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Cooking fans plan vacations around cuisine
By: Hilary Potkewitz
Published: June 24, 2007 - 6:59 am
In New York, everyone's a food critic.
Increasingly, food lovers are bringing those high expectations home--determined to prepare cuisine, not just dinner. Tom Barritt is a classic example. He was always confident about his cooking skills. He had a few signature dishes that wowed dates, and he loved to cook for dinner parties. But in the back of his mind, Mr. Barritt always wondered if he was really as good as he thought.
"I got to a point where I wanted to see what more I needed to learn," says the 47-year-old public relations executive.
A few Saturday classes at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan only whetted his appetite. He realized he needed to go to Europe to learn from the source.
With a call to his travel agent, Mr. Barritt joined the 27 million Americans who planned their vacations around food last year, according to a recent study conducted by the Travel Industry Association and Gourmet magazine. Once the realm of bona fide gourmets and aspiring professional chefs, cooking schools throughout the world--particularly in Europe--are becoming popular destinations for leisure travelers and amateur foodies.
Recent surge
"If I did a news search on culinary tourism five years ago, nothing would come up," says Erik Wolf, president of the International Culinary Tourism Association.
Feeding the surge is the public's insatiable appetite for all things cooking-related--from high-end kitchens to celebrity chefs and, increasingly, food-related travel. Gourmet, whose newsstand sales grew 10% last year, devoted its May issue to the world's 36 best food destinations.
"Our readers are not just looking for recipes for French food; they want to go there," says Catherine Makk, the glossy's executive marketing director.
More affordable culinary programs are making that easier than ever. Cooking classes in France or Spain were long viewed as privileged vacations for the rich, with weeklong programs costing anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000, not including airfare. But prices of many programs have been cut in half in recent years. Mr. Wolf reports that he has seen cooking courses in Italy priced as low as $500.
Meanwhile, a number of travel agencies have sprung up that specialize in such trips. Gourmet Getaways, an eight-year-old New Jersey-based agency, focuses on culinary vacations to Italy. Brooklyn-based Food Maven, run by former New York Daily News Food Editor Arthur Schwartz, offers culinary vacations in southern Italy. And Ovation Travel Group in Manhattan recently dedicated an agent to food and wine expeditions to Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Morocco.
Some New York couples these days are seizing their opportunity and are combining their love of cooking with their affection for each other.
"People did kind of look at us funny when we told them what we were doing," says Noelle Schablik-Olsen of her recent two-week honeymoon to Italy. On that trip, she and her new husband, Leif Olsen, spent about İhalf the time on Italy's Amalfi Coast learning to cook. "People asked us, 'Don't you just want to go to the beach and relax?'"
But the 30-year-old account executive had other ideas. "For me, cooking is relaxing," she says. Still, she admits that the experience had its surprises.
New experiences
"I never dreamed in a million years I would gut a fish, or eat sardines raw," says Ms. Schablik-Olsen. Now, she and her husband--who admits that his previous kitchen experience was limited to "cutting things"--are planning to use some of their new expertise to prepare dinner for their parents.
Sometimes, though, the best-laid plans can become a recipe for disaster.
Peggy Tagliarino, a self-described foodie, booked her first cooking trip at one of France's top culinary schools, located in Burgundy. She envisioned afternoons at farmers' markets and wineries, and at least some time soaking up local culture.
But the program turned out to be more work than she had bargained for--it was designed for would-be professionals.
"I love food, but I can't be in the kitchen eight hours a day," she says. "It was too intense for me."
Since then, she has taken several other food vacations, including one for her 60th birthday in May, when she invited 11 friends to a relaxed French culinary weekend. This year's trip was four days at the Carole Peck cooking school in Provence, an offshoot of her Woodbury, Conn., restaurant, the Good News Cafe. Ms. Peck's Provence culinary tours typically range from $2,500 to $3,500 per person.
Mr. Barritt, who is a managing director at Ketchum, has also taken a few vacations in the kitchen. Last year, he attended three different culinary schools in Europe, including a one week stay in Bologna, Italy, through the Manhattan-based International Cooking School of Italian Food and Wine, for about $3,500, plus airfare.
He describes his most recent experience as a mix of hands-on cooking--with fresh ingredients that are hard to find in New York--and simply observing the masters at work.
"I watched master bakers and cheese makers and wine makers," says Mr. Barritt, who is already researching his next cooking trip--to Spain.
The Olsens have their sights fixed on Greece for their next culinary vacation, and Ms. Tagliarino's friends had such a good time that they're talking about a similar trip for Memorial Day next year.
All agree that their diets and even their approach to everyday cooking have changed as a result of their trips.
So what's it like making handmade pasta in a modern kitchen on Long Island, instead of in a sunlight-and-stucco Italian villa? "I think of Chef Roberto in Florence every time I make it," Mr. Barritt says, "And I think he would be proud."
Comments? HPotkewitz@crain.com
Hilary Potkewitz
Reporter
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