Tournant Open fire cooking retreat in Istria, Croatia

I met Mona and Jaret, American Chefs behind the brand Tournant, two years ago at the Food photography & styling workshop by Eva Kosmas Flores, a renowned American food photographer, cookbook author, a blogger at Adventures in Cooking and now a dear friend of mine. You can check out my blog posts about those workshops here (for year 2017) and here (for year 2018).

There are those people that instantly change something within you, when you meet them there is an immediate connection and you feel like you’ve known them forever. People that inspire you, bring something incredibly positive and powerful into your life, you feel like you want to absorb as much as possible everything they share with you, their wisdom, friendship, creativity, kindness and love. Mona and Jaret are those people. I feel very grateful to have met them and connected with them both privately as friends and professionally at their first International cooking retreat held this Autumn in beautiful Croatian region of Istria, famous for its lush green hills, truffles, wine and olive oil, picturesque little hilltop towns and much more…

It was such a pleasure to work with them on this exciting project, helping in organization, capturing all those special moments with my camera and being kind of a local travel guide as well. Hope my photos can take you on this little journey where there will be delicious food prepared over open fire, cobbled streets of charming little towns, pretty details of Autumn in Istria, cute truffle hunting dogs and some very happy people that gathered to share this experience and create something beautiful together…

We were staying in a beautiful stone villa called Luigi & Luisa that is situated on a hill above tiny little village called Livade in an area rich with lush forest, green meadows, little hills where olive trees grow. Magical place and perfect for a creative retreat like this. The nature and the mood of the region is just so inspiring, specially in Autumn and let me tell you, often I had to force myself to stop taking photos as there were other things to do as well lol! 😀

Our days would start with all of us gathering for breakfast (ok, I had something to do with preparing that breakfast too haha) around long rustic wooden table and feeling of excitement for what the day will bring. Every day we went on a little trip after breakfast, like to charming little hilltop towns Motovun and Groznjan or colourful  and pretty seaside town Novigrad or to the forest to do some truffle hunting but more on that a bit later…

After walking, exploring and photographing around this part of Istria, we would have lunch somewhere with  a breathtaking view and after lunch slowly made our way back to our little hill and our gorgeous home for those 5 days. Afternoons were when the magic would start happening! Mona and Jaret would start a fire and the cooking could begin…

Watching them work and learning from them was such a special experience, you can tell from the first moment you participate in their cooking process just how much they love their job, how passionate they are about using fresh seasonal ingredients in their cooking being inspired by all the beautiful produce that is in season at the moment. So, we learned, cooked, had fun, took hundreds of photos, had delicious snacks and some wine too along the way…

One of my favourite little trips was going truffle hunting with Karlic tartufi and their adorable dogs Lela and Candy and spending the morning in the forest walking, having fun and watching these cute truffle hunters do their job. So much fun! We also had incredibly delicious brunch there, I’m talking delicious frittata with a mountain of truffles and Parmesan cheese, little bites with different truffle spreads, amazing cheeses with honey and jam and probably my favourite, warm fritters filled with dark and white chocolate spread with truffles, so good!

I’ve been lucky to go truffle hunting with them for the last 3 years every Autumn as we did that as well at Eva’s Food photography workshops where I worked previous two years. I must admit Lela is my favourite, she is 16 years old truffle hunter and very much loved by her family. I find her so elegant, proud and incredibly beautiful, hope this portrait shows her personality well..

Time flies when you are having fun (and when you love your job!) so the last day arrived and Mona and Jaret prepared a feast with so many delicious veggies, they know how to let even the simple cabbage or cauliflower shines and manage to convert some people who never eat vegetables haha! Everybody loved the food and gathering around our magical little table on the meadow near the forest to share stories, food and wine. Later we gathered around the open fire and talked and laughed till late in the evening… There may have been some gin & tonic involved but let’s leave it at that! 😀

So here are some more photos from that last evening of the retreat. I hope you enjoyed the story and the photos and maybe it inspired you to participate in one of these future workshops or attend something similar, whatever can fill you up with some creativity, positive energy and offer you a different and special life experience creating beautiful memories...

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