It's Not a Museum, it's a Fun Factory! - Friday, 24 March

(This post from Provence)

When you open the door to Julia Child's home in Provence, you enter her KITCHEN.  But of course!  This is the first sight that greets you

And here are a few more:

you'll find cookbooks by a pretty famous author!

love love love the ancient mandoline, meat grinder, food mill, tamis, measuring pitchers 

everything you need, right by the stove

that's one serious mortar & pestle and one very cute egg tree!

a giant marble slab, just waiting for someone to move the mixer and make some pastry - plus, a huge selection of
pastry molds are in the cabinets below - they're calling my name!

storage bins, with Julia's original labels....

...and the "inside" edge of the bin even forms a little spout...very clever

one well-worn wooden counter/chopping surface with a swell built-in knife rack

need some baking sheets?

We learned that a student of Simone Beck's, Kathie Alex, had bought the property from Julia in the 1990s and operated a cooking school in the house. She decide to sell a couple years ago, and there were multiple offers, some of which fell through for various reasons. The current owner, Makenna Johnston, stepped up just after the penultimate offer fell through. And here's the horrifying part: that offer was from a guy who planned to rip out the kitchen for starters! Quelle horreur!

Makenna Johnston and her crew will be organizing cooking classes at La Peetch starting this fall. Six students, Sunday through Friday. Lodging in the house, breakfast & lunch plus classes included. $3650.00 PER PERSON! I think I  missed my calling! Info here: http://www.lapeetch.com/

Here's our first meal - lunch - compliments of the property's owner and managers!  Baguettes, butter, cheese, ham, apples, tomatoes, rosé - absolutely perfect and rejuvenating!  From bottom left and going around the table you see Mary-Susan Heise, Karen Carr, my chair, Britta Bloomberg, Bill Carr, Donna Hackler and Lynda Johnson.

Today is Mary-Susan's birthday,
so we celebrated with a chocolate-
apricot tart from the local bakery
and some champagne that the
KLM flight attendants gave her!