COOKING IN THE PRINCE'S GARDEN
The Potager Kitchen by RANDALL PRICE
During the annual tomato festival, join us for a special cooking class celebrating la Bourdaisiere's kitchen garden, featuring, of course, the tomato.
With basket in hand, you'll be guided through the chateau gardens by former La Varenne chef Randall Price, picking the fresh vegetables from which you will prepare for your meal.
Our garden kitchen, next to the potager, is the setting for a hands-on cooking lesson and meal showing the many guises of the tomato - garden-fresh gazpacho will be followed by vegetable brochettes on our Viking grill, and dessert will be caramelized tomatoes stuffed with dried fruit and spices, with tomato ice cream.
Fresh bread, cheese, cured pork loin, garden salad and local wines complete the meal, served on the kitchen terrace amidst the flowering dahlias.
Recipes and special gift for all participants. An experience not to be missed!
During the Tomato Festival :
September 12 & 13, 2009 :
- 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. and
- 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Booking : +33 (0) 2 47 45 16 31
Gastronomic Programs at Chateau de la Bourdaisiere
Traditional French Food, Facing the Future cooking excursions and holidays in a princely setting, in the heart of the Loire and only an hour from Paris
Experience the new face of cooking in a most historical environment. Only minutes from Tours, with its nearby fast train and autoroute connections to Paris, discover a luxurious environment where responsible gardening and eating, art de vivre and arts de la table all combine seamlessly.
Thoughtfully appointed to the highest standards by the Prince and Princess de Broglie, the unique style of the rooms of the Chateau de la Bourdaisiere transports you to a more gracious time. Each room has an individual personality and view over the grounds and park, and some are suites. Most bathrooms are fitted with both tub and shower, and bedrooms are decorated to reflect the taste of your hosts.
But la Bourdaisiere is more than a fine chateau hotel. The newly installed Viking kitchens bring state of the art cooking to a number of gastronomic programs. From the casual barbecue area in the kitchen gardens, to the demonstration and dining area in the grand former stables, to the authentic chateau kitchen, the formidable Viking ranges and ovens make cooking a pleasure you can duplicate in your own home.
The gardens at la Bourdaisiere provide the main inspiration for the programs. The season of the gardens and the local farms decide the cooking. La Bourdaisiere is the premier conservatory of tomatoes in Europe, with over 650 varieties celebrated at its annual tomato festival each September, but that is not its only are of interest. The bounty of the kitchen garden brings many other delights to the table throughout the year, and adjacent gardens feature plantations of herbs and dahlias, with a private wine production and, below the gardens, caves for mushrooms. Summer truffles appear in the woods, and wild game. Local artisans provide cheeses and poultry, and supplement our harvest with their seasonal produce.
French gastronomy has an ancient link to terroir, the link between a place what is grown and cooked there. While the modern cooks herald the importance of sustainable agriculture through such important and popular movements as 'slow food,' this philosophy has never really left France, but rather permeated French cuisine. The very idea of 'regional' food in France is the fruit of this way of thinking in the kitchen - menus begin by walking through the garden.
Your host and guide during your culinary adventure is American-born Chef Randall Price. His career in France encompasses years cooking at several of its illustrious chateaux, as well as years as private chef for several ambassadors in Paris and Budapest. Cooking for heads of state, diplomats and nobility, he was also Resident Chef and Instructor at La Varenne Cooking School for 12 years. He also hosted Europe's' Classic Inns on The Travel Channel. He directs events and cooks for the Comtesse de Rohan-Chabot at her private estate in the Auvergne, teaches at cooking schools in the US and demonstrates cooking on television magazine shows. He has been a long-term contributor to Fine Cooking magazine and he hosts French food festivals at a private club in Monterrey, Mexico. At present he is writing a book about the special art of entertaining at chateaux, and how to bring that spirit into your own home.
Randall will lead you in the hands-on cooking classes, each with a theme fitting to the good life, and accompany you on your excursions. In these private lessons, for which you make your meal in teams, Randall will take the mystery out of such classic dishes as soufflés au camembert, potage aux potiron et champignons sauvage (pumpkin soup with wild mushrooms), filet de boeuf en sanglier (filet mignon marinated to taste like wild boar), gigot de lotte (monkfish roasted in bacon, with leeks and cream), roulade au chocolat (flourless chocolate cake roll) or his definitive tarte tatin (upside-down caramel-apple tart). As much as possible, you will find the inspiration and ingredients in the gardens of la Bourdaisiere, and in what is in season locally. Many dishes will be decided by your market visits, and of course you will receive printed copies of your class recipes as well as a certificate of attendance at your final champagne reception.
From the comfort of la Bourdaisiere's rooms, its rich history and splendid gardens, and state-of-the-art Viking kitchens, you will find it easy to make sound decisions to live and eat well while respecting our environment.
Chef Randall will give you the tips on how to integrate the seasons into your kitchen life, teaching you techniques perfected in his years of experience as private chef and teacher.
During the spring and fall, we schedule regular one-day programs, each with a tour of the facilities and a cooking demonstration featuring a different theme followed by light meal in la Bourdaisiere's ecuries, Several longer programs are offered in fall 2009 and spring 2010. You may enroll in a three-day program of classes and visits, with the option of an additional two days further defining the program's particular theme, such as 'Autumn Harvest,' 'Foie Gras and Truffles,' 'Food from the Woods: Game and Mushrooms,' or 'Spring Awakening.'
La Bourdaisiere's key location is perfect for exploring the other features of the Loire. You have the option of adding a few days before or after the class session, at a special price, to discover the area in your own time and manner. Our knowledgeable staff will happily assist you plan your stay.
Each day of the longer programs will be balanced with kitchen time, excursions to local attractions such as the gardens of Villandry and local markets and artisans, and leisure time to appreciate the atmosphere of this gracious domain.
Because of our focus on seasonal offerings, some specific cooking information is necessarily undecided until we embark on our culinary journeys. Consult our website for course dates, prices and itineraries.
Bring your curiosity to the Ecole de Potager du Prince Jardinier. We will give you the basket to fill!
Chef Randall Price
Who is Randall Price ?
Randall Price was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, but he escaped to Europe in 1988 and there he remains. He inherited a passion for cooking from his mother and grandmother and for travel from his father. After obtaining a degree in English from Wittenberg University, he attended the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and was a member of the Center for Writers in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. While in the South he discovered the French-based cooking of New Orleans. He quickly decided he preferred making quiches and puff pastry to grading freshman writing papers. He taught himself to cook by following the books of Julia Child and, armed with croissants, turtle soup and a tarte tatin, persuaded the owner of the Brandywine Inn in Cincinnati to give him a job as assistant chef.
Five years later, a cake he invented won the Great Chocolate Challenge from Chocolatier magazine. Part of the prize was a course at La Varenne Cooking School in Paris. He met founder Anne Willan and joined her team for the book La Varenne Pratique, a comprehensive guide to cooking, for which he tested and created hundreds of recipes. After completing the Grand Diplome studies at La Varenne, he went to Budapest, Hungary, as personal chef to US Ambassador Mark Palmer. For two years he devised entertainments for scores of visiting diplomats, journalists and business executives. A highlight was managing a reception for President George Bush. With limited resources during these still-communist times, he persuaded an airline to ship lobsters from Maine, begged wild boar from hunters in the Budapest hills, and drove to Vienna for lettuce.
He returned to Paris in 1990 and spent a few years cooking for Austrian, Australian and American ambassadors, followed by two years as chef at the popular Café de Mars. For another two years he was on-camera host of Europe's Classic Inns on The Travel Channel. Fourteen episodes were filmed highlighting luxurious hotels and sumptuous foods in sometimes unexpected locations, from cooking in the thermal sands of the volcanic Azores to eating raclette on a Swiss glacier.
Along the way he cooked on hotel barges on the Burgundy canals, produced American classic food for the opening of The American Center in Paris, provided voices for video games, and devised a Kentucky Barbecue for 2000 on a Mediterranean island for Pernod-Ricard, featuring recipes using Wild Turkey bourbon.
From 1997 until its closing he was resident chef at La Varenne's Chateau du Fey in Burgundy, teaching French cooking and directing the test kitchen for Anne Willan's cookbooks. Outside the teaching kitchen, he was recipe tester, food stylist and kitchen director for the books Cooking with Wine, From My Chateau Kitchen, The Good Cook, and the James Beard Award-winning The Country Cooking of France.
He spends part of each year in the U.S. teaching. From 2007 he made appearances on the FOX network's Dayton morning show. He also inaugurated a cooking school at a private club in Monterrey, Mexico, where he creates wine tasting dinners at the restaurant Bogavante.
For sixteen summers he has been private chef to the Countess Joy de Rohan-Chabot at her castle, Jozerand, in the Auvergne. This 900-year-old family home is the setting for remarkable entertainments for family, artists and friends. The countess is a trompe-l'oeil artist, inspired by nature, and together they devise many themed weekend diversions for her guests. At present he is working on a book about his experiences in this remarkable setting.
At Jozerand he met Prince Louis-Albert de Broglie. After long admiration for the prince's dedication to environmental issues as well as his appreciation for a good table, it was an easy step to focus his culinary attention on the Loire after many years in Burgundy.
With the time-honored French notions of terroir and cooking with the seasons of primal importance to his personal cuisine, he looks forward to bringing a return to this philosophy of cooking to guests at the Chateau de la Bourdaisiere, within the splendid setting of its gardens.
