Exploring the World of Immersive Culinary Retreats with Lisa Donovan and Julie Belcher of Rêverie Retreats

On this week's show, I have Lisa Donovan and Julie Belcher of Reverie Retreats. These retreats are the kinds of trips that I want to take. travel to the Loire Valley, take a French pastry lesson with an acclaimed Baker, have a natural wine tasting, plenty of time to eat and relax, maybe make some new friends. You're gonna learn how and why Julie and Lisa started this and how you can join them on one of these excursions. This is Chris and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. If you're a longtime listener, or have maybe explored the archives, you might have heard my conversation with Lisa Donovan a couple of years ago, we talked about her pastry background, and at the time, she had just released her memoir, Our Lady of Perpetual hunger. But now she has something completely new cooking partner Julie Belcher, they're leading what I think are some of the most fun sounding culinary retreats. Their upcoming trips include the French Riviera. And as I'd mentioned earlier, the lower valley. We talked about how they select the partners and purveyors, they work with natural wine and not wanting to work in a professional restaurant kitchen. I also wanted to discuss their dynamic and what their working relationship looks like how they balance their tasks and workflow. And just because I had to talk to Lisa about pie crust. If this sounds like it's up your alley, stick around. And you've probably heard it from me a million times. But if you love the show, please share it. More listeners means the opportunity to have more guests and the guests that you want to hear. By the way, who do you want to hear on the show anyway, let me know DM me on Instagram at@ChefsWithoutRestaurants or email me at chefswithoutrestaurants@gmail.com. And I try not to be too focused on being a numbers guy or huge milestones, but this is episode 199. Next episode is going to be the big 200 and I'm really excited for that. I went through the list of all the people I could reach out to and thought about who I wanted to have on the show. But I'm actually having my friend Justin Khanna back on the show, Justin and I did a long conversation a couple years back on the show, I broke it up into two episodes. I recently recorded the episode, I think it's gonna provide a lot of value. I hope it's fun to listen to. So keep a lookout for that. That's going to be episode 200 coming up really soon, hopefully next week. And this week show will be coming right up after a word from this week's sponsor, the United States personal chef Association and hire a chef. Are you a personal chef looking for support and growth opportunities? Look no further than the United States personal chef association with nearly 1000 members across the US and Canada. USPCA provides liability insurance certification lead generation and more. Consumers can trust that their meal experience is insured and supported by USPCA. And now for a limited time, save $75 on new membership and get your premiere listing on hire chef by using the code TaxBreak2023 at uspca.com Plus, if you have products or services to sell chefs and their clients showcase your business on hireachef and USPCA websites with our great introductory packages. To learn more about membership advertising or partnership opportunities, call Angela at 1-800-995-2138. Extension 705 or email aprather@uspca.com Hey, how's it going? Welcome to the show today.

Hi, thanks for having us. Thank you. I

'm excited to have you, Lisa. Good to see you. Have you back. I guess it was like two years ago that you were first on the show. Yeah, we're gonna catch up and you're doing something completely different. You know, last time you're here to talk about your book and your pastry history. But now you have

Great to meet you.

I don't want to spend too much time on your a really cool endeavor. And Julie, so nice to meet you. backgrounds. For our listeners. Lisa was on the show maybe two Thanks for coming on the show. years ago and I'm going to link that show in the show notes. I would just call her pastry chef extraordinaire, and author. So we will start there. Julie, can you give a little background on who you are what you do as it relates to the food world for a little context?

Sure. Um, about 10 years ago, I was working in a coffee shop and kind of became obsessed with pastry stuff at home, which is actually how I met Lisa, via a friend of ours and started working in some restaurant kitchens. Kind of as a stodgy heir to a couple of pastry chefs, including Lisa eventually sort of grown assistant and pretty quickly learned that I did not want to work In restaurant kitchen, it wasn't. It wasn't for me, but I did really love the idea of working in a bakery. And so, a few months after sort of starting in kitchens, I went to France for a while to learn how to bake from a baker named Rashad ruwan in the Loire Valley, and I worked with him for a few months and then came back had plans to open a bakery that didn't work out, went back to France and ended up playing music there professionally for about five years and then also working at Rashard bakery. So kind of had a roundabout relationship with professional food and kitchen and bakery world. But after living in France, I came back and started teaching baking classes in Nashville. So that was how I stayed connected, and ended up selling bread during COVID. So we kind of have had a bit of a wild ride in the food world. That's really cool. I've never even been to France, it's on my list. And maybe I'll maybe I'll have to join one of your trips sometime, I wouldn't even know where to start going to France. So it's on the bucket list and music. You were a musician for a number of years. It's quite a divergent path. It very much was. I've played music my whole life.played piano growing up. And I was in France kind of

