Paso Robles is filled with stories of people who came here on vacation, fell in love with the area and relocated. Brigit Binns is a transplant with a rather interesting story to tell - she makes a mean set of oysters, can teach you how to make cheese or butcher meat and is married to arguably the most interesting man in the wine world. She's living happily in Paso Robles and is putting out a Central Coast cookbook soon.
TravelPaso: First, I have to say thanks so much for submitting monthly recipes to our blog, they are very popular and look delicious. Secondly, please accept our apologies for not getting your cooking classes up on our website before a major national news outlet mentioned them last week! The journalists claimed to know you, is that right?
Brigit Binns: It’s funny—I met Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen about 8 years ago at a dinner party in New York City, during one of those many periods when I was trying to get back to my native state of California. When they came to research their Huffington Post article, I was out of town, selling our house in upstate New York so I could spend more time in Paso.
TP: So you are planning to give up the East Coast and call Paso home full time?
BB: Well, I first leased a house in Paso in spring of ’10, so I’ve been back and forth—mostly here—for about three years. It seems like I’ve spent most of my life moving away from California, and then trying to get back, but that’s not going to happen anymore. After writing twenty-six cookbooks (many of them for Williams-Sonoma) and editing countless others, my goal is to settle down in a place I love (here), and teach cooking classes among the gnarled oaks and towering eucalyptus trees. But a lot of things had to fall into place before I could start the classes.
TP: It sounds like you are embracing the change with gusto by sharing your joy of cooking with the rest of us.
BB: I’d like to! To that end, I’ve created a new venue to learn about (and enjoy) cooking, entertaining, and award-winning wines: Refugio. The next class is Fermentation and Bread Making on April 14th at 4:00 p.m.
TP: That sounds interesting, as do the rest of the classes you have planned. Tell us about the name Refugio.
BB: I chose the name because as a kid, I was lucky enough to spend summers and holidays on the Hollister Ranch (my mom was an extended member of the family). We used to swim at Refugio beach and hike in Refugio canyon. That ranch symbolizes everything I loved about the old California, but I believe that place no longer exists anywhere else in this great state except right around here. And this place really does feel like a refuge to me.
So here I am.
TP: It’s great to have you in town. Any other exciting things in the works?
BB: I’m still writing cookbooks (see The New Wine Country Cookbook: Recipes from California’s Central Coast, coming to major book outlets May 7, but available at the new AndBe boutique on the square in downtown Paso on about April 15). And my next project is to convince my husband to spend more time here. He’s still got a great teaching job in New York City—but I can tell he’s leaning towards being here full-time. And it’s going to be a great summer…. His name is Casey Biggs, but you may know him as “Paso Wine Man.” Yep. I’m the real wife.
Brigit Binns is the author or co-author of numerous best-selling cookbooks, many of them for Williams-Sonoma. Although she has lived, cooked, and celebrated the pleasures of the table from New York to London to Southern Spain—and throughout the Mediterranean—her heart always remained true to her home state of California. All Refugio classes take place in her beautiful outdoor kitchen in Paso Robles.
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