Gourmet Vacation at Panamonte Inn & Spa: with Chef Charlie Collins
by Asia Sherman ~ Panama 9º 80º
You may not be able to duplicate Chef Charlie Collins’s award-winning cuisine, but now you can spend a gourmet weekend in the kitchen with one of Panama’s best-known chefs. Charlie Collins is warm and humble despite his accomplishments on Panama’s culinary scene, achievements that include one of Panama’s finest restaurants and the choice catering company for Presidential banquets. He insists that you call him Charlie and immediately makes you feel at home with his easy manner. We are sitting on overstuffed couches in the lounge of the historic Panamonte Inn, which has been in Charlie’s family since his grandfather purchased the property in 1946. We’re joining a long list of notable Panamonte guests including Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Richard Nixon, the Shah of Iran, Sean Connery and Ingrid Bergman. Sipping the special sweet orange house cocktails, we taste cassava turnovers filled with blue cheese and smoked meats as Charlie welcomes us to our Gourmet Weekend, which begins with a six-course tasting menu fireside.
“Tonight we will be having cuisine and foods from the terroir,” he says. Charlie’s terroir is the fertile region of the Boquete valley in the western province of Chiriqui. Also referred to as Panama’s breadbasket, the valley is known for its flowers, coffee, fruits, and vegetables that flourish in the rich volcanic soil watered by daily rain showers. Charlie takes his students to the local market and a hydroponic farm to collect the staples for his cooking classes from a selection of avocados, papayas, oranges, strawberries and over 15 varieties of lettuce. He is also cultivating his own herb garden.
After our cocktails and appetizers, we gather around a table and sample pumpkin soup with chunks of lobster, herbed clams, homemade gnocchi, seared grouper, and tree tomatoes with local farm cheese. Each course is paired with Argentinian and Chilean wines.
Warmed by food and drink and good conversation, we retire to our Garden Terrace Suite. Although we have come primarily for the culinary experience, we can’t help but delight in the cushy comforts of our ample accommodations.
The next morning, after a countrystyle breakfast of homemade bread and jams, freshly squeezed strawberry and orange juices and plates of fluffy scrambled eggs, we venture off to tour a local coffee plantation. Our guide explains in detail the 16 steps in the Café Ruiz production process from handpicking the coffee fruits to sorting and packing the beans.
“A cool evening sets in, and a chorus of frogs and birds drifts in through the open windows. Charlie, dressed in a sharp chef’s jacket, stands behind the island demonstration station with his preferred Swedish whisk in hand.”
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We return to the Panamonte for a lunch of smoked river trout followed by a stroll through the village, stopping in artsy shops along Main Street. And then, it’s time for cooking school. Up a mountain road from the hotel, we pull off into the driveway of a perfectly pastoral farmhouse on the Ruiz family’s La Realidad farm. The structure dates back to the early 20th century but has just recently been remodeled to lodge the cooking school Charlie has always wanted. “I think that as chefs we have a responsibility to pass on our culinary knowledge and promote culinary arts to the new generation of cooks,” he says. “With the big culinary movement happening around the world, this is important.” Inside, a kitchen accented with painted woods opens to a comfortable sitting area. Behind the counter, in the prep section, kitchen assistants are already busy dicing and slicing squash, zucchinis, tomatoes, onions, fresh herbs and garlic.
Off the kitchen is the dining room where copper skillets hang above a wood-burning stove. A wrought iron chandelier illuminates an elegant table already set with brightly colored ceramic plates, candlesticks and miniature pumpkins. For the next three hours, our class will be tailored to a group of Boquete resident gastronomes, who have come to discover the secrets behind the Panamonte’s menu. Groups are kept small, but ours is assorted - a German, an Australian, an Englishman, a Canadian, a sprinkling of Americans, and a Chef of Swedish descent.
Charlie adapts classes depending on the group, with courses focused on cooking with local ingredients as well as more ethnic cuisine offerings. Sessions can be hands-on or demonstration for those not wanting to get their hands dirty. On this particular night, Charlie is showing us how to prepare ceviche, mussel soufflé, rack of lamb, ratatouille and strawberry-rhubarb crisp – classic dishes reinvented with our chef’s New Panamanian Cuisine twist.
A cool evening sets in, and a chorus of frogs and birds drifts in through the open windows. Charlie, dressed in a sharp chef’s jacket, stands behind the island demonstration station with his preferred Swedish whisk in hand. Ratatouille, with Charlie’s special addition of fresh corn off the cob, is slow cooking in a Dutch oven next to a sauté pan simmering with butter, cream and garlic destined for a bowl of white wine-steamed mussels.
Wearing souvenir Charlie Collins Cooking School aprons, the students sit along a bar facing him. He has already shown us how to make a Corvina ceviche in a bowl coated with spicy Scotch Bonnet pepper brought to Panama by the Afro-Antilleans from the Caribbean islands. We learn that the fish must be ice cold so that it does not shred when cut and that the lemon must be softly squeezed. Rinsing the ceviche in water eliminates the strong flavor of the red onion. Leche de tigre, as the lemon juice marinade is called, is an aphrodisiac he warns us. The leche de tigre “cooks” the fish fully in three hours. Ours is served in a shot glass and drizzled with olive oil after a more modern 20-minute marinade. This fresher sashimi-like preparation is accompanied by a glass of Australian white as Charlie sets up for the main course – Chilean Rack of Lamb. The racks are Frenched – bones cleaned leaving just a small about of fat – before pan-searing them a golden brown. They are then dipped in mustard and rolled in breadcrumbs to prepare them for their oven finish. Between glasses of white wine, students chattily take the opportunity to ask all of the questions they have had.
What is clarified butter?
What is the difference between kosher salt and sea salt?
How is Sancocho, Panama’s national chicken soup, made?
Charlie Collins has 3 and 4-day culinary experiences available at Panamonte.The ratatouille is sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, and fluffy egg whites and basil are folded into the mussel soufflé’s white sauce, before joining the lamb chops in the oven. Dessert is simple and easily prepared, a crisp that relies on the sweetness of fresh-picked strawberries and rhubarb from the former Panamonte gardener’s private stash. Charlie says he is still working on getting the gardener to give him his own plant, but for now is happy with the regular deliveries of the rare rhubarb. With everything in the oven, we sit down to airy mussel soufflé, our entrée to a lively gourmet dinner party. We may not have learned all of Charlie’s secrets, but we got a good look at how he incorporates his terroir’s ingredients into one of the finest meals any of us has had in a long time.
Tel: +507 720 1324
Email: reservation@panamonte.com
Website: www.chefcharliecollins.com
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