thinking I'm doing some r&d for opening a bakery here. And I was on a vacation and some friends of mine connected me to a musician there and eventually ended up moving there to play with that person. I was playing kids music originally, which was awesome. Not like the ticket and the music. Young kids music. Yeah, you don't go to bed delayed. I've heard that the Do you know the presidents of the United States of America? Who did the song peaches and all that? Did you know that he's like a kid's musician. Now I heard him on a podcast, he decided he was over. touring the country and not being around his family, I think is names like Casper baby pants or something. And he decided he wasn't going to tour he lives in Seattle. And he just wants to do like kid shows. He said, I want to be home in bed with my wife every night and spend time with my kids. And I'm just going to jam and play like music for kids. And it's been a super lucrative career compared to being like an alt rocker, you know, so weird. Who knew? Swallow your pride, and then you have the best music career ever. And I think about Rafi is like a national treasure. So what's the equivalent of that as a chef, because I tried doing cooking classes for kids. And that was not my jam at all. Greg tried that a couple of times as well. It can be fun. You have to be very comfortable with maths and

a loss of like,

instruction? Yes. Well, and I think just cooking instruction is something that it's its own thing. And you know, that's something I want to talk to you about, because that is part of what you're doing now. I mean, I love cooking. I love teaching people how to cook in the context of like working in a kitchen teaching other professionals but I've never really been drawn to like having a kitchen where people come and teach them how to cook. But I know both of you do that. But before we get into that, let's just jump in what is this new, exciting business that the two of you have started together? Go ahead.

We started reverie, which is well, so we, you know, I was doing a lot of going back to sort of the workshopping and the classes, I was doing a lot of that after I left the restaurants. And, you know, something Julie and I had in common is that we both me much later, you know is about, you know, 15 years into my career. I when I decided I didn't want to work in restaurant kitchens anymore. But that was sort of a pivotal point for both of us. And I started doing a lot of work shopping around the country and teaching classes around the country and doing private events and doing a lot of things that were you know, in private homes or with artists like Emily Leonard, I travel with them I did a couple of retreats with her and then also was doing some with my friend as a yoga instructor we Costa Rica and and we had talked about doing some things around here in Nashville. So this model of like, finding a way to connect with people in the kitchen versus, you know, sort of having this high profile career where I don't ever actually get to see people engage with the server. That was not interesting to me at all. And I really wanted to I don't think I ever really had designed to be a teacher necessarily. But what was interesting to me that was also interesting to Julie was sort of the having those moments of like connectivity with People over food, beyond just sitting down to a meal with them, which was sort of always my impulse was like getting people to a table, making them share food, you know, really, you know, having this experience, which is what better milk road was of sitting with strangers in your hometown and sharing a meal and imbibing and having an experience that you would normally only have with, you know, your closest friends. That idea sort of moved into like a kitchen was really appealing to me, because a couple of things that happened, I think, in the restaurant world, and to me just personally, was I started to feel really disconnected to why I was cooking. And I feel like people guess, lay people who aren't professional chefs started feeling really intimidated by cooking, all of a sudden, there were all these celebrity chefs to sort of, you know, be intimidated by. And so I had this sort of, you know, urge, the find ways to be, you know, to kind of foster that connectivity and sort of easiness over food again, and all that while that was happening. I was doing a lot of little workshops, here and there, where, you know, when Julia was back in the States, she would come work with me, and we work, we realized, and remember that we worked really, really well together. And we did a couple of Emily Leonard's workshops together, which are painting retreats. And we did one in France together. And then we did one in New Mexico together. And there was such a strong interest from the guests of these retreats, who were all artists to be in the kitchen with us. And we enjoyed it. And we weren't we know, we were finding our own rhythms working together as as bakers and cooks and, and it just sort of pieces just started kind of falling into place. So we created the model for reverie in like 2018, we started thinking about where we wanted to bring people to cup, we sold out the Toulouse retreat and the lower valley retreat in 2020 10. Sorry, yeah, no, well, on 2020. We sold them out, we had to cancel them. Remember?

Oh, not a lot. It was just to lose. Yeah, there was just to lose. Yeah, it was just to lose in 2020. It's been a blur. It's been like a weird three years, we ended up selling our first round of these in 2020, selling them out, and then having to cancel and then hoping that people would be interested whenever we resurfaced, and we resurfaced in 2022. Out of the Lower Valley sold out to lose them lower valley. Nope. Just to lose now. Yeah, both see, I can't remember. And now we're in the thick of 2023. And we're adding more as we go. And there's we can we can get into that later. But that's kind of how it all happened. That sounds like a big endeavor, though. Like, it seems hard enough to put together one of these in your own town, but to like, or even somewhere in the States, but to take it International, and like scope out all these places. So people go on these retreats, they're going to learn some cooking from you. But it's also this experience where you're kind of curating a travel trip, right, where you're taking them to all these interesting places and their activities and stuff. And and that's got the whole other challenge, like have you been to all the places previously. So you have a good idea, or are you doing just like intensive research we have, there's a lot of research that goes into it. The trip that we do in the Lower Valley is where I lived for several years. And so that one comes together very naturally, just contacts that I have there from whenever and then friends of friends.

