Culinary & Wine Tours> France> Cooking in Normandy with Susan Herrmann Loomis

France: Cooking in Normandy with Susan Herrmann Loomis
Normandy, France - 5 days

Join Susan Herrmann Loomis, internationally-recognized food expert and author of six cookbooks, for a memorable culinary week at her cooking school in Normandy, France. On Rue Tatin is so much more than just a cooking school, rather it is a unique and hand-tailored opportunity for you to get inside the world of fine food and ingredients and warm, talented and generous people. You will spend five days getting an inside look at France with all of its quality and richness, its old-world quality and its youthful dynamism.

Susan's extensive travel throughout the United States, France and Italy has given her a depth of knowledge and an appreciation for the rich traditions around food—how it is grown, harvested and prepared. Susan believes that learning about cooking and food should involve much more than recipes and techniques. She delights in meeting and introducing the personalities and customs behind the great cuisines of France and takes a unique approach to her craft; combining training in journalism with a love for food and the people who produce it. Good food, prepared from the freshest, seasonal and local ingredients, sipping fabulous wines selected from our cellar, lively conversations around the dinner table and providing perspective and insight into the nuances of daily life in France is what you will experience during this five day adventure.

Your meals will prove memorable as you dine al fresco in the courtyard of Susan's lovingly-restored convent in the center of Louviers and across the street from the Gothic Church of Notre Dame de Louviers.

Class sizes are small so you have plenty of hands-on, one-on-one time in the kitchen. You will use only the freshest ingredients, produced by small, family-owned farms and hand-chosen by Susan. You will work in a superbly equipped contemporary kitchen where you will learn the techniques that make French cuisine so seductive. Recipes are geared to the home cook so that once you are in your own kitchen you will be able to easily reproduce what you’ve accomplished at On Rue Tatin.



SAMPLE ITINERARY

DAY ONE—SUNDAY EVENING

Welcome to On Rue Tatin this early Sunday evening, for the welcome feast that Susan has prepared for you.

If the weather is fine, we will enjoy our apéritif outside, in the shadow of Nôtre Dame de Louviers, then segue into the timbered dining room for our multi-course meal. This will be your first sample of the exceptional flavors and aromas that you will be immersed in during your week at On Rue Tatin.

The following is a Sample Menu, and example of what might be served on your first evening at On Rue Tatin

MENU

~Homemade Orange Wine
~Country Potatoes with Fresh Cheese and Herbs
~Steamed Fillet with Herbed Mustard Sauce
~Salad with Classic Vinaigrette
~Cheeses from Sophie Callebert
~Cake of Hazelnuts from the Garden, Berry Sorbet

At 10 a.m. you will put on your apron and head to the professionally appointed kitchen, where a luscious display of locally produced ingredients awaits - depending on the season, there might be gorgeous bunches of asparagus and heads of fresh garlic from Baptiste Bourdon, Swiss chard and tiny spring beets from Monique and Jean-Claude Martin; delicate lamb chops from Brittany, via Mr. Dragonelli’s butcher shop, or late-season scallops, still in their shell, from the English Channel.

Susan will open the class with a discussion of kitchen etiquette and the care and feeding of knives, then will conduct a tasting of different salts. This class will include the following techniques: choosing, caring, preparing seafood, fish stock, macerating, poaching, egg yolks as thickener, steaming, sautéeing, the use of garnishes

MENU

~Carrot Purée with Cumin Crisps
~Asparagus with Hazelnut Vinaigrette
~Salad with Classic Vinaigrette
~Cheeses from Francois Olivier, Rouen
~Sautéed Berries with Fromage Blanc Ice Cream
~You will make zaleti - cornmeal cookies - for our Wednesday wine tasting
~You will prepare the first step of a savory pâté, for our Wednesday wine tasting
~You will prepare Lemon Oil

After a break, you will return to On Rue Tatin. To begin this afternoon’s class Susan will discuss the importance of buying locally produced ingredients, and the importance of a relationship with growers and artisans, followed by a tasting of artisanally made nut oils.

During this class the techniques will include marinating, wood-fired grilling, roasting, custard-making, making a classic vinaigrette, caramel.

