Cooking in the Dordogne . . .
a summer cooking course in France

Set in the magnificent recently converted stone barn, Cookinfrance is a cooking course with a difference where you can relax and learn to cook.

You will cook some great classic and contemporary dishes from around the world in practical hands-on style.If you have ever wanted to cook and present dishes like the professionals and television chefs, you will be able to learn how on your summer cooking course. If you enjoy cooking among friends and like-minded people in a warm, friendly and relaxed atmosphere, then come and learn to cook with Cookinfrance , where you will feel right at home form the moment you arrive - a summer cooking course in France rather than a formal cookery school.

At Cookinfrance you will learn to cook with techniques you can later use to simplify your busy home life and impress family and friends.Throughout your summer cooking course, using fresh local ingredients, you will be preparing, cooking and, most importantly, eating local, Mediterranean and Pacific Rim cuisine. You will learn to:

• cook pastries, breads and soups

• select and prepare the best fish and sea food

• butcher common joints of meat

• cook classic French and Italian sauces

• construct modern dressings

• discover the art of professional contemporary food presentation

On your summer cooking course in France, Cookinfrance will introduce you to ways of cooking exciting and varied vegetarian food - and they are not talking nut roasts - and rediscover those great British childhood favourites like Stew and Dumplings, Fish 'n Chips, Bread and Butter Pudding and Spotted Dick. Learn to cook French food in France. Learn to cook on a barbecue without incinerating food, family and friends!

Activities on your cookery holiday might include:

• spending a morning buying ingredients at the local market

• an afternoon at a Seventeenth century fish farm selecting really fresh fish and cooking it for a cosy supper

• an evening spent around the barbecue watching the sun go down with a glass of local red in your hand

• even a day-off lolling around by the pool or sight-seeing or just paddling a canoe lazily down the Dordogne river

. . . and while you learn to cook, stay in the comfortable and spacious centrally-heated accommodation of Bombel.

. . . and while you dive into your cooking course your non-cooking family or partner are also welcome to stay at reduced rates.

Bombel - your cooking holiday venue

Bombel is the name of the former farm whose buildings date from 1606 and which will be home to you for the week. It is set in its own land on a gentle south-facing slope with no immediate neighbours, surrounded by seven acres of fields and woodland.

Built in 1926 of local stone on the foundations of a four hundred year old ruin, the barn was originally intended as a store for grain and animal feed but its use was constantly revised over the ensuing decades. After the Second World War, as the farm's prosperity waned, the barn was utilised as a crèche for the family's four remaining cows, and sometime during the 1970's it was converted into a tobacco-drying hangar.

For the past quarter of a century the farm has lain uninhabited, slowly falling into disrepair . . . until now. Through cookinfrance.com, the barn has been given a fresh lease of life and a proud new role - as the venue for the cooking holidays. Gone are the cows and tobacco drying apparatus to be replaced by a fully equipped kitchen with modern appliances and food preparation areas.

. . . and if it gets too hot in the kitchen there is a seven metre by four metre pool for all to use.

More cookery holiday than cookery school in France

"It may sound a bit high and mighty, but there is an ethos surrounding cookery - it's that feeling of pure pleasure that cooking and eating great food gives. That's what I would want to convey on your cookery holiday", says Jim "Fred" Fisher.

"Cookinfrance is not a cookery school run by some Fanny Craddock lookalike standing beneath a slanted mirror so the 'students' can get a precious glimpse of the 'creations' - there will be none of that here, this is a cookery holiday!"

"Just as we enjoy eating food, we should learn to love cooking it too. During your cookery holiday we'll demystify and dismantle Haute Cuisine and repackage it in a more user-friendly and rustic form".

"During the week we'lll get to know each other while we gut fish, bone legs of lamb and knead dough, all at the same table".

If you want to know more about your chef and mentor Jim "Fred" Fisher have a look at his biography page on Hub-UK <click here>

Your cooking course in France - the food

On your cooking course in France fresh seasonal produce, united with good clear flavours, will shine with very little fiddling at all.

The great chefs - Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, et al - all share the same cooking philosophy: keep it simple!

Unfortunately, all too often, cooks muck about with dishes seemingly just for the sake of it, or perhaps because they believe that simple ingredients can’t possibly speak for themselves. Well, Jim Fisher thinks they are wrong - some of the best food he has eaten has been more or less allowed to present itself.

Yes, of course dishes have to be enhanced and served with complimentary ingredients but, as your cooking course in France will reveal, fresh seasonal produce united with good clear flavours and simple presentation, will shine with very little fiddling at all.

Only the best ingredients will do on your cooking course in France . . .

That is why, on your course, you will shop locally for the best ingredients then bring them back to the kitchen in order to pay them the respect they deserve. The local butcher has a list placed prominently on the wall of her shop detailing the farmers who supply her meat – and Jim knows all of them.

Together you will combine flavours and textures that reinforce and magnify the course dishes, introducing garnishes only if they add to the overall eating experience. Predominantly, you will use light dressings and vinaigrettes instead of overly rich cream based sauces (although one or two unctuous little numbers will slip in every now and then - Jim says that's a promise!), and quickly-cooked dishes from the Mediterranean or the East are favoured in lieu of heavy stodge and groaning plates.

So, if you would love to cook some of those great classics of French cuisine and would also like a slightly lighter, more modern approach join one of the cooking courses in the Dordogne - it will change the way you think about food.

Accommodation

You will be staying in your own comfortable and spacious centrally-heated en-suite accommodation.

Your cooking holiday is based in the magnificent, recently converted, barn set in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Dordogne, between the ancient honey-coloured market towns of Sarlat and Montignac. The area is very peaceful, offering a very safe environment in which to spend your holiday.

The barn is centrally-heated and you will have your own spacious double ensuite bedroom with independent access to the sunny courtyard. All bedrooms are on the ground floor and so remain at a comfortable temperature during the hotter months. The rooms are clean and well equipped with American standard plumbing (modern WC's, sinks and large powerful thermostatically controlled showers, etc). Each room has its own tea and coffee making facilities.

The barn is set well back from the lane that passes us, and is surrounded by extensive lawned grounds. There is a private and secluded pool for your exclusive use.

The cooking takes place upstairs in the stunning light and airy kitchen, with its split-level floor and exposed oak roof trusses. There are contemporary semi-professional stainless steel gas cookers and hobs, stainless steel sinks and modern units and worktops. The kitchen, by IKEA, is spacious with well planned demonstration and hands-on preparation areas.

On the lower half of the split-level is the superb vaulted lounge with unparalleled views of the surrounding countryside. There is a HiFi, wide-screen television and comfortable modern furniture.