The other trips to lose as a place we had both cooked together there back in 20 tene. And then I had been there a few other times just on vacation and kind of fell in love with the region I want to live there. And Normandy we've also both both traveled to the Riviera, we've been to together now. It's a lot of planning and a lot of, you know, talking to a bunch of different people to make the perfect experience come together. But I am fluent in French, which is helpful and France will be expanding outside of France. And so we'll be counting on different people. You're coming with us to sort of have that in and understand how things work in the new places that we're going. But yeah, I think to go back to your original question of like, what is reverie and what are we doing? Essentially we're curating these trips. And I think one way that someone we know put it in, that anybody can go to these places. Anybody can kind of hire a tour guide or look up what's best to do on TripAdvisor or whatever. But with reverie, we show you how to be in these places and like really soak it all in. And the way that we do that is through food. We also just kind of like to dive into the culture wherever we are. And we're trying to build, you know, we lo ours a little easier because Julie has a life, you know, previous life there. in Toulouse, we know this will be our second time going to Toulouse this year, as we're repeating these trips, we're building relationships with the communities there and the chef's there, and the producers there and the winemakers there. And those are the kinds of things that are going to continue to like enrich these experiences. You know, I think the French won't mind me saying they kind of are a skeptical bunch, right? Like there aren't, they aren't going to jump into sort of anything very quickly. And they like to see things where at least the people we're enacting or engaging with but like,

as they learn what we're about, they are welcoming us into more and more spaces. And there's like a real quality of relationship that we're trying to foster instead of just seeing what we can squeeze out of a place and hit the router, you know, so that feels really important to how we're trying to bring people over feels really important to us to make sure that we're contributing to the places that we're going not just in, you know, tourism dollars, but also in enrich net and relationship building. Well, you know, as I get older, you know, I'm more interested in having the experience, right, like, if I were to go to France, which I've never been like, I would probably go to like Paris and see the Eiffel Tower and go to the Louvre and all that bullshit, right, like the touristy stuff. But that's not actually how I want to travel. And it seems like these are a very different kind of experience. You're not just going on TripAdvisor and saying, what are the top 20 sites to see in Paris and eat at all the hot restaurants, this is a very different type of trip. And I'm sure it appeals to a specific type of person who wants to be in that experience, as opposed to just like that very touristy type thing. Yeah, there's a big difference in my mind,

between being a traveler and a tourist, and I thought I was really original. And I first thought of that, but I think there's actually in your Vinnie Bourdain quote around. Yeah, I think so. But I, you know, it does feel very different. I, you know, I just recently went to New Orleans with my mom, and she wanted to do a bunch of things that are very tourist based. And I've been going to New Orleans, for the last 25 years. And I feel like I have a very special relationship with it. And I had never once been to the things that my mom wanted to do. And so it was an interesting difference between you know, I mean, frankly, it felt a little miserable. My mom doesn't listen to us, but like going to Harrah's is not really how I want to travel, you know, but like, it was fun for a day. And I think that can be fun. But I travel, you know, I try to I try to just sort of be in the space as someone who lives there. And

that feels like what a lot of people are maybe looking for these days to you know, they kind of want to go somewhere and I don't know actually be in a space instead of just the the space. Oh, yeah, I just went to the UK last fall with my family and our favorite place, we're in Wales. And you know, just being in this like small town and just like walking downtown and going to a random restaurant. And you know, we went to London and London was our least favorite of all of our UK trip we really love like, being in the Welsh countryside and not having this super packed agenda, just kind of like taking it all in and this slow way of life and like wandering into a cafe and wandering around and just kind of like being with the people. We got to London. I'm just like, this is like a total hot mess. And we had been to London before and we want to show our kids all the sights, but it was our least favorite part of that trip. I was much more interested in just that kind of laid back more lifestyle trip then then the touristy thing. Do you have a typical customer like who are booking these trips?

