Beatice Saalburg: Atelier de Peinture Botanique

By COLETTE ROSSANT Increasingly, chefs own, visit, or work on farms that supply their restaurants so that they are more in touch with the produce that comes to their kitchens. The thinking is that if a cook has to work on a farm and experiences the labor it takes to get a perfectly ripe tomato onto a plate, then he or she will have more respect for it, be more inspired, and there will be less waste, and presumably, a better dish. Like Michelangelo Buonarroti or Leonardo da Vinci who spent time investigating the structure of muscles, blood vessels or other parts of physiognomy before creating Art, great chefs know their fruits, vegetables, and herbs inside and out. What is the next step? Really studying what vegetables, fruit, and herbs look like to understand their structure: botanical art. Though certainly not intended to be limited to chefs and cooks, Beatrice Saalburg's Atelier de Peinture Botanique is the perfect place to learn about the art of produce in France. She was an art professor at Beaux Arts School (l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris) until 2003, living in Le Perche in the lower Normandy countryside. The Atelier de Peinture Botanique is in a studio in her 16th century chateau, Maison Maugis. Classes for a maximum of 12 students are held weekdays from 10 to 4:30, with a French lunch. The chateau has a splendid vegetable garden where she gathers samples to paint and draw. Each session has a different theme depending on what is growing, culminating in a week of wild mushroom study in October. In the morning you go out to the forest of Belleme and collect wild mushrooms with an expert. In the afternoon, you return to the studio to draw and paint. You stay in bed and breakfasts in nearby quaint villages. Will a week in Normandy launch your new career as an artist? Who knows? What you will get is a fantastic food holiday - eating, drawing, thinking about what we grow and eat – all in a stunning setting of Le Perche, France's best kept secret (until now). The website for the Atelier is: http://www.peinturebotanique.com Previous articles: Afghanistan: Silk Road Dining Alexander Lobrano: Hungry for Paris Le Domaine des Thomeaux: Good Brasserie Paris: The Secret History World in My Kitchen: Excerpt on France Food Forever: Pieter Claesz Food in Painting: Kenneth Bendiner Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef