May the Best House Win!

Last weekend was rather hectic as we had the  ITV Production team here all the way from the South Bank in London filming us for their October release of "May the Best House in France Win! Four very different homes were chosen and the pressure was on as we were the first house to be filmed. It is not just the design of the house or the character of the interior/exterior - the house owners too comes under heavy interrogation under the spotlights of the cameras. Well we did our best under the most trying of circumstances given that we had just completed two exhausting weeks of cooking school and a very late night party the night before the film crew arrived. Yes there are some very funny moments and we had a wonderful time with the other competitors. The crew were lovely too and it was nice to hear the Italian director say it was the best tiramisu she ever had!!! It was also good to hear we had won the competition but you will have to wait till October to see the broadcast on ITV. I will be letting you know the date of that in due course.

World's first nano jacket for chefs tested in our kitchen

 Kerrouet House may be 400 years old but we are always ready to try out new ideas in our kitchen! So when the opportunity arose to be the first chefs in the world to try out the nano anti microbe jacket in the kitchen we thought why not! That was yesterday during a cooking course with students from the UK and Australia present. I first decided to spill red wine on it; then coffee; then some  chocolate sauce on the external  surface of the jacket but the unique properties of the nano particles within the fabric reacted by refusing to let the ingredients stick. They simply ran off the fabric which was amazing to see causing a mess on my nice clean tiled floor (which is not  yet treated with nano fluid)!  The jacket does allow breathing from within however so chefs stay nice and cool while they work. However the amazing property of this jacket is that it kills all microbes and bacteria on impact at the nano level. So it never needs to be washed! I still have difficulty with this however as it seems to go against the grain at the personal hygiene level but I will leave the scientists to argue that one with you. My chef likes the qualities and properties of the jacket but refused to wear it saying it was not sexy enough. I think he has a point there but one day in the near future all chefs will wear a nano fabric jacket in their kitchen and we will have a blue plaque outside our 16th century house confirming we were the first  kitchen in the world to do so! Imagine Heston not thinking of that! Now back to my Béarnaise sauce.




Further info on nano products may be found at http://www.nanolandglobal.com/ and http://www.vestagen.com/

Festive Cooking Course 2012

French Dining School are planning a festive cooking course this December. Students are invited to attend the five day course arriving on the 27 December 2012  for an introductory dinner and starting the course on the following day. The course includes lunch and dinner with a special New Year's banquet candle-lit Dinner on the 31st which  includes oysters, lobsters, beef wellington, champagne, fine wines and a host of special festive gastronomic delights. The course also includes evening dinner on New Year's Day.

The price of the course is 975 Euros per person and accommodation in private gites locally for six nights is 245  Euros. You can see what was on last New Year's dinner by going on the following link: http://kerrouet.blogspot.fr/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=50

Places are limited to 12 so book early to guarantee a place!

Scallops, Veal and Poppy seed ice cream!

Our students this week have come from as far away as Melbourne and Sydney and as close as Manchester in the UK! It has been a busy week with all the students  fully involved in sharing ideas and contributing to the creation of wonderful dishes each day. Above you can see a selection of the dishes we have prepared including grilled scallops with spinach in a curry-sauternes sauce; roast veal with basil sauce, créme fraiche potatoes and rosemary roasted vegetables; followed by caramelized strawberries with home made poppy seed ice cream. It was not all work however as students took time to enjoy the splendid sunshine enjoying a bottle of cold rosé, a Cotes du Roussillon which went down exceedingly well as you can see in the photo above.