It's surprisingly all over. I mean, the ages range from our youngest was maybe 22. And our oldest customer is suddenly like 80 years old, and then everything in between. So that's been really lovely to not just have one type of person and more nice trips, and there's people now from all over the US and from different backgrounds. We tried to make it possible. I mean, the the trips costs a certain price. It's not going to be for everyone but there might be people

Whoever, for example, in the service industry and don't just have like a chunk of cash necessary in their account when we try to work with people to set up payment plans, when possible so that anyone can come on this trip, who really wants to? Yeah, I looked at the pricing. And it's reasonable. I mean, it's never going to be inexpensive to travel. I mean, once you get into all the flights and lodging and stuff, when you try and cobble together your own trips, it's going to be expensive, having done this not too long ago. So it's definitely on par with, you know, what it would take to put this together yourself. I don't think people think in all those little costs, you think about the flight and maybe like a train and the lodging, you think, Oh, it cost this but then by the time you're done with all the meals all the day to day stuff you do you're tacking on literally 1000s of dollars. Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing is, if you come on one of our trips, and everything is included for that week, your room, all your meals, all your drinks, all of the workshops, and yeah, if you're trying to plan this on your own, I do think it would come out, yeah, you just gotta get there, you know, you just gotta get to the airport. And then we get we get you, we get you from there, and then take care of you for the week. What are some of the workshops and things that people do on these trips.

So Julie, and I each do, we do have a baking focus, we'll have some guest chefs who have a very heavy gush very exciting, heavy, Gesha docket next year, and those will look a little different, there will probably be an integration of some, you know, some different things that are more savory based a little butchery, some, you know, taking apart fish and that kind of stuff. We each sort of stay in our you know, I try to hard focus on some regional, you know, like Normandy avails itself to really beautiful short breads and things like that. So we'll probably do a little bit of those things. And wherein, you know, I'm sure there will be a lot of Apple charts being made. So I tried to sort of do a little deep dive into the pastries of the region. Julie does really beautiful, naturally leavened sourdough brands, and teaches them how to do their own breads as I mean, you have to carry a starter with you. I do carry a starter, I just dehydrated it, dehydrate it. So that yeah, it's easier to transport. And the I think the best part of these, as far as cooking experiences go is that we have an open kitchen all. And so every evening, we you know, when the one we're at the chateau, we have these really beautiful, you know, family style meals that we all sit down to together full of wine, and you know, family style courses and dessert. That is an opportunity, because I'll be in the kitchen cooking. And sometimes they'll be doing wine tastings, you know, sometimes they'll have other things going on on their schedule. But at any point in the week, if someone's in the kitchen cooking, the guests are welcome to come in. They can bring their knife wraps, they can you know, they can come empty handed, there will be tools on site, like they can come in and you know, just pick herbs or learn how to make a room or learn you know, whatever it is that's happening in the kitchen at any point in time. And what ends up happening later throughout the week as people start to get more comfortable. And all of a sudden, we have a full kitchen with people all cooking together, which is pretty special. How long does it take people to kind of bond with each other? You know, because being around strangers, I'm sure there's like a level of comfort that has to be gained over time depending on how you are I mean introverts versus extroverts and all that. But do you see people coming together pretty quickly? Oh, yeah, I mean, I feel like by By the second day people have already like made their new brands and they want to sit next to each other at the dinner table. By the end of the week. Everyone's just cracking jokes at each other. I feel like we should have like the award we should I think that would be like the superlative Yeah, I mean wine is a great social lubricant you know where we drink a lot of beautiful natural lines from if we can find them from the region which we typically can you know, it's and food food is the great unifier typically, you know, like people don't want to you know, there's doesn't take much time over a you know, copper band get to know so

that's the hope that's what we like to see in the hospitality industry. I did you know, I work as a private chef. I did a dinner this weekend. Hopefully they're not listening to us. It was a family dinner and a fight broke out. And people actually left in the middle of dinner we had like this awkward like 45 minutes in between courses, where they were screaming in another language and I'm just awkwardly in the kitchen like, Okay, this is kind of uncomfortable. I don't know if there's gonna be a physical fight and then people storming out in middle of dinner. But usually it's a good time when people get together and eat but family families is a whole nother dynamic, right? Yeah, Lee meals are very sad. They're dynamic. Exactly, yeah. How's working together been for you? Because, you know, it can sometimes be challenging, especially depending on what your backgrounds and experiences are even friends, I've worked with friends, whether it be a short period of time or for longer. So what's that dynamic been like? And have there been any challenges? Like how do you play to each other's strengths and weaknesses? Well, we are friends, which is helpful.

I think, for me, the biggest challenge was not because I've in the past, I've always like, hired Julie to be my assist down. And it wasn't difficult. But, you know, it's like, learning how to let go of the responsibilities that I've taken on by myself for so long. And the kitchen primarily because she runs this entire thing behind the scenes. I can't take any credit for like the actual infrastructure of this business behind the scenes. But just as far as like learning how to have someone that I can trust in a kitchen was really difficult, because pastry shops are notoriously lone wolf. So like, my space is very much my space. So it was just difficult for me to be and I messed up her space a couple of times, and I got which rightfully so and I also have a less experience in a professional kitchen and be have been away from it for longer. And so on our first trip last year where I was coming back in, and kind of relearning what that space is, like, Lisa kind of had to redirect me a little bit of both. But I will say as far as us working together goes, it's like a match made in heaven, which is where degree we didn't know how it was gonna go. We've been learning this as we go. And I think we're really well balanced. And it is true that like, I end up taking on a lot of the administrative parts of the business, but it's also one of my strong suits, and it kind of just naturally makes sense. And it's not like Lisa takes advantage of that. She's always like, what can I do give me more. And then I kind of had that lone wolf syndrome as well, where I'm like, nothing, I gotta

