by Rick McDaniel, Asheville Citizen-Times
August 10, 2005

Imagine being able to prepare a gourmet meal from produce that was picked mere hours before, as an expert chef gives you tips. A wine expert helps you pick the perfect wine to go with the meal. You sit down to dinner with a small group that shares your passion for good food, just as the sun slips over the green French hills.

Culinary travel is a great way to blend a love of food with the desire to learn more about the wines and cooking of a country. And this national trend is taking hold here in the Western North Carolina mountains.

Beth Brannon and her husband, Broadus, recently returned from a culinary trip to the Burgundy region of France led by local chef Mark Rosenstein and local Burgundy wine importer Steve Pignatiello. “For us, it was the ultimate travel experience,” Brannon said. “We’ve always enjoyed food and wine, and to be able to go to an area like Burgundy and have hands-on cooking classes with a great chef was just wonderful.”

“With a little bit of knowledge and instruction, people can really increase their enjoyment of food and wine,” said Rosenstein, chef/owner of Asheville’s The Market Place. “In Burgundy, the food was unforgettable, from simple grilled entrees with wines from the 1980s to dinner at a three-star restaurant paired with a 30-year-old Chablis.”

Rosenstein based the menus on the local markets, using whatever the local farmers had picked that day. “We would go in the morning and select the ingredients and take them to the home of a winemaker,” Brannon says. “Some of the winemakers shared wines from their private reserves that aren’t available in the United States. It was a fantastic experience.”

Rosenstein and Pignatiello aren’t the only food experts from here leading tours aboard.

“We have gone to Provence and Tuscany,” said Laurey Masterton of Asheville’s Laurey’s Catering, who with partner Monroe Moore runs Delicious Expeditions, specializing in trips to France and Italy.

“We take a group of 10 people, and we go when it’s not crowded,” Masterton said. “There’s nothing worse than being somewhere and seeing a bus full of people pull up led by someone with a megaphone.

Their next trip is to Tuscany. “And we’ll be there in time for the grape harvest and to see the olive oil being pressed,” Masterton said.

Rosenstein plans to return to Burgundy with Pignatiello two or three times next year, as well as lead trips to the pinot noir country of Oregon’s Willamette Valley next month and again in 2006.

Beth Brannon says she took a lot of knowledge away from the experience that applies to cooking back home. “We really learned that even with simple foods, the freshest ingredients and the right sauce can enhance the food. The sauce is the bridge between the food and the wines.”

Rick McDaniel writes about food and cooking for the Citizen-Times.

E-mail him at southerncooking@charter.net.