You're Invited: Olive-Picking Party Nov 1st

My travel-planning clients, visitors and blog readers often ask me where they can experience traditional farming and artisinal food production here in Provence. The wine-grape harvest is now behind us and the olive harvest (and the pressing of olives for oil) is next. If you want to be part of it, here's a fun way.  

On Friday November 1st, Lisa and Johann Pepin will host an olive picking party at their truffle and olive farm Les Pastras. It's in the Southern Luberon, just outside Cadenet, about 40 minutes north of Aix. (Lisa is from Wisconsin, Johann is French and you can learn more about them here.)

The plan for the day is:

10 am to 1 pm: Traditional olive picking (by hand) in the autumn sun.

1 pm to 3 pm: Hearty Provencal lunch with local wines. On the menu: traditional slow-cooked daube (beef stew), saffron potatoes au gratin and ratatouille, an assortment of regional cheeses, an assortment of desserts and beverages (wine, coffee, tea, water).

3 pm to 5 pm: Afternoon olive picking.

5 pm: Celebratory Champagne aperitif.

The cost is 50€ per person and only eight places are available. For more info or to reserve: pepin@lespastras.com, +33 (0)6.26.05.30.49.

Photos: (1) Olive picking, back in the day. Today it looks much the same at Les Pastras, except the outfits tend to be snappier.  (2) Curt Torgerson--an American living in Aix--and his son, Nils, loved helping with the harvest in 2011 and 2012. (3) The fruits of their labor. (4) The Pepin's pretty dining room, where you'll have lunch. (5 & 6) On the menu: traditional daube and potatoes gratin. [Photos courtesy of The Worldwide Gourmet and 30 Meals in One Day.] (7) Lisa and Johann: Franco-American Gothic.  (8) A selection of Les Pastras oils. Fifty percent of the profits from their olive products go to the OneFamily orphanage in Haiti. So you'll be working hard, having fun, eating well and doing good all at once. Not bad for 50€! 

*Note: If you have olive trees and need help with the harvest...or feel like helping someone pick...leave a comment (under ''comments'' below) along with your location and a way to reach you. 

Days of Wine and Truffles

Very quickly after I launched my new company Provence Post Travel---arranging amazing vacations in Provence for couples, families and groups of all sizes--I learned how much my clients love activities that get them up close and personal with real life in Provence….the special experiences I arrange for them with artists, farmers, fishermen, winemakers, bread bakers, chefs, guides and more. Travelers these days definitely want to meet interesting locals who love to share their passions.

For example? At our local goat farm, clients love seeing the animals and then tasting the fresh goat cheeses with the farmer who just made them. They love biking with a charming chef who provides a gourmet picnic along the way. They've loved meeting artisan food-makers in Aix and walking in Roman footsteps with an American blogger in Arles. They’ve experienced vineyard barbecues with winemakers and olive oil-tastings with the young woman who tends hundreds of her family's trees and presses award-winning oils. I’ve sent clients out wine tasting with a charming sommelier...to bake croissants and make nougat at a traditional boulangerie…to slice and dice with Michelin-starred chefs…to comparison-taste homemade honey with a third-generation beekeeper…to ride gorgeous horses on a windswept Camargue beach...to tour lush, hidden gardens and learn about the visionaries who created them. I’ve sent private chefs to prepare special dinners in scores of rental villas…and sent kids to sculpting class with my favorite local potter.  This week some clients sipped chilled Pastis in the sunshine while learning to play boules on the village pitch. Loved it!

So now that I know what how appealing these activities are, I’m working on a Menu of Delicious Provence Experiences that I’ll be publishing here soon. In the meantime, here’s one that I just couldn’t wait to share.

Lisa and Johann Pepin are a Franco American couple who moved to the South of France from Chicago in 2003 to take over the Pepin family vineyard and find a better quality of life. (That’s the press release version of the story. What really happened is that Johann’s grandparents really missed him and were dying for him to come home … so they bribed the younger couple by offering up the family farmhouse as a gift. How sweet is that?)

