Spa Cuisine Reinvented at Monthly Culinary Experience

New Program Features Star Chefs and Delicious Experiences

AUSTIN, TX - Distinguished by a menu that successfully marries "healthy" and "gourmet," Lake Austin Spa Resort, the number one ranked destination spa in the United States, shares its secrets of preparing deliciously healthful cuisine for one week every month during its celebrated Culinary Experience ^TM program.

The popular week-long Culinary Experience program begins on the second Sunday of every month. These special culinary weeks feature special guest chefs, daily cooking demonstrations and other activities that celebrate all things culinary.

Each month, Lake Austin Spa Resort's executive chef Terry Conlan is joined by renowned restaurateurs and cookbook authors, James Beard award-winners and other nationally-known celebrity chefs. Upcoming guest chefs include:

• February 2010: Learn from a master. Joanne Weir knows a thing or two about teaching a cooking class. She’s a James Beard Award-winning book author, a celebrated chef and a cooking teacher with her own TV show. In the second season of her very successful 26-part public television series, Joanne Weir's Cooking Class, Joanne's love of teaching cooking takes center stage. Her home kitchen is once again the classroom for each show as she works side-by-side with a real-world student for a hands-on cooking lesson. The student and viewer learn how to prepare a wide variety of Weir's latest wine country-inspired recipes, using the freshest and most seasonal ingredients available.
• Also joining us in February is executive chef and partner Chris Ward of Dallas’ award-winning restaurant, The Mercury, a multi-million dollar restaurant acclaimed nationally for Ward’s imaginative culinary flair. He has garnered many accolades and awards and has been recognized nationally by Gourmet, Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure magazines. Ward began his culinary career in Dallas and experienced cooking in New England and France. He has prepared dinners in honor of President George Herbert Walker Bush and ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President George W. and Laura Bush and other worldwide dignitaries. His cookbook, Restaurant Life: the Culinary Chronicles of Chef Chris Ward, was published in 2002 and is sold as limited editions at culinary stores, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

• March 2010: Le Cordon Bleu Class. Special Guest Chef Kirk Bachman is a fourth generation chef, who began his career at a very young age in the pastry kitchen of his father, a maser pastry chef in Germany. He has cooked for many Heads of States, celebrities and holds many culinary honors. After 20 years of culinary career instructing, today Chef Bachman is Vice President of Education/Academic Affairs and is the Corporate Chef of the acclaimed Le Cordon Bleu Schools North America.

• April 2010: Woodhouse Chocolate & Wine Pairing. John and Tracy Wood Anderson discovered their passion for fine European chocolates while attending college abroad in London. They create unforgettable confections from the finest ingredients which are presented like fine jewelry in a shop reminiscent of an 18th century Parisian salon. Tracy honed her skills at the California Arts Program at the California Culinary Academy, where she specialized in pastry. Today they both have followed their passion to chocolate as Tracy uses her skills to create the chocolates and John tends to the business side of things. Also joining the April line-up is Dorothy Huang. As Houston’s celebrated Chinese cooking teacher, Dorothy has taught thousands of people to embrace Chinese cooking in their homes. Her first cookbook, Dorothy Huang’s Chinese Cooking, has been reprinted six times. Her revised and expanded version, Chinese Cuisine Made Simple, includes even more mouth-watering recipes and more beautiful photographs. A native of Canton, China, Huang was raised and educated in Taiwan. After completing her master’s degree at the University of Houston, she worked as a therapeutic dietician in hospitals. A short time later she became a cooking instructor. Huang’s knowledge of dietetics – coupled with her own experience in cooking – convinced her that Chinese food provided an ideal combination of nutritional value, easy preparation, and taste appeal.

• May 2010: Special guest Warren Brown is the founder of and owner of CakeLove and Love Cafe and the former host of Sugar Rush on the Food Network. This baker extraordinaire’s career path has been anything but normal. While working as a lawyer he had an epiphany and started moonlighting on the side as a baker of cakes made from scratch. Today he owns seven thriving bakeries and is the author of CakeLove: How to Bake Cakes from Scratch.
• Also joining the May line-up is one of America’s premier food teams, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. They are about to introduce their most comprehensive and informative book yet: Real Food Has Curves: How to Get Off Processed Food, Lose Weight, and Love What You Eat. This dynamic duo will share their seven step plan to get all chemicals out of your diet, to find satisfaction more quickly at the table, and to return food to its pure, elemental pleasure without resorting to a raw diet or some other quasi-scientific shenanigans.

• June 2010: Sara Moulton returns to Lake Austin Spa Resort as one of the hardest working women in the food biz. Juggling three jobs for the last four years, Sara is the host of Sara’s Secrets on the Food Network seven days a week. She was also chef of the executive dining room at Gourmet magazine and food editor for ABC’s Good Morning America. On top of all of this, Sara is the author of two cookbooks: Sara Moulton Cooks at Home and Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals.
• Also in June, Molly Fowler, “The Dining Diva” is a traveling culinary instructor, television personality, recipe developer, product spokesperson and cookbook author who demonstrates entertaining with ease, flair and impact. Author of Menus for Entertaining, Molly hosts her own 30-minute television cooking show, All the Right Ingredients, airing in Houston, Texas. Molly is a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Agriculture, and is a frequent speaker and presenter at various civic venues such as Fredericksburg Food and Wine Fest, Grand Wine and Food Affair (Fort Bend County), and The Texas State Fair. She also sponsors culinary tours throughout Europe.

