Lake Austin Spa Resort Offers Cooking School with Celebrity Chefs

The Lake Austin Spa Resort announced it will begin offering intimate weeklong cooking programs featuring celebrity chefs, including renowned restaurateurs, cookbook authors, James Beard Award winners, and acclaimed television personalities.

For 2015, star chefs include Food & Wine magazine Special Projects Director and author Gail Simmons; “Top Chef” contestant Angelo Sosa; The New York Times Chief Wine Critic Eric Asimov; James Beard Award-winning Chef and “Top Chef” notable Hugh Acheson; and founding Food Network personality Sara Moulton, among others. The Lake Austin Culinary Experience ™ program will be offered one week of every month and also will feature the resort’s own Executive Chef Stéphane Beaucamp, who began his culinary training in Paris, France.

In addition to daily cooking demonstrations, other planned activities include Adventures in Cocktail Gardening, The World of Wine, All About Olive Oil, Guided Organic Garden Tour, Hands on Lunch and Learn, Health Benefits of Tea and Tasting, Knife Skills, Composting 101, and Herbal Swags.

Included with overnight guest stays, the Culinary Experience program will be complemented with Farm to Massage Table spa treatments that feature herbs from the resort’s organic gardens and draw inspiration from indigenous ingredients such as lavender, rosemary, fig, pomegranate, eucalyptus, mesquite, honey, prickly pear, and agave nectar.

Upcoming guest chefs:

• February 9, 2015. Angelo Sosa: runner-up on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef,” owner of New York’s Anejo, author of the cookbook, “Latin Flavors Remix.”
• March 9 and 10, 2015. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg: two-time James Beard Award-winning creators of “The Flavor Bible,” “What to Drink with What You Eat,” and “The Food Lovers Guide to Wine.”
• April 13 and 14, 2015. The BBQ Queens, Karen Adler and Judith Fertig: bestselling, award-winning authors of “The Gardener and the Grill,” “Patio Pizzeria,” and “BBQ Bistro.”
• May 15, 2015. Joanne Weir: a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and judge, international cooking teacher, television personality, and chef.
• June 19 and 20, 2015. Corinne Trang: author of “Asian Flavors Diabetes Cookbook,” dubbed the “Julia Child of Asian Cuisine” by the Washington Post.
• June 19 and 20, 2015. Eric Asimov: chief wine critic of The New York Times, author of “How to Love Wine: A Memoir and Manifesto” and “Wine With Food: Pairing Notes and Recipes From The New York Times.”
• July 13, 2015. Sara Moulton: host of “Cooking Live,” “Cooking Live Primetime,” and “Sara’s Secrets” between 1996 and 2005, founding Food Network personality.
• July 17 and 18, 2015. Hugh Acheson: chef and owner of four restaurants, winner of several James Beard Awards,  recurring judge and personality on “Top Chef.”
• August 15, 2015. Gail Simmons: a “Top Chef” permanent judge, Food & Wine contributor, and author.
• September 16 and 17, 2015. Chef John “Johnny Vee” Vollertsen: Food Radio talk show host, director of the Las Cosas Cooking School in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• October 16, 2015. Lake Austin Spa Resort guest instructors Cheryl and Bill Jamison return with Martin and Jennifer Rios, the proprietors of Santa Fe’s celebrated Restaurant Martín to share recipes from the new “Restaurant Martín Cookbook,” which the Jamison’s helped create.

Photo courtesy Lake Austin Spa Resort.