So just like on Green Acres (remember?), the Pepins traded in their high-flying jobs in finance and PR for fresh air, starry skies and organic farming in the bucolic Luberon region of Provence. That was ten years ago. Today their 11-hectare farm Les Pastras (in Cadenet, near Lourmarin) produces grapes, olives, apricots, cherries, plums, apples, pears, pomegranates, figs, almonds, hazelnuts and—wait for it--black winter truffles. Yes, la famille Pepin must have done something right in a past life because they own 50 mature olive trees and another 320 trees (that they they planted themselves—yikes!)  and a stand of oak that regularly produce the prized tuber melanasporum, AKA truffes noirs, AKA Black Gold. They also produce tuber aestivum--white summer truffles--as well.

“Most foodies are familiar with the famous Perigord truffle,” Lisa tells me, “but what they don’t know is that those pricey morsels are the same sort that you find at Les Pastras and across Provence, which is where 80% of black truffles are produced. The Perigord region has just done a vastly better job of marketing themselves to truffle lovers.”    

The olive oils, meanwhile, are 100% organic, extra-virgin and cold pressed, made with olives from trees that were grown in the wild and have never been treated with chemicals of any kind. Also, they don't plump their olives unnaturally using a water-wasting irrigation system; any extra water their trees need comes from collected rainwater.

Because they are just totally cool people all around, Lisa and Johann decided early on that they would give 50% of their olive oil and truffle oil profits to the One Family Orphanage in Dargout, Haiti, where their close friend Kelsey works.  For the time being, the oils are sold only at the farm and online, but they’re currently working on distribution in the U.S. and beyond. So if you visit, be sure to take a bottle or two home! Or order from the website here.

So here’s where the experience comes in: Lisa and Johann are now hosting truffle hunts in both summer and winter truffle seasons. At other times they offer olive picking, grape harvesting, petanques parties and other outdoors events. But their extremely popular truffle hunts are the main event, offered in both Winter (Nov 15 to March 15) and Summer truffle seasons (May 1 to Sept. 30).

In season, truffle hunts are available every weekday except for French public holidays. First you'll learn how truffles are cultivated and truffle dogs are trained, and then you'll sniff out some of your own, with the help of two truffle dogs. Following that, you'll discover the rest of the property, home to wild herbs, vineyards, olive groves and beehives. Then you'll return to the outdoor kitchen to taste three different hors d'oeuvre with truffles, followed by truffle ice cream with truffle honey, and finally a tasting of Les Pastras' organic extra-virgin olive oil, truffle oil and truffle salt. To accompany your tasting there will be Champagne, of course...all you care to drink. And during the tasting you'll learn how to buy, clean, store and prepare truffles once you're back home. The experience lasts at least 3 hours. The cost is 70 euros per adult, 50 euros for kids (10 to 17) and 30 euros for children (2 to 9).

For more info or to book, see the Les Pastras website here. To reach Lisa or Johann directly, email: pepin@lespastras.com. And for more fabulous Provence experiences you can share with family and friends, stay tuned….

Photos: Lisa and Johann do their best American Gothic; Green Acres and black truffles at Les Pastras; 50% of  olive- and truffle-oil profits go to an orphanage in Haiti so order often and order lots!

Buy Art to Help Haiti

Photographer Chuck Anderson is donating 100 percent of online sales to Haiti earthquake relief. This print for example, called Lights for Drowning, is 18" x 24" and costs $45 plus shipping. See all the work for sale here. Rafael Soldi of Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York has organized the Haiti Relief Benefit Print Sale, which you can see by clicking here. Emerging photographers have donated prints which will be sold online for $50 each, with all proceeds going to Yele Haiti, the grassroots organization established by Wyclef Jean to bring global awareness to the country. Rafael writes: "We don't have a lot of money but our talent and creativity we got for free, and together we can raise up to $8,000. This is a great way to collect art, support emerging photographers, and help Haiti in one fell swoop, so we hope you'll consider it." For info: rafaelsoldi@gmail.com. Pictured: Goldfish by Rachel Hulin. Etsy, the online retail site for artists and craftspeople has set up a dedicated online shop called Craft Hope for Haiti (crafthope.com). All items have been donated by the crafting community and all proceeds will benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Pictured: Twin Angels by Erika Ashley.