Glorious Greece awaits...

In June I spent a week in Greece with my wonderful Greek tour manager Alexia, researching my new tour. It was HOT but everything's hot in Europe now. Next year's tour is 15 – 21 May so won't be so sizzling. It was enchanting being in Greece again after so long and I have my friend Charlotte to thank for it. She invited me to her wedding on the island of Tinos in June and all my memories of Greece, good food, dancing, singing and lying around on pristine beaches came back. The big news for me was that Greeks are now crazy about raw fish, the Greek salads now have huge slices of feta sitting on them rather than a few bits sprinkled through and the retsina is far more sophisticated, in fact the wine is very good. Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world and among the first wine-producing territories in Europe. Now they make mostly blended wines with spicy flavors of raspberry, anise, fennel, cherry, and occasionally olive or tomato. 

We start the tour in vibrant, sexy Athens in the most fantastic gastronomic hotel apparently built with me in mind. The whole of the lobby is an upmarket grocery complete with restaurant, fresh vegetable department, butcher, delicatessin and shelves groaning with products like the famously good Greek olive oil. Alexia and I visited every restaurant, experience and activity we have on my schedule. We're doing a fashion/shopping stroll as well as having rooftop cocktails, cooking class, market tour. We practised our dancing and singing for the welcome dinner. Athens is fun and exciting and the people are unfailingly polite and charming. I bought a frock with blue fish on it and got weepy when I left.

Then we jump on the ferry and sail off to the second half of the tour on Sifnos island in the Cyclades. Here we will lie around in the luxury Elies hotel RIGHT ON THE BEACH. If we were any closer to the beach we would be fish. The last night bash, always distinguished by live music, good eating, dressing up and understated carrying on is at a traditional restaurant a short walk down the beach. Sifnos is known for its gastronomy which is why we chose it but they are also famous for their ceramics so will be visiting a potter and eating refined modern food with chef George Samoilis. We're also visiting a farm where we see how they grow vegetables and fruit and have a cooking class. Somehow we also find time to sail the high seas in a classic wooden gulet and do some swimming and snorkling. Bookings are open now – full details on the website HERE. 

Uzès & the Basque Country

The Uzès tour in June was filled with exceptionally lovely and interested gastronomads. Guest were based in my hometown of Uzès in the chic Entraigues Hotel in the centre of town. I was based in my three storey pad down the road where we enjoyed a cooking class and our last night bash. In the interest of maintining tour fitness I make my guests go up to the third floor for bubbly and fingerfood, then descend to the second floor to eat and listen to live jazz while the caterer is on the ground floor whipping up the feast. From our base in Uzès near Provence and we go on adventures to the pottery village of St-Quentin-La-Poterie, the great old city of Nimes, Tarrascon for traditional Souleiado prints and outside St Remy for lunch at the famous Paradou restaurant. We ate dishes like courgette flowers stuffed with fish mousse, tarte soleil, roasted goat, grande aioli and lemon tarts with almonds – all drenched in sunshine. We had a picnic of cheeses and Roman wine under the Roman Pont du Gard. Details on the 2027 tour in June are HERE.

As soon as I had finished the Greek research trip I flew to the drop dead chic and beautiful city of San Sebastian to host my gastronomic tour in the Basque Country. Half of it is in Spain and half in France in the pretty fishing village of St-Jean-de-Luz. Our outrageous guide Eli immediately bought us all fans which even the men used to keep cool, then dragged us around cider houses for roasted fish and giant T-bone steaks, pintxos (tapas) bars with Rioja wine and txacoli (Basque slightly sparkling white) and cured ham tastings with sherry. We visited the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and marvelled at the architecture and art then lurched off to a txakoli vineyard and traditional lunch of fish soup, grilled monkfish and 'fried milk' in a seaside village. On the French side with our lovely guide Gabrielle we spent a lot of time walking down to the beach to cool off – so beautiful late in the evening at 10pm. We did a chocolate tasting, went market shopping where we slurped down fresh oysters and finished off at a one star restaurant in the countryside serenaded by a traditional male Basque choir. Details for 2027 are HERE.

Tours in 2027

India fashion and textile tour 7 – 16 March 2027  – full details HERE ... tour half full.
Puglia gastronomic tour 5 – 11 May 2027 – full details HERE
Greece gastronomic tour 15 – 21 May 2027 – full details HERE ... we are half full already!
Uzès gastronomic tour 11 – 17 June 2027 – full details HERE .... tour half full.
Basque Country gastronomic tour 26 June – 2 July 2027 – full details HERE

Book News

I have a new cookbook coming out in October – Recipes From the Supper Club – a ritual of togetherness. When you tell someone a recipe, you tell them a love story. It's sublime alchemy. And you can even pre order it now right HERE.  

Uzès cooking classes

I am in my Uzès home in the South of France all summer till the end of September lying around drinking rosé and complaining about the heat. My favourite position at the moment is resting under the air-conditioner (35 degrees today), staying very still and reading Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy. Other activities include telling stories with my friends in cafés while drinking piscines (wine with large chunks of ice floating in it) and attending outdoor summer classical concerts which start at 9.30pm. It's great drinking rosé with ice – that way we don't have to waste our time on water. My cooking classes of provencal dishes are on Wednesdays and Saturdays – market days in Uzès. We shop at the gorgeous market then walk home and cook, drink more piscines and tell stories. We cook such local deliciousness as cold soups, pissaladière, salade Niçoise tart and cherry clafoutis. My teaching kitchen is air-conditioned so when you walk out, you are hit by a wall of southern heat. You go straight home and have a siesta dreaming of little goats playing in the fields. Find out more about classes HERE. 

That's It for now. Try and enjoy the winter – there is always a summer coming. Spending five months in France reminds me that Escoffier said 'French cooking is an extention of foreign policy'. Isn't it interesting that the company handing out culinary stars in New Zealand is French? Don't start me.

Peta