stay away from my eating the wholesome guy. Oh, yeah. But then we said is a lot better at thinking of the big picture. It's not, that's not how my brain works. I just see what's in front of me. But at least it's like, what if we did this, and let's be doing this in five years. And I'm like, I'm talking like five days from now. So I think we're really well balanced in that way. And Lisa, also, because of her career has millions of connections in the food world. And that's going to be able to, you know, push us forward as far as bringing in guest chefs. So yeah, it's a pretty good, it's, it's pretty sweet. It sometimes takes a while to like, find your groove. You know, I work by myself. Now, I did a pop up a couple of weeks ago, where I collaborated with my friend Matt, who I'm sure is listening to this. And similarly, he's a personal chef. And we're both used to having the kitchen to ourselves. And there was some anxiety about we're both trying to find space to play. And it was just kind of overwhelming because both of us are used to being working solo, taking the lead having our space. And now we have to share and figure out that dynamic and was the first time we had ever worked together. And it's like, you know, I think if we did this, again, we would figure out our grooves, because it's a totally different thing. If you're not used to working with people. It can really throw you off a little bit and takes you a while. But you've been doing this a little bit now. So I'm sure you found your groove. Knock on wood. Yeah. How many of these events are you looking to do in a year? Like big picture, or just Yeah, yeah, I mean, ideally, what does this look like? Like how long does it take to play on one of these trips? And then how many do you realistically think, if you're having a good year, and you know, everything's going the way you want? How many do you hope to be doing? I don't know. And Julie can say, If you disagree, I don't know that we necessarily have a number in mind. I think what we're trying to do is gracefully grow and maintain brand identity that we feel really

confident in and comfortable with. Neither one of us are very comfortable like, with big. I'm not even sure like we want to be successful, obviously and we want this to grow. But I think we are at this point, more concerned about making sure that we keep a culture of these workshops that feels good and in By the guests that understand what we're trying to do, and pre, you know, maintain, we're really trying to maintain this bubble of like joy and happiness and, like true, like, we're both so tired of just, everything's hard.

Like someone who's been in the industry for a number of years. Yeah, it's, and I think we're both just sort of trying to insist that there can be beauty and joy. And as long as we can maintain that, and each workshop or retreat, then we'll do as many as we can. But this also isn't like your sole business sole form of income, correct, because I think that's like different when like, you have this thing that like you're trying to make all your money on, you do both do other things for work, right? We definitely have to sort of supplement for now, ideally, and and as we add more retreats, for example, next year, we're going to have six, at least six retreats. And we're also going to be opening up to private retreat opportunities. And so to answer your question about how long it takes to plan one of these

a long time, it's, it's a lot of, you know, starting with booking the place where we're going to be staying, you have to start that way ahead of time, and then figuring out where we're going to eat, how we're going to travel. We have to go in you know that the chateaus and the villas we have to go check them out, make sure that they're what we need, especially the kitchens, there's, there's a lot of little details, as you would imagine, so. So all that to say it is going to eventually be a full time job, where we won't be able we won't have the time to be doing other things. And if we have more treats when the companies, you know, bringing in more, and hopefully that can cover our Yeah, and even some employees, you know, to help us sort of

continue to grow. So, yeah, and talking about that, who are the first people that you think are important to hire, because that's something I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs about, you know, we start a business as a solopreneur, or a partnership, and you wait a while to hire someone. So for you, what are those first people do when you hire them? Like if you had the money, let's say and you're ready to hire someone tomorrow? Who would you be hiring?

What we really need is another one of us with Jack of all trades. Yeah, well, I mean, in a sense, it's a tricky thing to find the person that we really need we need. Our first person in mind is somebody who can come and be an assistant in the kitchen and more than an assistant, someone who can sort of run the kitchen when we're not there and prep meals for 20 people so that we can be present with our guests. And we are hoping to find that as soon as next year. And that's a tricky thing to find. Because, for example, next year, we'll have three trips in a row. But that means we're in Europe for about six weeks and finding somebody who can just come to Europe for six weeks and then go back home. And yeah, you know, all volunteer. That's not so bad.

