Sponsored by Regina's Kitchen
Chef Regina Charboneau thinks that when you do something you love, the venture’s more successful. She would know—in the ‘90s, she built a blues club in San Francisco called Biscuits and Blues, and she’s authored cookbooks entwined with history. These days, she has a full schedule with her small plates bar, King’s Tavern; her namesake rum made at her husband and son’s Charboneau Distillery; the bed and breakfast she operates at Twin Oaks; and her in-home cooking class weekends. She does a lot of what she loves.
And her new cooking school, Regina’s Kitchen, is proof that she hasn’t yet done enough. “What I tried to do when I came back to Natchez is create things that are missing in my life,” said Charboneau. “I create things that need to be here; things to bring visitors to Natchez.”
Charboneau, whose flaky biscuit recipe is known not just in Mississippi, but ‘round the world, felt that her biscuit method needed to be a little more accessible for folks in Natchez. A cooking school that offers daily biscuit classes for $25 was a natural fit for that need, she said.
Because things come best in threes, Regina’s Kitchen offers more than cooking classes—she added a wine bar called Rind & Vine, combined with an épicerie, plus a retail section, so visitors can pop in for a forty-five-minute biscuit class, try one of nine wine flights (she’s named them with a sense of humor, such as Naughty Napa, and Pinot Envy), and pick up one of her cookbooks and some biscuit mix to practice with at home. “When people travel, they like experiences,” said Charboneau.
Though this is her first official cooking school, Charboneau is no newcomer to teaching people how to cook. Her biscuit recipe is not a secret—it’s made New York Times Cooking, and she graced the pages of The Atlantic as a Southern chef columnist. For years, she’s offered entire weekends of cooking classes in her own home, where groups come and spend several days eating with and learning from the master herself. “It was a way to stay at home with the boys when they were little. That was the reasoning, but I loved it,” she said of her in-home classes. “I loved having people in my home and I loved teaching them.”
While daily biscuit classes are definitely a focus of Regina’s Kitchen, she offers other courses, too. Visitors can reserve spots for a hands-on, three-course dinner class on Tuesdays; a Wednesday Wine & Cheese class; a Southern Cocktail Party on Fridays; Brunch and Biscuits class on Saturday, and Southern Sunday Suppers to round out the week. She’s also planning a Southern Food Festival involving lots of weekend cooking and tasting events in August. “I love taking the fear out of cooking for people,” Charboneau added, “because it’s not that hard. People try to make it harder than it is, and I make it easier. It doesn’t have to be difficult.”
If you go:
Pop in for a complimentary cheese tasting on Wednesdays, from 5:30pm 'til 6pm. Reserve your spot at Regina’s Kitchen for a biscuit class, or any of her other weekly classes, at reginaskitchen.com.
More information on Regina’s Southern Food Festival cooking demo and wine tasting events throughout August can also be found at reginaskitchen.com.
On August 3, join Regina and a visiting chef friend at Ravenna for an all-inclusive wine dinner ($125 per person) as part of Natchez Pilgrimage’s Southern Saturdays Sizzling Chef Series. Find the latest on this event at natchezpilgrimage.com.
Regina’s Kitchen
312 Main Street
Natchez, Miss.
(601) 392-1756
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