Cooking Lesson au Chateau

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Aix-en-Provence
June 19th 2007

Published: August 10th 2007

Edit Blog Post

Paul and Zdena

Albert

Albert choosing the Dorade we would have for lunch.

Getting the fish was the first thing Albert wanted to do, so the Fishmonger could be cleaning them while we continued shopping. Albert is pointing to the Dorade he chose for lunch.Tuesday began early with a target departure time of 7:30 AM. This was because we were meeting our Chef in downtown Aix-en-Provence at 9:00 AM or so and it was about an hour away, rush hour, parking, you get the idea.

We made it right on time and walked to the Tourist Bureau where we were to meet and in about 10 minutes, not one chef showed up, but 2 chefs! Our head Chef du Jour was Albert Ughetto. He has many years of experience in France, Aruba, Costa Rica and most recently Florida, where he recently sold his restaurant and returned to France for some new inspiration. With him was a long time friend of his named Robert (pronounced Ro-ber) who is a trained pastry chef. So we got 2 chefs for the price of one!

The first order of business was to go to the market and get the food we were going to prepare, so off we went to the market. It was a nice

Market Pic

Here is a photo of Bruce, West and Teresa at the market in Aix-en-Provence.

walk and Aix-en-Provence is a great town in it's own right, so this was a nice bonus. As you can see from the photos, we got to see (and smell) all kinds of things. While it was not a huge market, it had everything you could want, including several incredible fish stands.

I didn't see him do it, but Albert somehow donned a white Chef jacket before we reached the market. I think this must have gotten him some special treatment or pricing at the market.

One lesson we learned there was how to smell berries to find out which ones were the best. You can see Albert giving Teresa a private lesson in the photo, but it is true, the berries do smell different.

Bruce and I left with Albert in his car and everyone else went in the van and we headed to the Chateau de Clapier in Mirabeau where we planned to make lunch. You can read more about the Chateau and the region by visiting the following web site.

http://www.chateau-de-clapier.com/index.asp

When we first arrived, Albert went to the kitchen to prep the lamb he planned to roast and he put that

Market Pic

Here is Albert and Robert choosing berries we would have for dessert.

in the oven while we went on a brief tour of the wine cellar in the Chateau. Then we met Albert and Robert in the oversized kitchen and everyone who wanted to particpate was handed an apron and the fun began. I decided to film most of the process and will post that on a separate blog once I figure out how to digitize my tape in the right format.

There were lots of things going on in both the main kitchen with Albert in the lead there and the smaller kitchen where Robert was busy with his pastry lesson.

We all had a great time watching and helping in the kitchen and there were so many different dishes going on, it was just great. They served us the Chateau's wine during the lesson and lunch, including a white, a rose and a red.

Everyone was totally satiated by the time lunch was over and we headed back to the Villa to relax, swim, nap, etc. It was a great day. Needless to say, we just snacked that night...

Check out the photos below to see some more of what all we did and ate...