Audio-MP3 - Story By Pat Meier-Johnson

I have gone back to boarding school. Not a Dickens sort of place, but gourmet cooking school.

No gruel served here, Sir.

One night on cruise ship I was seated at a table with an elderly British matron who gave the following reason for the British extending their Empire: "They sailed in search of decent food, " she said.

Traveling, these days, may not be just a quest for an exotic meal, it may be to learn to make a tasty, exotic meal yourself or, according to Bob Nemerovski, culinary director of Ramekins, in California's Sonoma Valley, to be entertained. Ramekins:

a. Teaches cooking
b. Features floor shows with celebrity chefs
c. Offers exercises in team building for corporations.

Hey, if you can cook a complex meal without throwing utensils, you can surely make it in the dot.com world.

Ramekins is one of the hundreds of schools and classes that have sprung up around the world.
Shaw Guides, lists more than 1,300 cooking vacations from Australia to Zimbabwe.

Food in Britain, by the way, is no longer just bubble and squeak, bangers and mash. England has some of the best restaurants and cooking schools in the world. Europe's cooking school du jour is Raymond Blanc's Manoir aux Quat' Saisons which claims to be the only 'school' in the world to offer guests the opportunity to watch and learn in the kitchens of a two Michelin Star restaurant. It offers one and two day courses that are quite expensive, starting at £250.00 plus, but they do include a seven course dinner at the restaurant, luxury accommodations, breakfast and lunch.

Then you can brag, as Bill Clinton did, that you went to Oxford.

The Pêche Melba was invented at The Ritz in Paris.and it has one of the world's most famous cooking schools, The Ritz-Escoffier School of Gastronomy. Prices range from 100 for ½ day workshops, one-week courses for about $800, to a full Ritz Escoffier diploma for $23,000. For that they probably toss in a bit of French chef attitude.

The Euro is very weak against the dollar and there are lots of hotel rooms in Paris now for less than $100 a nigh so learning French cooking at le source, the Ritz, Provence or anywhere in France, could be a pretty good deal.

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok is right on the Chao Praya river and just a boatride away from the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the Temple of the Dawn and most of Bangkok's pleasures. Thai cuisine has perhaps the widest variety of flavors, from sweet to spicy to sour to bitter, in the world. The secret is, of course, in mixing them to the right proportions. One of the best places to learn that is at the Oriental's renowned cooking school. The Oriental offers a week's course for about $1,800. That includes five nights at what the hoi polloi readers of Conde Nast Traveler have considered the world's best hotel. That is debatable. I've stayed there more than once. It's very good but world's best is stretching it. The $1,800 also includes a limo to and from the airport, a dinner, breakfasts, three luncheons and a Thai massage.based on the usual catch: double occupancy. But, if you want to learn Thai cookery from the best.it may be worth it.You don't have to go to Thailand to learn Thai cooking, these days, however. Unlike a few years ago, you can often find what you want quite close to home. Sushi and Mexican food are the cuisines of the moment at Ramekins. Nemeroski says that many people requested courses in cooking healthy cuisine. When they were offered, few signed up.

So...we lift our glasses to the good things of life: butter, cheese, goosefat, chocolate and lots of red wine. and, of course, to the French who took the guilt out of gorging ourselves with that luscious combination.