Osteau Baumauniere

So I was dragged out of sabbatical to work on Rachael's latest book - although it certainly wasn't any hardship!  Rachael is shooting LUNCH IN PROVENCE, a celebration of Provencal food with recipes provided by award-winning Michelin-starred chef Jean-Andre Charial.  Jean-Andre owns a gorgeous hotel at the foot of the Alpilles in the heart of Provence called Osteau Baumauniere.

Established by his grandfather in 1945, Osteau has entertained kings and queens, artists and celebrities from the Queen Mother, Elizabeth, Phillip and Charles to Princess Grace, and Jean Cocteau to Picasso and Pavarotti.

Osteau is beautiful and includes two hotels - both with their own enormous pools and stunning gardens, two restaurants - both with Michelin stars - and one 'cottage' which is where us plebs stayed. As far as cottages go, this is not difficult to take...

We arrived just in time for lunch and were treated to a gastronomic delight of fine dining.

Jean-Andre loves vegetarian food and cooking - unusual in a fine dining/degustation style chef - but he grows all his own vegetables in an organic garden and makes his own wine from his own organic grapes.  Every single dish is a work of art and unbelievably tastes even better than it looks.

Of course Rachael just kept on working, shooting all of our meals as we ate them.

Here we all are having a really crap time. This photo is the best of the bunch you see here as it was taken by Philippe - the devastatingly charming maitre'd at Osteau -on Rachael's camera and under her supreme direction.

And then we had to do it all over again for dinner... tres terrible... Charlize also seemed to be enjoying her scrambled eggs and raspberries - also thanks to Rack - your daughter is the cutest!