La Pitchoune: Cooking in France

What a treat to see Julia Child's La Pitchoune revived and alive with its next generation of chefs and visitors.

I was delighted to see what Makenna and the La Peetch team had planned, plotted and pulled off with their Courageous Cooking School. The experience that the students are having seems both cathartic in experiencing the kitchen itself as well as freeing their culinary challenges with the lessons they learned from Kendall and Mekanna.

I hope Chris' history of the house and the Child's and Ross's home improvements continue as they really bring the whole house to life as if we were there with them.

I look forward to Sunday nights when I can sit and watch people who love food, who aren't fussy or pretentious, who wear really cool beautiful dresses and cool aprons, in a beautiful setting, cooking delicious food. Because of COVID, I can't fly on a plane and go to France, so this is a way to immerse myself in a world where it's summer, the food is delicious, and the flowers are blooming. There is no competition, it's just collaborative and friendly.

After watching the show, I feel more free to experiment and stretch outside my comfort zone. I have never felt bound by recipes, so that recipe-free thing is not new to me. What is new for me, is seeing the techniques for how to do it better, without having to eat as many failed experiments getting there.

A few things I have learned on the show have been game changers. Watching Kendall make an omelette was like, "oh! It's that easy?" and the next day, I made a fantastic omelette by just doing what she did, the way she narrated.

I am fifty, and I see these two couples as kids struggling to make it. It's clear they must have had help getting there, some kind of backing or support -- I imagine from their parents or something, but these days, I imagine hardly anyone their age can make it on their own. I say good for them.

There are times when I can see that Makenna, a working mom of a young child, is struggling. Anyone with children knows what that's like. How many meals have I made, pushing through, because we have to eat, and either achieved a kind of catharsis where things are better after we ate, or gotten furious and stormed out after calling everyone a bunch of jive turkeys? Being a mom to a young child is a hard beautiful part of life, even if you're in France, working in Julia Child's house. I love that she cries when people leave. It's clear that she loves her guests and her family.

Yes, this show is not about reality for most of us, but I am not digging reality in the United States, right now. It's great to just escape and look at beauty, to get inspired, and to learn.

I love their gorgeous dresses! I love that they're not skinny preachy fitness nuts. I want to sit out on a flower-covered veranda overlooking mountains and charming towns, too. If I can't, it's lovely to watch others do it.

If you have an insatiable nostalgia or obsession for France, French cooking, and of course Julia Child, this show will definitely be well received. You won't actually care about semantics; there will be no impetus for critique. If you take a (very tiny) step back, however, you'll easily be disappointed. It appears that many of those who rated the show 10/10 are either motivated by a prior personal experience in France, with French cooking / identifying as a "foodie", etc.

I have personally made many Julia Child recipes and I find her to be endearing to watch; I often pull up even her original cooking show from the '60s. This is what motivated me to watch the episode. What I saw, however, was a reality show about an expensive destination cooking experience. I found it to be a well-made advertisement. For example, I was expecting there to be more details on food, ingredients, etc. I wanted to learn from the show, but can't say I did. That was disappointing. Perhaps because I've already watched Julia herself (even still, I'm far from a chef). There were a few cooking tidbits here and there (which weren't personally enlightening), and I couldn't get past all of the "testimonials" from the guests about how much their lives have been changed from this experience and how grateful they are to the owner. It comes off as insincere to me. Not to say their emotions cannot be real, but the repeated on-camera accolades to the host is off-putting (as if they are real guests and not customers paying nearly $10K). In other words, and in summary, I got the impression that the "guests" were carefully curated to play in this 43 minute Instagram-esq add for the cooking school.

Last but not least, I was left with several questions. How was this show picked up by HBO? Are the owners just simply riding off the Julia Child name? Do they have a personal connection to France? Why does the owner, who says she went to Le Cordon Bleu, come off so green in the kitchen? Did she go to Le Cordon Bleu just to have a résumé for starting the school?

*Addendum: after finding a couple articles on the owner in Vogue / Boston magazine, most of these questions can be answered. Look her up.

La Pitchoune: Cooking in France popped up in my feed when HBO and Discovery+ merged. I was intrigued by the title, so I gave it a go!

I should add that I'm not a fan of competition shows (which this is not), and over all not a fan of "reality" tv. The only "reality" tv I tend to watch is the kind that's inspiring, low to no drama, and relaxing. La Pitchoune falls into this category, with its beautiful location, premise and hosts. You can tell that the team at La Pitchoune is really trying to create something special and inspire folks in the same way they are inspired every day by their surroundings. Yes, the school is located in Julia Child's former home, but the show is not about Julia or her style of cooking. Facts and stories about Julia are peppered throughout the show, but it's not the focus. Instead, it tries to focus on the guests and the ethos behind the school.

One of the things I wish we had gotten more of was the backstory of the hosts. It took me a few episodes to connect with them, mainly because I wanted to get to know them a bit more. Nothing invasive, but a bit more about how they got started in cooking and why they landed in France. You get some bits and pieces over the episodes, but weaving the hosts' stories, their "why", into the episodes a bit more would have been nice.

Overall, I enjoyed the show and what kept me coming back for more were the hosts, the ethos of the school and well...France!

We have been anxiously waiting to see it and it did not disappoint! It immediately transported me back to the week in June 2022 when my 4 kids and I went to La Peetch and soaked up the history of that amazing home and the beauty of Provence. It was nice to see everyone (I admit I squealed when I saw Matilda!) and Makenna- you're not the only one with tears! My eyes were streaming! I'm homesick. I can't wait for the next episodes. (And as another reviewer stated, this is more a cooking philosophy to give people the courage to take chances in the kitchen. I may never make a soufflé, but I will make the fresh, heavenly veggie sides we made!). Thank you for the experience. Fun to relive!