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Rancho La Puerta Resort Offers Gluten-Free Cooking Classes by Carol Fenster

by info@gfreecuisine.com 28. June 2010 10:28

I have always loved a good massage, but never had time to go to a destination spa where you stay for days, rather than just an hour. When I wrote two cookbooks simultaneously (1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes and Gluten-Free Quick & Easy) and needed internal motivation, I promised myself a spa visit for each book. Except… life intervened and there never seemed to be a good time (or the right spa) for those visits.

And, then a professional colleague introduced me to Rancho La Puerta in Baja California. Well-known as one of the premier resorts in the world (and founded by the same woman who brought us the Golden Door Spa in southern California), Rancho La Puerta is everything I like in a destination spa. The food is excellent, the accommodations are a mix of Santa Fe-Old Mexico, and the staff anticipates your every need warmly and graciously. All set on 3,000 lovely acres, right on the U.S.-Mexico border, about an hour from San Diego. We lovingly call it “The Ranch.”

The Ranch celebrates its 70th anniversary this year and continues to thrive. Despite what you hear about Mexico, this area is completely safe; in fact, some guests have visited for 40 successive years and wouldn’t dream of giving up their annual visit. Most people fly in to San Diego and either take the Ranch’s free shuttle from the airport or hire a taxi. Once you drive in through the Ranch’s lovely gates, you’re enveloped in gracious warmth and hospitality and the rest of your world waits while you enjoy yourself.

I have blissfully visited the Ranch twice and truly enjoyed the food, which is very fresh, much of it from the Ranch’s own 6-acre organic garden. I enjoyed the full menu with everyone else, the staff easily and seamlessly transforming my dishes to be gluten-free. But, while most of the dishes we prepared in the “hands” on cooking classes were gluten-free, there were a few dishes I couldn’t eat.

So, I was delighted to learn that Rancho La Puerta will offer gluten-free cooking classes this Fall as part of its celebrity line-up (e.g, Rick Bayless, Joanna Weir, Pam Anderson, to name just a few). And, I will be the first teacher to offer these cooking classes. The inaugural class will be held during the week of September 18, 2010, in the Ranch’s new, 4500 square foot, hacienda-style cooking school. The building is absolutely gorgeous; in fact, I want a house just like it. You’ll learn all about gluten-free cooking and that includes breads and other baked goods, the foods we miss the most. We will also use produce from their garden, which is a fascinating tour in itself.

We don’t have all the logistics on the cooking classes worked out yet, but I wanted you to know in advance so you can plan ahead. Watch the website at www.RanchoLaPuerta.com for details. You can sign up for notices about the Ranch’s events, too, on the home page. Hope to see you there. In the meantime, gaze at the lovely food from the Ranch in the photo below.

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