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Patricia Wells (left) makes students feel right
at home at Chanteduc, her country home.
Time Wells Spent
A week in Provence with the renowned cook
is an unforgettable experience.
BY LAURIE CONNOR
AN APRICOT SUNSET slants across the terrace at Chanteduc
as eight Americans assemble for a weeklong cooking
class in Provence with author, food critic, and teacher
Patricia Wells. "This is my romantic dream of
France," Wells declares as she pours flutes of
Veuve Clicquot Brut. "All of us doing what we
love: cooking, learning about, and enjoying wonderful
Provençal food and wine."
We have arrived from all over the United States - California,
New York, Texas, North Carolina - and from all walks
of life. Our group includes a public relations executive,
an energy trader, two homemakers, a nutritionist, a caterer,
a writer, and a banker. Doug and Michelle are here to
celebrate her 40th birthday. Coco decided to attend after
September 11, because, she tells us, "it seemed
important to do something positive in the face of so
much negativity." I am in the middle of a nine-month
trip through Europe, and the class fulfills a longtime
dream. All of us share a love of cooking, a desire to
broaden our knowledge about one of the world's great
cuisines, and an admiration of Wells.
We spend much of that first night in the candlelit
dining room at Chanteduc, the country home of Wells
and her husband, Walter, drinking the 2001 vintage
of their small winery, Clos Chanteduc. The fruity
red Cotes-du-Rhone accompanies a feast of roast lamb
with eggplant and tomato gratin. Wells has prepared
this meal, but the rest during our stay - save for
three superb restaurant visits - will be our own
creations.
 
At Chanteduc (left), the cooking class students,
wearing their personalized aprons, work in teams
to prepare the various dishes for each meal.
Class begins in earnest the next morning when we
gather around the worktable in the sunny courtyard.
We tie on our white aprons, each with the student's
name embroidered on it, and busy ourselves preparing
lunch, a rustic Provencal soupe au pistou. "My
food philosophy is simple," Wells explains while
we dice a small mountain of vegetables. "What
grows together, goes together - tomatoes and basil,
for instance. I also believe the ingredients should
lead-rather than a sentimental attachment to the
history of a dish or to a particular recipe. Today
we're using fresh pumpkin and cranberry beans in
the soup because they looked wonderful in the market."
Wells is an expert home cook rather than a professional
chef, so her style is instantly accessible, and because
she tailors instruction to suit her students, the
classes are appropriate for both novice and experienced
cooks. "Do you want to know why chefs don't
cry when they mince an onion?" she asks, then
demonstrates the answer. "First you peel it
and cut it in half, then make paper-thin slices that
will melt into the sauce. Less onion juice released
means fewer tears on your face."
As she will do every day, Wells assigns teams to
prepare the various recipes for each meal, and soon
an air of industrious contentment descends on the
house. Several of us prepare the two pestos - traditional
basil and an unusual parsley version - that will
garnish the soup. Next to us a group separates eggs
and measures ground almonds for the financiers, the
delectable cookies that will be dessert, while another
trio laboriously stems what seems like a bushel of
fresh sorrel and mint for the salad. We chat, chop,
baste, and braise, trading restaurant suggestions
along with the little earthenware pot of sea salt.
Wells moves from group to group, gently correcting
technique and discussing the organized art of mise
en place. "Before you break an egg or uncork
the olive oil, measure every ingredient and put each
utensil you need on a tray," she instructs. "The
tray should be empty when you're done. This way,
the whisk is right where you need it, and you won't
realize you're out of butter in the middle of mixing
the cake batter. It's how professional chefs work,
and I do it every time I cook."
There are frequent trips to the garden to snip handfuls
of herbs and salad greens as we work in the yellow-tiled
kitchen, in the adjacent courtyard, and in what Wells
calls "Julia's kitchen," which lies between
the outdoor brick bread oven and the cave. This unassuming
space is something of a shrine: It houses the stove
that Julia Child once cooked on at her French country
home near Grasse. "It's the first thing I'm
going to tell my cooking friends," Ann says. "Guess
what? I cooked on Julia's stove."
