in Auckland hosting the Supper Club again. In these distressing world times, the Auckland Supper Club is a haven of uplifting story telling, perfumed cooking, eating together on my pointy terrace and indulging in that magical zone of being looked after by someone else for a few blissful hours.The first class of the season last night, saw us learning how to find pesto, pizza rustica (see recipe below), fish stew, clafoutis and brilliant pomegranate seeds in our very own kitchens. 

I've had a beautiful summer in my home in Uzès. We've had a suffocating heatwave of 39 degrees then suddenly the temperature dropped 10 degrees and we all had to put cardies on – 27 degrees in the South of France is practically chilly. The main extremely groovy news is that my new book 'It's Been Six Weeks Since My Last Confession' hits bookshelves on my birthday 12 October. There will be various book launches around the country. So far it's looking like this…

Changes are afoot! Practical changes. I have decided to simplify my life and do less travelling. I've been thinking about this for years and wondering how I could organise it because my lifestyle is inextricably linked to my work. If one changed, the other had to so this is the solution I have come up with. I have decided to swap my French/NZ life around so that I will rent in France and own in NZ. I am also reducing my tours for 2026 and the first casualty is Marrakech. The unique lodge where we stay in the countryside in Marrakech is being sold and for me, there is nothing to replace the specialness of that place and my relationship with the owner, Florence.

I am girding my loins for my Marrakech gastronomic tour starting 12 May. Around New Zealand ten other excited people are packing and unpacking and repacking to join me for a week of passion, crushed rosebuds and falling pomegranates in a land where time passes on slippered feet. I have enjoyed an Auckland summer of my twice weekly Supper Clubs where we learn magical things like how to turn a salade Nicoise into a tart, how to network, how to eat on a floating terrace and how to laugh while trying to hide in the group photo. Thank you to all the wonderful Supperettes who have joined me over the Summer.

I've just finished the most dramatic, passionate, luxurious India textiles/fashion tour with the loveliest, interested and classy group. Once you've been to India, you are changed forever because you realise you have been seriously under-achieving in the ostentatious department. We saw the most beautiful clothes and bought dohars (summer blankets made from two layers of muslin with a layer of block printed cotton in between) – like sleeping under clouds. We bought shawls, jewellery, pointy shoes and embroidered kurtas.

I hope everyone had a good chill during the holidays. Melbourne at Christmas was wonderful. My family and I ate at some really really good restaurants – The European, Supernormal, Taksim Square, coffee at Marios and Albert's Wine Bar. Oh and the sparkling gastronomic paradise of the Victoria market. Stood in line for a croissant at LUNE. Took in the extraordinary exhibition of the dotty work of Yayoi Kusama at the NGV.

I am looking out my window at the huge Christmas tree that has just burst into brilliant red bloom – our wonderful NZ Pohutukawa tree – a true sign that summer is here. Pohutukawa are our coastal guardians and the red flower symbolises bravery, strength and resilience.  So having complained non-stop about the horrible weather in Auckland we are now finally happy in the heat and sunshine and girding our loins for the holiday season.

I'm back in Auckland hosting my Supper Club on Wednesday evenings and Saturday lunchtimes on the floating terrace. Nobody ever wants to leave the table after a cooking class because it is the centre of the universe, the place where we share stories and memories, drink wine and laugh. The childhood table is where we learn to socialise and communicate. My plates are very colourful and rustic – can’t bear white plates – and the tablecloths and napkins are flamboyant. 

Puglia covered us all in sunshine, beauty and good vibes. We devoured polpette (tiny deep fried meatballs), foccaccia, bombette (finely sliced pork shoulder, stuffed with coppa and caciocavallo cheese, rolled up and fried), orecchiette pasta and raw gamberro rosso (pink prawns) with just olive oil and salt. The wine has very sexy names like susumaniello, primitivo and negroamaro and we did lots of tastings in the interests of research. Our wonderful group were up for everything.

Having recently completed a Basque and an Uzès tour a week apart, I can report that lying on the floor in my house for a week does wonders for recuperation. Firstly it straightens your back out, secondly it allows you to spot the cobwebs and thirdly it gets rid of the alcohol in your system because you can't sip gin while supine.

Exciting to be back in Marrakech again – sizzling with colour, drama and enough sugared sweets to put everyone into a diabetic coma. My tour group were perfectly wonderful, throwing themselves into every spicy cooking lesson, every bottomless glass of mint tea offered and all opportunities to dance and sing with the locals.

I finally got back to India after four years. Four long years of no outrageous colour, no henna painted hands, no heart-stopping rickshaw rides and no excuses for a party every day. There are so many festivals, religious celebrations and special days in India, they seem to be constantly celebrating. During my second tour we were in Jaipur for Holi – the festival of lights, colours and flowers celebrating the triumph of good over evil.

Happy Christmas Gastronomads! I am in residence in Auckland writing and hosting the Supper Club chez moi till I leave for the other half of my life in the South of France at the beginning of May 2024. The exception is the month of March when I will be in India hosting two shopping/textile tours. I know!! Can't wait to be in the land of the best architecture, the best interior decor, the best textiles, the best fashion and the nicest people. 

Next year's tours are filling up like a glass of rosé on a hot day – but there are still a few places on my Marrakech tour in May, the Uzès tour in June and my new Portugal tour in September, (which I did for the first time this year). On all these adventures we do lots of walking and it can be hot so gastronomads need to be reasonably fit with no mobility issues.

The Puglia tour was smashing - it's hard to go wrong in Italy I have to say. We ate more pasta, bread, seafood, cappocollo and burrata than we thought was humanly possible. We drank lots of Susumaniello, Primitivo & Negroamaro wine and our tour manager Max dragged willing participants out for post prandial amaro liqueur every night starting from the cheapest to the most expensive. 

The Uzès tour was wonderful and bursting with sunshine, rosé, slightly unusual food like rabbit with anchovies and artichokes, roasted pigeon, roasted goat and salt cured duck, provencal cooking lessons and a big shopping hit at Les Indiennes traditional Camarguaise clothing shop in Nimes. Suddenly everyone came over all flowery gardienne (cowboy) shirts, frilly dresses, block printed linen, espadrilles and paisley scarves.

The Basque Country is a secret land of rugged mountains and wild beaches on the Atlantic coast. The Basques say “Asko dakin/k/zu, bizitzen baldin badakin/k/zu… You know much, if you know how to live".  Basque is the oldest, weirdest language in Europe and no-one knows where it comes from, so it's just as well they also speak Spanish on the Spanish side and French on the French side.