Join me on one of my annual weeklong small-group culinary adventures! Upcoming trips include longtime favorite French destinations—June, 2024 in Provence near St. Remy, or September, 2025 in Marseillan on the Mediterranean in Occitanie. A new addition is Italy’s Almalfi Coast in October, 2024. We’ll be returning to Marrakech in May, 2025. We only take about 10 like-minded guests, so early sign-up is essential.
All of these are stunning destinations I first discovered many decades ago, as a college student studying art in Salzburg, Austria. I used my Eurail pass to zip many places around the Continent, especially to the Mediterranean coast. I was awed by the sea, the scenery, the architecture, and the food. Oh, that food. Even on a college student’s budget, I was able to enjoy so many area specialties—pissaladiere, socca, salads niçoise, and bouillabaisse in France. The Amalfi area offered fresh mozzarella and caprese salads, pristine seafood and pastas dressed with the gigantic local lemons, and hints of red chile dried in strings like the ristras of my New Mexico home today. It was an easy ferry ride over to Morocco from southern Europe, and it was the single most exotic place I had ever experienced. The tagines, heady with mixed blends of spices, further dazzled me.
I had grown up in a home where food was important, but these travels substantially broadened my sense of culinary adventure, and my palate. I reveled in this joyful world of food and travel, and have ever since. I could not believe my good fortune to get to host trips like this, which I’ve done since 2003. My current partner in these adventures is Absolutely Southern France, a top-notch tour company founded a dozen years ago by French Canadian Nancy McGee. Nancy is an incomparable planner for these itineraries, and accompanies us on most of the travels. Our trips—of 6 to 9 nights, depending on destination—include cooking workshops, demos of area specialties, wine experiences, markets, and meals in and meals out, tasting all that the region is known for. We enjoy the important area sites, getting an insiders’ experience from delightful locals wherever we go. Oh, and there are plenty of shopping opportunities too!
Check out the link below to review all of the activities included and the pricing and lodging. If you too are excited about food, I hope you’ll join an upcoming trip.
https://absolutelysouthernfrance.com/small-group-tours/
New trips are being considered for two more extraordinary culinary destinations, Vietnam and Mexico, in 2025 and beyond. Leave me a note if either of those future tours intrigues you.