 
Cakes cool outside the farmhouse (left). Like
all of the dishes at Chanteduc, they were made
with ingerdients from the local markets.
We eat lunch on the terrace beneath the massive
oak tree that is depicted on the Clos Chanteduc labels.
Acorns occasionally plop onto the table, and roses,
thyme, and grape leaves perfume the air. Spooning
up the chunky, garlicky soup, we savor the beautifully
blended flavors of zucchini, tomatoes, leeks, and
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and listen to
a brief history of the property. "Chanteduc
means 'song of the owl,' " Wells tells us, "and
the house is an 18th-century mas, or farmhouse. At
one time the building included space for the family's
mules, pigeons, and other animals." All livestock
has long since been banished - though a local wild
boar helps himself in the garden occasionally - and
Patricia and Walter have turned the once humble abode
into a beguiling country retreat.
Wells is the author of eight cookbooks, including
Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, which won a James
Beard award in 1997, and the acclaimed The Food Lovers
Guide to France and The Food Lovers Guide to Paris.
She is also the restaurant critic of the International
Herald Tribune, a post she has held for two decades.
And, Wells tells us as she presents a lavish plat
du fromage, she is a "cheesehead." A native
of Wisconsin, she includes cheese with almost every
meal. Over the course of the week we will sample
everything from delicate, day-old goat cheese to
Tete de Moine, a nutty, dense Swiss cow's milk variety
that is served in flowery spirals.
Every meal at Chanteduc is also accented by lovely
wines from Wells' cellar, and the class includes
a private tasting at one of her favorite vineyards
in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. "Everything they make
at Chateau du Beaucastel is top of the line," she
says. "We're going to taste some wonderful things
today." She is correct. We try some extraordinary
vintages, among them the 1989 Chateauneuf-du-Pape
red, once judged "the best wine in the world" by
Wine Spectator. "This is too good, I'm not spitting," says
my classmate Carol. We laugh, but see her point:
The discreetly placed receptacles receive little
use that day.
Our idyll concludes with a farewell luncheon at
the villa, and everyone seems a little sad that morning
when we meet in the kitchen to cook. Maybe it is
all the hours we have spent at the table eating food
that we prepared together, or that we will soon return
to our quotidian lives, or maybe it is just the wine,
but we all feel as though we are saying good-bye
to longtime friends whom we might not see again. "Has
any group anywhere ever laughed this much?" Michelle
asks. Perhaps yes, but it is certainly true that
a week spent with Patricia Wells in Provence is vibrant,
creative, hilarious, delicious, and, above all, unforgettable.
Every class meal begins with Wells reading a food
related quote, and one in particular distills the
Chanteduc experience. "Ponder well on this point:
The pleasant hours of our life are all connected,
by a more or less tangible link, with some memory
of the table."
 PATRICIA WELLS offers 13 five-day
classes each year, nine at Chanteduc. The schedule
includes Basic Cooking
in Provence sessions, Food and Fitness
classes that include hikes and water aerobics, a
Food and Wine course, and one called the Black Truffle
Workshop. Each is limited to 8 students and includes
a combination of hands-on cooking experience,
restaurant
meals, a wine tasting, and excursions to local markets,
an olive oil mill, and a pottery shop.
Wells also teaches four classes in Paris. The $3,500
tuition does not include transportation or lodging.
Located in the village of Vaison-la-Romaine, Chanteduc is less than
an hour by car from Avignon. Students fly there or
take the TGV from Charles de Gaulle airport or from the
Gare de Lyon in Paris and rent a vehicle.
The most convenient lodging is available at a number of inns and bed-and-breakfasts in the area.
Additional information about classes as well as lodging suggestions is available at www.patriciawells.com.
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