But yeah, and then we also need help with the day to day. So we're hoping to find someone who similarly to us is ready to do those trips, and also kind of be working on this throughout the year. Do you stay in contact with the people who've been on these trips? Like, are they like newfound friends? Yeah, we have a reunion party on Saturday with the people from our first trip. Oh, that's fun. Where's the party? That one of the guests home really had a bunch of wine ready, and we're all bringing soon and we're gonna have a good time. I think people are coming in from out of town. Oh, yeah, maybe? Yeah. Like I saw people on the checkout exchange. I think there's some people coming in from well, that's fun. Yeah. So how do you find the local people that you want to? Like the wineries? Like, do you already have a set idea when you're picking a location who you want to use? Like, what does that vetting process look like? Because I'm sure that's really important to like, find the people who kind of match with your

aesthetic and mindset like is that a lot of work to find the local producers purveyors? Yeah, I'm, Julie knows a lot about wine. It's, I feel really confident and like, her knowledge of wine. I like wine. I enjoy learning about wine. I don't have like a huge, you know, I just didn't, it ends up getting bored for me a lot. And I drink it. And I try to sort of retain the information but she has like a really good working knowledge. I think she kind of starts there. Yeah, more than and well, we try to focus on natural wines. More than anything, because that's what we love. then what we find exciting. And when I'm looking for wineries to visit or winemakers to, maybe come to where we're staying to do a tasting, there's actually an app called raisin. Don't worry if you've heard of it, but if not, it's called like the raisin natural wine app. And it's very cool for travelers who might like natural wine, because there's, there are maps on there of all of the restaurants and wine shops and wine bars that serve natural wine. So you can just look at the map and find a good place to eat and drink. And then there's also a second map that has all of the producers, at least most of them who produce natural wine all over the world. And so that's a great place to look at to kind of get in contact with people, whether it's me looking for someone to work with, or if you're traveling and want to go visit wineries, then you can see where the natural wineries are, and get in touch with that maker. I don't know a lot about that. But I just had some chefs who have a cookbook coming out there from Montreal, and they actually have like a natural wine bar. So we talked a little more about natural wines. It's not something I've ever really explored. But I'm really interested in I'm not really knowledgeable about wine in general at all, like you, please I like to drink wine. And I much prefer to just talk to someone who knows what they're talking about, and have them pour me something delicious. So I'm in the process of exploring more on natural wines. It's a fun world, it's really something it's and that the the producers are, you know, really warm and welcoming. You know, we ended up going to the laoire, every single year won't ever this is our second year, but we ended up hitting it right at harvest time, which is an interesting time, because they're both very busy. And typically, it's really impossible to make connections with them during harvest time, we still get, you know, last year we had a woman come from was tear down glue down the lily, my friend, she's also very bad. My name is Charlotte Jackson. And, you know, she's invited us to the vineyard for this year, which is really, really wonderful. So that's kind of also like another way that these relationships grow over time. But getting to know them and getting to see their vineyards and getting to see their processes is something that were really was really exciting. You know, and especially for people who don't actually retain information about wine, I'm learning, you know, now I'm actually seeing it and retaining information and retaining names and changing a little bit more than just a working regional knowledge which I have, that remembering vineyards is something that I've always been a little weak, rained about, but now I'm starting to really, you know, gather information and remember, who did what and how and what their processes are and how they're different, you know, from one venue to another, it's really fascinating, when I think the in person kind of experiential helps with that. Like if I were to just read or be told something. And I think that's what's really cool about your retreats is that hands on immersive experience, I think you're more apt to retain that information. And something also that I think is really helpful is having someone is you know, Julie's so fluent in both the language in France and also the culture of France and knowing how to communicate with people, especially in a place as culturally rich and sort of established as France is, knowing how to move through these spaces feels really like a such a luxury to have with Juliet you know, like a really does, like she's very good at it. And she's incredibly charming. And so it's very easy to you know, make these relationships. You know, even even as you know, someone that has a lot of Chef connections and food industry connections, like I feel like I'm getting a glimpse and difference that I never could have gotten without Julie

takes a long time with those guys. I don't I don't speak French at all. I can maybe navigate a menu. If you hand it to me in French, like I love going to Montreal, thank God they speak English there and not even begrudgingly they seem to genuinely be okay with me not understanding French. But yeah, I feel like I would totally be lost. And that's something I've heard is like, if you go as a tourist to France and don't know French, like you're gonna have a hard time and they don't really love that.

I think that's kind of in the past. I mean, you can still run into grumpy people that generally if you're in a city in France, and even in smaller, like places outside of big cities I need like, most people are gonna be okay with the fact that you're there. It's not delighted to see so I shouldn't be scared. I wouldn't be scared. I mean, you might run into some Right, the people that I believe again, take it personally.

That what I've noticed as someone who does not have fluid, fluent French, but is getting better and better each time with my comprehension is that in Paris, it's better if you just speak English. In the countryside, we French people tolerate you trying to speak French a little bit more graciously than in Paris. That's been my experience. But, but also, I think just go and you know, take it for a grain of salt. And don't let it stop you from seeing the world. No. And yeah. And there's no reason to be intimidated. Now are your workshops and the foods you're preparing? Are they leaning more towards the classical versus the modern? You know, because in cooking right now, there's so many like, dishes of the moment and things in the moment, but I feel like in France, this would be very much like classical techniques, traditional recipes, am I wrong?

