March 26th, 2010 by admin

This is the first in a three-part series about LowFares’ recent trip to Napa, where we had the opportunity to participate in a Culinary Getaway hosted by food and wine maven Sherry Page. Stay tuned later this week for Parts II and III.
It’s the scents that hit you first:

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This is the first in a three-part series about LowFares’ recent trip to Napa, where we had the opportunity to participate in a Culinary Getaway hosted by food and wine maven Sherry Page. Stay tuned later this week for Parts II and III.

It’s the scents that hit you first: the unmistakable, rich aroma of pork marinating in its own jus; the cozy cottage warmed by an oven having worked for hours, its air redolent of a Southern country kitchen.

Walking into the Napa Valley home of Sherry Page, the Georgia-bred founder of Culinary Getaways, is a sensory awakening. Petite, pert and effusive, Page is in the business of sharing her love of food and wine with guests who travel far and wide for an incomparable Napa experience.

A Culinary Getaway is just what the name suggests: a brief retreat from the hustle-and-bustle of our workaday world, traded for a relaxing weekend—or, in the case of her international trips, a week—spent cooking, drinking, and eating, naturally. But, these are not austere, hands-off lessons à la your local cookery supply store. Page’s guests, who are treated with the care of close family friends, come prepared to chop, sauté and bake. Yet this minor labor (and it is minor, to be sure) is performed with leisure, without fear of fudging recipes or incurring the wrath of a Gordon Ramsay-esque kitchen overlord.



LowFares recently ventured north to participate in a Culinary Getaway, landing in Napa on a rainy weekend that made the surrounding vineyards look all the greener amidst overcast skies. With regard to booking a Getaway, planning could not be easier, as Page offers an all-inclusive package so that major travel details—hotel, meals, et cetera—need not be fussed over. Lodging is arranged for at a comfortable local inn, with Yountville’s luxurious Napa Valley Lodge being the locale of choice on the weekend we attended. Plush rooms, a heated swimming pool and close proximity to Getaway events hosted at Silverado Vineyards and Yountville’s famed restaurant row lend to its appeal.

Page’s Napa Getaways are limited to groups of seven, hence the close-knit camaraderie that is quickly established among guests. Getaways are also conducive to families and friends (a bachelorette’s weekend away, for example) hoping to bond, or companies in search of a lively, alternative team-building exercise.



A typical Culinary Getaway itinerary includes a welcome dinner, complete with expertly-picked wine pairings, followed by vineyard tour, salt lesson (Page is enamored with salts, and we’ll later explain why) and cooking class the next day, dinner, and morning dessert-making lesson and chocolate tasting to conclude the euphoric whirlwind on a sweet note.

For foodies and non-foodies alike, Culinary Getaways provides guests the opportunity to relish the act of eating and preparing food, a pleasure often overlooked in everyday life. Rooted in philosophies of buying locally and seasonally—thus ensuring that the freshest, most delicious dishes will emerge from their preparation—Page shares both her passion and wealth of food knowledge with travelers in search of their inner localvore.

Our journey began at the private welcome dinner, where crostini with fresh arugula and sundried tomato pesto—made from greens picked from Page’s own garden—gave way to a multicourse meal of roasted butternut squash soup, a seven-hour slow-roasted pork with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and braised collard greens, and a panna cotta made with the season’s first strawberries. Exquisite sommelier-chosen wines, including one exclusive, unlabelled Pinot Noir, accompanied each course. Though the menu sounds complex, Page insists that preparing the food is possible for any home cook, as demonstrated by the following day’s activities. Each Culinary Getaways attendee is furnished with a binder full of recipes from the weekend’s events, a sweet travel memento and reminder to put what they’ve learned to practice long after leaving Napa.



In our next installment about Culinary Getaways, we’ll describe our personal experience cooking alongside an enthused Page, imbibing some of Napa’s finest wines and dining at one of Yountville’s most buzzed-about—and deservedly so—restaurants, Michael Chiarello’s Bottega.

Meanwhile, aspiring home cooks can attempt some of Page’s delicious and accessible recipes from our welcome dinner:

Arugula and Sun-dried Tomato Pesto
Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Jalapeno-laced Crème Fraiche
Slow-Roasted Pork

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