• July 2010: Special guest chef Susan Spicer is a name synonymous with New Orleans cooking. She began her career there in 1979 working with Chef Daniel Bonnot at the Louis XVI Restaurant. After a 4 month “stage” at the Hotel Soifitel in Paris she returned to New Orleans where Susan worked in various kitchens before opening the tiny Bistro at Maison de Ville in the Hotel Maison del Ville in 1986. In 1990, she joined forces with Regina Keever opening Bayona, a 200-year-old cottage in the French Quarter. Bayona quickly earned national attention and solid support from locals and critics alike. In October 2000, Susan and three partners opened Herbsaint, a bistro-style restaurant in the warehouse district. Susan has won many awards and accolades including Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chef Award, 1989; James Beard Award for Best Chef, Southeast Region, 1993; Restaurant & Institutions Ivy Award, 1996; and she was inducted into Food & Wine magazine’s Hall of Fame, 2008. Susan has written two cookbooks, her first, Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer’s New Orleans was released in October 2007 and her second book, Crescent City Cooking was nominated by the IACP for a Best Cookbook Award and was awarded Best Cookbook by New Orleans magazine.

• August 2010: Barbara Fenzl is a major figure in the American culinary stage. She is the owner of Les Gourmettes Cooking School in Phoenix , est. 1983, host of the 13-week PBS series Savor the Southwest, and host of Phoenix’s local PBS station’s last ten cooking-related pledge drives – A is for Appetizers, D is for Desserts, etc., and author of Southwest the Beautiful Cookbook (Collins San Francisco, 1994), Savor the Southwest. (Bay Books, 1999) and Seasonal Southwest Cooking (Northland Publishing, 2005). Barbara has served on numerous culinary boards including past president of International Association of Culinary Professional; benefactor and past board member of the American Institute of Wine & Food; past president of the Arizona chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier; and a past member of the James Beard Foundation Resturant Awards Committee.

• September 2010: Sara Moulton is one of the most trusted names in the food business. As the host of Cooking Live, Cooking Live Primetime, and Sara’s Secrets between 1996 and 2005, she was a founding Food Network personality. She’s been food editor for ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” since 1997. In the spring of 2008, she hosted Sara’s Weeknight Meals for Public Television. Sara was Gourmet magazine’s executive chef until the magazine shuttered in May 2009. She is the author of Sara Moulton Cooks at Home and her next cookbook Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals will be published by Simon & Schuster in September 2010.

• October 2010. Special guest chef Terry Walters is all about good health – body, mind, and soul. She is a holistic health counselor, food educator, and motivational speaker devoted to teaching people how to make healthy choices. Her book, Clean Food, is more than a cookbook. It is an encouraging, easy-to-understand guide to eating closer to the source and benefitting from the buying the best and fresh locally grown ingredients. For the past nine years, she’s been teaching people how to make delicious, healthy foods to nourish their families.

• November 2010: Grace Young is considered an authority on Chinese cooking. She is the author of Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge to be published May, 2010 (Simon & Schuster). Young’s cookbooks have won numerous awards including the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Le Cordon Bleu International Cookbook Award, the Jane Grigson Cookbook Award, and the World Food Media Award’s Best Food Book in Australia for The Breath of a Wok (Simon & Schuster, 20004). Young’s first book, The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen won the IACP International Cookbook Award. Young has been featured in the New York Times, on NPR’s All Things Considered and on the CBS Sunday Morning Show. She is a consulting editor for Saveur magazine and her work has appeared in Bon Appétit and Food & Wine magazines.

During a Culinary Experience week, guests are also treated to an organic garden tour and tea tasting, a cowboy breakfast on the shores of Lake Austin (seasonally), classes on the art of entertaining, remodeled recipes classes, wine seminars and cheese and olive oil tastings, to name a few.

ABOUT LAKE AUSTIN SPA RESORT

Nestled along the shores of scenic Lake Austin in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, Lake Austin Spa Resort offers guests the sanctuary of a world-class spa and the warmth of a best friend's lake house. Lake Austin Spa Resort offers all-inclusive vacation packages, which include accommodations in one of 40 charming lakeside guest rooms, three gourmet meals daily, indoor and outdoor fitness activities and classes, and a selection of spa and body treatments.

The resort has received numerous awards from prestigious national travel and spa magazines since its multi-million dollar renovation and expansion in 2004. Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Allure, the Zagat Survey, Health, Garden Design, SpaFinder Lifestyle, Spa Magazine and American Airlines' Celebrated Living magazine have recently honored Lake Austin Spa Resort as one of the best in the country and in the world.

For additional information and reservations, call 800-847-5637, or visit www.lakeaustin.com.

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