Georgeanne Brennan


A Pig in Provence
Available Now in Paperback

A Pig in Provence

Available online from Amazon

The award-winning food writer describes her 1970 move to Provence, her adventures and experiences of Provençal cuisine, her development into a renowned food writer and cooking teacher, and the daily rhythms of life in southern France and the celebration of living according to the cycles of food and nature. View an excerpt on Culinate.com

From Frances Mayes:
"Georgeanne Brennan's romance with Provence continues to deepen, and the result of her long residency there is an intimacy with local people, food, and folk ways. I would love to pull up a chair to her table."

From Alice Waters:
"Georgeanne Brennan's memoir reminds me of why I, too, was enchanted by Provence. She beautifully captures the details of living in a place where the culture of the table ties a community together - where everyone knows the butcher and the baker and everyone depends on the farmer."

From SFGate.com:
"Memoirs are a tricky genre. They can easily turn maudlin, self-aggrandizing, or dwell on details that aren't of great interest to the outsider. Georgeanne Brennan doesn't fall into any of these traps in A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France." read more

From NY Times:
“With her historian’s appreciation for fading and bygone traditions, Brennan offers fascinating accounts of the mass sheepherding known as transhumance and the habits of the itinerant food purveyors of the Provençal hinterlands. She revels equally in the preparation and consumption of the regional cuisine, whether it’s chocolate cake moistened with pig’s blood or le grand aïoli, a local festival in which snails and vegetables are doused in garlic and olive oil and gobbled up at communal tables. 'In listening to people recount their food memories around a table, I’ve seen their eyes glow and their body language soften with the telling of the taste, smell and texture of a beloved dish.' You can almost hear her lips smacking.” read more

From More.com:
“But, all in all, her mushroom hunting, bouillabaisse eating, melon and tomato picking, and so on, evoke an enviably satisfying, sensual existence and make this book a wonderful mini-vacation. She writes so well that we can taste the hot, slightly runny cheeses and feel the snugness of the bed in which she lies toward the book's end, "looking at the ceiling of hand-hewn planks and the smooth, plastered walls lined with bookshelves, [thinking] how lucky I was to have such a life."

CulinaryMuse.com:
"Enchanting." read more

Project Foodie Cookbook Spotlight:
A Pig in Provence

Welcome!

Georgeanne BrennanOn my web site, you'll find information about my cookbooks and garden books, my recent and upcoming articles in newspapers and magazines, my seasonal cooking school in Provence, and forthcoming events in which I will be participating.

You can also take a virtual tour of a small village house in Provence that I own and that you can rent by the week. Contact me with questions and comments.

If you would like to receive my quarterly newsletter with tips and updates about food and life in Provence and Northern California, as well as other interesting places I visit, please forward your contact information on the feedback form and request to be put on the mailing list.

June, 2009

My "Provence in California" cooking classes are continuing to be a source of inspiration and fun. So many interesting people have attended since I first started the classes nearly a year ago, and we’ve cooked everything from Halibut Tajine to Meyer Lemon Tarts. During the winter months, we cooked inside, keeping warm and cozy my kitchen fireplace, but now, once again we are outside, enjoying the deep shape of my 400-year old black walnut tree when we settle down to lunch after a busy morning of gathering vegetables and herbs and cooking.

Now, my cooking guests will be using my brand-new, green-enameled, brass trimmed CornuFé French range. I love it, not just because it is so beautiful, but because it is such fun to cook in. It has two electric ovens, a 17,000 btu central burner, and a burner just for simmering, in addition to 3 other powerful burners. The central burner will be perfect for making summer’s tomato sauce!

Now, in late May, my tomato plants are waist-high, soon to be full of such varieties as Black Prince, Pink Brandywine, Bolseno (a green shouldered Italian variety that I am very excited about), White Wonder, Green Zebra and more. I still have fruit hanging on Meyer lemon trees which surround my kitchen, and garden is yielding herbs, arugula, fresh garlic, shallots, and artichokes. The peppers- mostly thick-fleshed Italian varieties such as Cuneo, Quadradi d’Asti, and Corno di Toro, plus some Padrone Spanish peppers for frying are beginning to bud. Okra, cucumbers, melons, and zucchini just went into the ground yesterday, but they are quick growers. With a potager, or year-round garden, you are always planting and planning, as well as harvesting. It’s time to move outside now, for long meals in the long, warm evenings, leaving the fireplace now for the barbeque.

My consulting business, Evans & Brennan, LLC, which I share with my business partner, Ann M. Evans, continues to be full of exciting work around local food, food policy, and marketing. We are currently working to increase fresh, local, seasonal food in the Davis Joint Unified School District, and working with the Yolo County Agricultural Commissioner on promoting the food, wine, and agriculture of Yolo County, a tasty job. We have just launched a Wine Initiative for the county that includes a special June dinner, “Celebrating Yolo Wines and Food” at Chez Panisse. For more information about what we are doing, visit atasteofyolo.com.

So, please look at “Provence in California- Weekend Cooking Classes from the Garden” for all the details, and I hope to see old friends who have come to my program in Provence and to meet new ones who love good food.

“Gather – Memorable Menus for Entertaining Throughout the Seasons”, which I have been working on for the past year and a half, will be out in September, 2009, published by Sasquatch Books. Ethel was the prop and food stylist for the book, and we had some wonderful times together with the photographer, Lara Hata, cooking and photographing the delicious menus, including a replay of Ethel’s own wedding food. We set the scene, once again, under our huge black walnut tree, where her wedding was held.

And, brand-new this year is for me is the Provence Writers Retreat for Women, September 27-October 3, presented by me and my long-time friend, author and researcher, Joanne Kauffman. We’ll cook together out of her garden, work on writing exercises to get your creative juices flowing, and offer one-on-one guidance, whatever your personal project might be. A special guest instructor Jacques Deregnaucourt, will present a French style workshop on creative writing – in English!

~Georgeanne

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