Lunch for one at Le Vieux Logis in Tremolat in the South West Dordogne

The Dordogne is one of my favorite areas of France.  This hotel Le Vieux Logis is a beautiful setting for a date for one or two or even for a wedding.  It is located in the center of this village and is a most beautiful building with fantastic gardens.  It is Early May and I am enjoying the outside as one of only two tables dining at this moment.  I sit imagining myself planning my wedding here tasting each dish as if it were being presented for consideration on my menu. Looking around for each setting, the rehearsal dinner, the  wedding ceremony, the reception and the photo session. Numerous nooks and expansive gardens fit all of the profiles with perfection.  I ordered the Degustation menu of the season.  The restaurant offers several menu options all looked equally delicious.

The beautiful garden in which my table was located. Food photos to follow....

funny things for my nephews

Hello to my nephews! Here are some more funny things from my travels.

This bike was on the streets of Paris neat the Jardin De Luxembourg.  They say people here are obsessed with the garden. Scooters and bikes are everywhere here too as well as in other parts of Europe.  As we saw in Rome and around Italy the scooters and small cars are needed as many of the roads are very narrow through the cities and villages. My larger car got stuck once in a rock wall lined hilltop street in a little village in Vence, France. I couldn't make the turn and got stuck as I was also poorly skilled at driving a car with a stick shift on a steep hill.  My tears turned to laughter once I finally got myself unstuck and found my way to the final destination for the day.

another little car for my nephews

Italian Institute of Advanced Culinary and Pastry Arts

I have received many suggestions from friends that I post about the "cooking school" that I attended in Calabria, Italy this year. Specifically about what a disaster it was and to warn others to beware it is not what it professes to be.  

Last year, after many years of not following my own passion but encouraging others and to follow theirs, I made a decision to go to Italy to attend a cooing school.  I was truly excited about the curriculum and the teachers/chefs looked great.  They were advertised as "masters" in their field and winners of World Cup competitions... I was looking forward learning from true experts.  We were to be housed in a fine hotel overlooking the sea in a popular resort town.  We had a list of excursions, consultations and meetings with producers, purveyors and artisans to learn deeply about the production and creation of things such as olive oil and gelato.  It was touted as a professional development program of the highest caliber.

Instead...

I arrived to a deserted town near Soverato Italy.  The hotel, abandoned for the winter, was cold in appearance and in temperature as the building remained unheated for the winter.  The hotel, positioned at the top of a tall hill overlooking two bays, had the potential to be fabulous and may have been at one time but years of neglect and seeming indifference have rendered it mostly uninhabitable.  Many rooms were closed because of the crumbling hillside. Many toilets, water heaters and room heaters did not function. The foul order of methane caused two members of the student population to become ill, plumbing issues which persisted and involved many student changing rooms repeatedly.  No hot water, no water, sewage back ups, I could go on. For many of us the heat did not work properly in our rooms (or at all).  The only heated area of the entire hotel was in the classroom and kitchen, the dining area and hotel lobby area remained unheated and frigid. The wifi access was available only in the unheated lobby or outside on the front patio... outside.... in the winter... getting the picture...  and was so slow it was almost pointless to use.   The resort town of the hotel was empty not really a soul around.  Soverato, the nearest functioning town was about 20 min by taxi at a minimum of 15 Euros or over 20 bucks.

I myself was bitten by something in my room that sent me to the hospital.  Bugs happen, I know, but I'm painting the full picture of my disappointment.

The first night of the welcome gala was a meal fit for a dive bar, touted as a wonderful display of regional specialities.  This was my first pang of fear that this might not be what I had thought or what I was looking for.