Tonight we will also experience a very special cheese tasting with Artisanal cheese maker Alain Madonna

MENU

~Beet Soup with Cream Clouds
~Wood-fire grilled, marinated pork chops
~Braised Coco Blanc with garlic
~Salad with an Almond Oil Vinaigrette
~Alain Madonna’s Goat Cheese
~Caramelized Oranges with Candied Zest
~Biscotti

DAY THREE—TUESDAY

Welcome to the world of Pain au Levain!

This morning we will make “pain au levain,” or French sourdough bread, together. Susan will discuss flour and the “science” of sourdough

After getting your hands in the dough, and flavoring it with everything from dried fruits, to nuts, to freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, to herbs and spices, you will thoroughly understand the hows, whys, and wheres of sourdough’s flavor and texture. When your breads are comfortably resting in their rising baskets, we will turn to the kitchen and prepare lunch.

Here Susan will discuss the importance of fresh herbs, which will include a garden visit, where we will taste heirloom herbs.

Techniques in today’s class will focus on roasting and the art of layering flavors - browning, reducing, simmering; Susan will also address the subject of heat - when to use more, when to use less, to preserve the integrity of ingredients

MENU

~Omelette Basque
~Roasted Guinea Fowl with Citrus
~Salad with Walnut Oil and Sherry Vinaigrette
~Cheeses From François Olivier, Rouen
~Coconut Cream with Caramelized Pineapple

Immediately after lunch:

~Chocolate Tasting
~Pastry Demonstration - pâte sucrée and its uses

Afternoon and Evening Free

8:30 - We leave On Rue Tatin for the lively cacophony of a village market, twenty minutes by car from Louviers, through lush farmland.

After coffee at the market, you are free to peruse this wildly colorful, aromatic world yourself and purchase something for our picnic lunch, or accompany Susan as she hunts for what is best and most seasonal. She will give you tips here on how to choose the best seasonal produce, the finest most fresh seafood, the best meats and sausages. You will also have a chance to purchase artisanal products, from honeys and herbal remedies to spice bread, freshly made jams and linen tea towels, made from flax produced in local fields.

All will return from Le Neubourg with laden baskets, which we empty on the kitchen counter and transform into a picnic lunch with a local cider chilling to enjoy alongside.

Susan will discuss shellfish and how to prepare it, as well as cutting vegetables for maximum flavor, and general vegetable and fruit preparation. There will be a tasting of artisanal meat products

PICNIC LUNCH MENU

~Steamed Normandy mussels
~Avocado with Pistachio Oil

And the rest depends on serendipity, what we’ve all found at the market!

MENU

~Crudités with Lemon Oil
~Pepper Bread
~Pâté
~Cheeses from François Olivier
~Zaleti

Visit to Rouen, the urban heart of Normandy and antique capitol of France, noted for its artisanally made faience, or pottery. We will visit an artisanal cheese shop and have a tasting with owner Francois Olivier, then go on to see the Augy family, who makes the stunning faience de Rouen, or local pottery which was first commissioned by Louis XIV. While many artisans paint the pottery, the Augys are the only artisans to actually create their own dishes before hand-painting them, and we will see it all.

After a fine and lovely contemporary bistro lunch you will have free time in this shopper’s mecca. We arrive back in Louviers just in time to change for dinner... an extraordinarily delicious surprise prepared expressly for you

François OLIVIER - Giving a tour of his old-world fromagerie in Rouen

DAY SIX—FRIDAY

Today you will prepare a sumptuous meal that will bring together everything you’ve learned and experienced during the week.

Susan will demonstrate and discuss foie gras, fattened duck breast, the proper preparation of apples, pastry. We will do a tasting of foie gras.

Techniques today will include searing and pan-roasting, braising, making and rolling out no-fail pie pastry; peeling and coring apples.

MENU

~Macaronade My Way
~Magret (Fattened Duck Breast) with Blood Orange Sauce
~Potato Galette with Minced Herbs
~Braised Romanesco, with Garlic and Lemon
~Garden Salad with Honey Vinaigrette
~Cheeses from François Olivier, Rouen
~Tarte Tatin