Now we were talking with one of our chefs yesterday, and he is someone, he's going to be a guest up next year. And he is someone that dabbles in, you know, very modernist technique. But we were getting really excited about just talking about peasant food. And this is the way you know, this is the food, people want to learn how to cook, you know, people want to learn how to what to do with a whole chicken, you know, on a stronger Sunday to a Friday. And a big part of what we offer with reverie, or what we want people to go home with is recipes that they feel comfortable replicating in their own kitchen. So if we're using a pacojet for exam, right now, it's gonna have a backhoe jet at home, right? Most people won't. So we want to show them the techniques and the recipes that they can go home and make for a dinner party and feel completely confident. The goal is like to take the intimidation factor out of cooking, and remind people that this is, you know, one of the most basic acts that we have, as human people have been cooking since the dawn of time, like just meat over fire, right. Like, we don't need to overcomplicate it, and here's how to make it taste good. And here's, you know, and it's it's by and large, typically about knowing what your ingredients can and can and should and shouldn't do, and that those are the conversations happen during an open kitchen session, you know, of, you know, here's why, for this particular dish, you want to take this fat cap off, and otherwise you would leave it on you know, there's there's room to have those conversations when everyone's drinking wine and a kitchen cooking dinner for wanting people.

What happened we talked about with your business, like, what do you want everyone to know? This is your time to like, get it all out there. We can't talk about next year. Next year, I would love to hear about next year. Well, well, well. We've got some exciting things planned.

Let's see. Where did you get, um, we will next year be returning to France. So we're kind of in in the midst of solidifying all of our plans for 2024. We will be going back to France, to the Toulouse location as well as the laoire Valley location. Those are both for sure. And we're bringing in some guest shots. So we will have a couple of retreats where it's just just the OG pair. Maybe maybe a little random will join us for those. TBD. But in the flew Chateau are going to be bringing in Erin McDowell, you can talk about her. I mean, she's the PI goddess, you know and she's remarkable and she's larger than life and brilliant and beautiful and bright and I can't wait to be in the kitchen with her. So she's going to be doing a lot you know, she's going to have a weak and lose. Yeah, she's she's got a bunch of French pastry techniques up her sleeve and can't wait to kind of branch out of like, I think what she traditionally does in her workshops here which tend to be very pie based. You know, she's in the she's in the pie mind here because she does it so beautifully. So she's excited about being in France and doing a bunch of lunches in remarkable workshop. Teacher like I don't know if you've ever caught any of her stuff. Even just on Instagram, she's just her engagement is deeper, lovely and warm and just really happy to be

going to translate there for a week and be great. Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun.

And then in the Lower Valley, there will be also a week with Lisa and I and then are the second week that we're there. We are bringing on Tara Jensen, who is a an incredible sourdough Baker. And she works in woodfired events. Her Instagram is Baker hands. And she's kind of been a teacher for a lot of sourdough bakers. I know, especially during COVID That she was putting some sort of video workshops workshops up to help people learn how to bake. We're gonna do a lot of open fire. Yeah, we're gonna bring in someone fired oven. So she'll be showing us how to kind of do that all week keep the fire going using different temperatures for different things. And I'm very excited. I have a crazy idea that I want to do like a pit. Brenton sort of situation. But I got a theory of the property owners of a field. Just dig a big hole. Can I dig a big hole in your backyard? I can fill it back up with sand. They'll be like it never happened.

Could you do pastries in a pit? Like would that be crazy to like try and do like classical things that are not bread baking, but like pastries in a pit like that. But you know, it wouldn't hurt to try give it a shot. You're gonna dig a hole in their yard, you need to try to figure out something. There's lots of things that we can mess around. And if they fail, you fail to lesson. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. I hope people listening out there decide to join you on your trips. Well, we're not done. You're not done. Just wow. You just okay. Okay, so we're also going to

that'll sound really um, we're going to Ireland, with Trevor Moran from locust and Nashville. When is that gonna be? We're slowly leaking the dates and stuff because we're still locking everything down. But we have our shops. We have our locations locked down. And then the fourth shop that we have confirmed. And the fourth location we have confirmed is Nina Compton will be taking us to St. Lucia. Oh, that sounds like a fun trip to Yeah, well, Island down. You're not? Yeah, so we're branching out. So we've got the six plan for next year. We've got more remarkable guest chefs that are joining us. And that's in addition to Melissa Martin joining us in the Riviera. There's this fall. She's officially like our first guest chef, and she's going to help us figure out how it moves best because she's really good at logistics. And she's also just an amazing human and Shah. Yeah. So this is the thing that we're really knee deep on right now is locking all this down for 2024. And, you know, we are going to get these spring retreats underway, we're going to Normandin to lose and just under two months. And so we we've been we're going to kind of get those locked down and then we're going to start summer and fall we're going to be able to announce these guest chefs and start selling some tickets. Certainly Johnny for how many people can you do max on one of your trips?

