What’s Cooking in Burgundy

“It’s all about the ingredients and knowing where they come from,” says Marjorie Taylor, chef and co-founder of The Cook’s Atelier. She’s leading us through the bountiful and beautiful stalls of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, olives, and herbs from some of her favorite artisan producers. “Food should be real, fresh, seasonal, and local.”

We’re shopping at the Wednesday outdoor market in historic Beaune in the Burgundy region of France for some select items we’ll soon use to create a five-course spring lunch in Marjorie’s hands-on cooking class. Among the goodies safely stashed in her iconic straw bag are long fava bean pods, stalks of thin green and thick white asparagus, delicate leeks, stinky Époisses cheese made from cow’s milk, and tiny quail. The market is an integral part of French life and speaks to the country’s renowned tradition of good eating. Depending on the size of the city or town, the market could be weekly, bi-weekly, or more often. Beaune’s larger market is Saturday.

My husband, Bill, and I had relished The Cook’s Atelier’s combo market tour/hands-on cooking class during a previous trip to Beaune. On this visit to France with his mom, Ann, a retired home economist, we wanted to introduce her to Burgundy’s food and wine culture. Via a high-speed TGV train, Beaune is just a little over two hours away from our current base in Paris, so this day on the road works well with our itinerary. While Ann and I shop, cook, and dine, Bill strolls through the city.

Mother and Daughter Entrepreneurs at The Cook’s Atelier

How Marjorie came to Beaune from America and, with her daughter, Kendall Smith Franchini, started a business that showcases small artisan producers and preserves Burgundian culinary traditions is the stuff of dreams.

In 2008, Marjorie, former co-chef and proprietor of a restaurant and cooking school in Phoenix, AZ, and Kendall, the self-described “wine girl,” established The Cook’s Atelier to reflect their love of France, food, wine, markets, and family. Kendall had studied in France and worked at Christie’s in Paris. She then moved to Beaune to study viticulture and worked for Kermit Lynch, an American wine importer. Kendall was fully entrenched in French life (now with a French husband and children), and Marjorie decided to make a permanent move across the “big pond.”

Their epicurean center, housed in a 17^th century building, includes a teaching kitchen, a wine shop featuring an eclectic collection of wines from Burgundy and other areas of Europe, a retail shop stocked with cooking tools and artisan food products, and a dining room.

From the moment Ann and I meet up with our fellow classmates — Ed from Los Angeles and Jo and Willard from Santa Barbara – outside the Alain Hess Cheese Shop at La Place Carnot to begin the market tour, Marjorie and Kendall foster an atmosphere that is both convivial and casual.

I feel an instantly renewed familiarity with mother and daughter. The camaraderie they enjoy with the local vendors as they introduce them to our small group is genuine and deep, born of mutual respect and friendship forged over time. I also sense a common eagerness among my fellow students to share the connection between farmer and cook, and anticipation to partake in the pleasures of the Burgundian table.

Every step of our journey through the market serves as a teaching moment on how best to shop for, prepare, serve, and — most importantly — savor a Burgundian meal. Happily, the lessons will translate well when we return back home to our own food stores, farmers markets, kitchens, and dining rooms.

The air in the cheese shop is immediately pungent and milky. Just as intoxicating as the bouquet emanating from the rounds and slices is the sheer magnitude of the display. How does one narrow down the selection? Marjorie comes to the rescue, noting that a cheese course should begin with the mildest cheese so as not to overwhelm the palate.

Stopping at the poultry section, we observe that many of the birds still bear their full bodies, with heads and feet intact. It’s a sign of freshness. Marjorie advises us to buy whole chickens and take them apart ourselves. Otherwise, we won’t know if chicken parts sold separately are related. Further, she eschews eggs labeled as vegetarian.

“Chickens aren’t vegetarians,” she explains. “Chickens here wander, eat bugs, exercise, and have leg muscles. They’re much more flavorful here, although you’d think they’d be tough.”

In the kitchen

Shopping completed, we arrive at the atelier. Inside the light-filled kitchen, we suit up in white aprons and tuck hand towels into the strings.

Artfully laid out on the long work table are picture-perfect ingredients. Our menu tantalizes. Gougères cheese puffs served with chilled crémant de Bourgogne, the local sparkling wine. Salad with thinly sliced jambon, white asparagus, radishes, and six-minute eggs. Roasted quail, or caille, stuffed with garlic and herbs in a white wine sauce accompanied by roasted potatoes, roasted tomatoes, and sautéed asparagus and fava beans. The requisite French cheese course. A light-as-air cake topped with first-of-the-season sweet gariguette strawberries.

Photo courtesy of The Cook’s Atelier

Rather than refer to printed recipes (which we’ll receive post-class), we simply follow Marjorie’s verbal instructions. She weaves through the kitchen in perpetual motion, guiding us through the steps for each dish with a steady stream of expert commentary and easy laughter.

“Snap off the tough bottoms of the asparagus and peel them to remove the outer strings,” Marjorie says to Willard. “Use a big whack with the meat cleaver,” she instructs Ed and me as we prep quail. “Stir, stir, stir,” she encourages Jo as she used a wooden spoon to beat a mixture of water, melted butter, flour, eggs, and cheese rapidly enough to ensure the proper consistency for the gougères. “Stir, stir, stir,” she echoes to Ann, who is creaming butter by hand for the cake. “You could do that in an electric mixer, but heck why. We’re in France! It’s all good!”

Before we mete out the gougères dough onto parchment paper lining baking sheets, we place a little blop at the corners between the two to secure the paper. Parchment paper also is handy to layer over wooden cutting boards to help protect knives. I’m not practiced with a scale, but I get now that it’s so useful for accurately measuring ingredients. We pat the quails dry, and preheat the pans to ensure they sear properly. We let salt rain down from on high to ensure even coverage.

With each step, we must be deliberate in our work. We’re learning to think of the process as one big, continuous preparation. We’re thinking ahead about how the finished food will look on our plates. We understand that when we do chicken from now on, we should think beyond the moment and make a hearty stock using the remnants for tomorrow.

At last, we seat ourselves at the French farm table to enjoy the fruits of our labors with Kendall’s wine pairings. Marjorie notes it’s not just about eating, but everything that goes with it. Sipping a glass of wine. Taking the time to truly savor our meal. Appreciating our dining companions. Engaging in conversation.

That’s the French joie de vivre, or the cheerful enjoyment of life. We’re experiencing it with gusto.