Although an American, I am thrilled to call Provence my home. I arrived in France in 2002 as a trip leader with Backroads, a great biking and walking company. I ended up marrying a fellow trip leader in 2004 and our son was born in Provence in 2008.  I am elated to continue working in my adopted Provence as a VillaHost with A Season Away, while bringing up our son in a beautiful bilingual environment.
 
One of the many things that Provence has taught me over the years is the art of doing “nothing.”  As we all know, “nothing” now refers to absolute relaxation, turning off the mental noise, turning on our senses, going back to bed after breakfast or walking barefoot through the grass, reading a simple novel in a hammock under the tree, limiting the overwhelming choices, escaping.  Provence exalts and admires this activity.  In fact, most shop-owners even go home between noon and 3pm in order to do precisely this: “nothing, oh glorious nothing.”
 
Alongside doing “nothing,” Provence has put me in the garden, at the market, and in the kitchen.  It sticks my nose in fresh, crisp, buttery happiness every day.  Living and working here has helped me to love good food all the way along its life cycle: from gathering to preparing to sharing.  The best way to do “something” every day is to go in search of the source of your favorite food: a goat cheese farm near Saignon, fields of yellow rapeseed near Murs, small wineries offering tastings of their Cotes du Luberon, the olive oil mill near St. Pantaleon, the auberge in Buoux, fresh cherries in the orchards in May, melons in the markets in July, and figs falling off the trees in September.
 
I am very much looking forward to sharing all of this with you as a guest of A Season Away