Chateau, Jardin, Cuisine highlights some of the exquisite dishes of this southern region of France, where Mediterranean traditions combine with the nourishing recipes from its northern plateau. Famous for goats cheese and chestnuts, the cuisine of the Ardeche evokes memories of stony fields, rugged castles, remote farms and old stone houses, a mountainous land with rivers full of eels, wild trout in rock pools, where autumn brings an abundance of game, wine and mushrooms. Yet nature has also dealt the Ardeche a difficult hand: the stony and dry soil as well as the steep terrain divided into countless small terraces make farming and cooking with the produce a true labour of love - as is this book.

After a PhD in Political Theory at the London School of Economics Regina von Planta worked in Investment Management. Through a film series, directed by her husband, she discovered the Ardeche and, for a while, the family settled there on a small farm. She started to create a garden on the derelict land and discovered what skills are required to grow beautiful plants but also good produce on the relatively poor soil and small terraces. Her interest became a passion and she decided to write about the people and the delicious food they produce in this hidden part of the South of France.