It depends on where we're staying the size of the Atlantic Ocean, but in some of the bigger places we kind of maxed out at like 18 And I don't think we'll ever go beyond that unless it really feels like it would be okay. You should start leading those like high school field trips. You know, like in high schools, they go to foreign countries. I think you should like tackle that at one point. Once you get your footing, you know, instead of Yeah, no, I'm good.

I want to check a bunch of 17 year old

I've heard some horror stories. I am kind of hoping like when my kids get into high school, I get to chaperone a trip. But I've also heard some not great stories about like you just spend your whole time trying to prevent a bunch of 17 year olds from drinking the Kool Aid. Yeah. Well, any final words for our audience before we get out of here today.

We still have some tickets available for our laoire Valley trip in 2023. If anyone is just a agenda, get over there with us. It's gonna be a very good time. And you can find the information on reverie forever.com The magic of this is I can both edit and put the proper link in the show notes. dasa join us we're we like cooking and we're nice people are good

I still use your pie dough recipe. Lisa is like the only pie dough recipe I use that's so hard like and that's a whole nother thing. Like I love pies I want to make better pies and I feel like my crust is always crap. For me it's more like the rolling and getting it in the pan and the right shape and and all that but like there's a million recipes and they're all different. It's like, do you chill the dough? Do you grate the dough? Do you mash it in? Do you use vodka? iced water? Like I don't know, it's like at one point, I just needed to find a recipe. So I found one of your recipes I don't even know where like six or seven years ago. It's the only pie recipe I use. And I think it does a pretty good job for me just thought I'd let you know, just pretty good. It does a really great job. It does a really great job. I have not wanted to find another pie dough recipe, Strauss that he gave thanks, thanks, then

it wasn't life changing. Or,

you know, I don't make it enough to say that it's life changing because I just feel like it's a task. I want to get to the point where I love I love eating pie. But I'm always just like, ah, am I gonna tackle pie crust like, I know how shitty like premade frozen pie dough is. So like, I've just got to do this. I just don't make pie enough. That's the bottom line. I you know, I just recently just yesterday read a blurb for Rose Wilds book is coming out, it's gonna be beautiful. By the way, you guys are listening. By rose Wilds new baking book, it's gonna be really beautiful. But she has this really beautiful thing in the book where she's just talking about how to know your ingredients. Because I say that a lot. Like, you just got to know what this does. And then I talked through what each ingredient is if I have the time with people, she does a really beautiful thing of like how to like tactile touch something, feel something, taste something. And when I was writing the blur, what kind of came out was like, baking gets a bad rap. Because everyone's like, it's so rigid and scientific, and there's no room and there's actually a ton of room. You just have to have a little devotion, I think is the word not to be like, too much of a poet about baking. But like it really it's about like paying attention and devotion and like practice. So yeah, the more you do your pie crust, the more you're gonna like be able to just breeze it out and know exactly what's wrong, or what's right with it in a given moment. So just make pie every day. Tiny though. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had a friend who was on the podcast, and he does sourdough baking. And he said, you know, the challenge that he sees is like, people find a bread recipe, they make it it didn't come out the way they want. And then they go to another recipe. And they really should just like, take that recipe and make it again, it's the repetition, like take good notes, like, What didn't you like, can I adjust the hydration? Do I adjust this, like stop bouncing around finding new recipes, like just find a recipe from someone you respect and you think it's gonna be a good one. And just keep doing that. I think for me the baking challenges like you don't repeat it as much as you would if you were a savory chef, like if I were working in a restaurant and I'm making crab cakes or steak or whatever, you're making them every single night and you can make miniscule changes but with me with baking, it's like I make a pie and then it's like three months before I make a pie again, you know, large for crab cake, you know, I mean, the meat might be a little different each time but your variables aren't really going to change but with baking, man like it depends on literally what the weather is that day depends on the water quality of where you're at. It depends on the butter, you know, butter changes from country to country is baking have to be so extra. It's you know, it's what makes it so special. Thanks again for coming on the show. As always, I will link everything in the show notes. People will know where to find you how to book these trips, to learn more about you and everything. And yeah, I loved having you on the show today. Nice to see you again. Great to see you here. Thanks for having us. And to all of our listeners. This has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Thanks so much and have a great day. Go to chefs without restaurants.org To find our Facebook group, mailing list and Chef database. The community is free to join. You'll get gig opportunities, advice on building and growing your business and you'll never miss an episode of our podcast. Have a great week.