Nova Scotia Seafood Cooking School

Tropical Creole Cooking School, Costa Rica

Centers for Learning About Food & Ingredients

The Proprietors, Instructors, and Tour Leaders

The Founders of the Nova Scotia Seafood Cooking School, and the Tropical Creole Cooking School, Daniel G. Abel, Charles L. Leary, and Vaughn J. Perret have worked together as food-world entrepreneurs for over twelve years. They founded Chicory Farm in Louisiana's Washington Parish in 1990 to farm organic produce, specialty mushrooms, and European-style cheeses. Soon, Chicory Farm had become purveyor to numerous fine restaurants and specialty food stores throughout the United States. Their endeavors drew the attention of the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, New York Observer, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among many others. In 1996, the trio started the Chicory Farm Cafe in New Orleans's Uptown district, a restaurant that for three years helped re-define the culinary universe of the Crescent City, and earned accolades from Fodors, the James Beard Foundation, the TV Food Network, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. In 1998, they sold their Louisiana enterprises and moved to Nova Scotia, where they opened Trout Point Lodge. In 2002, they opened Hotel Hacienda Cerro Coyote and Tropical Creole Cooking School and started offering European culinary tours for small groups.

Abel, Leary, and Perret, along with guest chefs and local food experts, lead all Food Learning Vacations. They are the authors of the forthcoming Trout Point Lodge Cookbook.

DANIEL G. ABEL was born and raised in south Louisiana. He received his B.A. in history and M.A. summa cum laude in English literature from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, studied for two years at the elite Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, and earned a law degree from Loyola University. A prominent New Orleans attorney, Mr. Abel has worked on numerous complex litigations throughout the country and the world. He teaches on the skills faculty of Loyola University Law School, and is the co-author, with Peter Harry Brown, of a forthcoming book on gun control issues to be published by Simon & Schuster.

Mr. Abel has also maintained a lifelong interest in food and cooking. At a young age he began working in Cajun restaurant kitchens like Thelma's of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. He then moved to New Orleans, where he managed jazz musician Al Hirt's Cafe St. Cecile, and later served as Proprietor and Executive Chef of the Chicory Farm Cafe. Mr. Abel has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, also having lived in Puerto Rico for many years. Under his management the Chicory Farm Cafe received recommendations from Fodor's, the Los Angles Times Magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and Zagat's, and received an invitation to the James Beard House in New York. He currently directs the Nova Scotia Seafood Cooking School and is a Managing Director of Trout Point Lodge.

VAUGHN J. PERRET, a New Orleans native, earned a BA in history from Loyola University and an MA in cultural anthropology from Tulane University before receiving his JD from Cornell. He grew up on Creole cooking and Louisiana seafood, and later lived in Paris.

At Chicory Farm, Mr. Perret established a mushroom cultivation laboratory and growing operation, and oversaw an extensive market garden certified organic by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture. An expert in wild edible foods, Mr. Perret is past Vice President of the Gulf States Mycological Society, and participated in the historic wild mushroom research expedition in Morocco with noted mycologists Rolph Singer and Gary Lincoff in 1993. He has consulted with the French agricultural research station at Bordeaux on specialty mushroom cultivation. Mr. Perret also directed cheese development and affinage at the Chicory Farm Creamery. In 1994, he received a Small Business Innovative Research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for work on alternative crop cultivation technologies. This grant and another one on dairy sheep production in 1995 directed by Dr. Leary resulted in Chicory Farm receiving the first annual Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration, a national honor.

From 1995 until 1998, Mr. Perret oversaw concept and menu development for the Chicory Farm Cafe, and along with his two partners worked as founding vendor at the New Orleans and Baton Rouge farmer's markets. In addition, he has acted as an advisor on wild edible mushroom collection and cookery to a number of New Orleans chefs. Like his partners, he is among only a handful of Americans inducted into the prestigious French Guilde des fromagers, based in Dijon. Mr. Perret specializes in seafood cookery and wild foods, and has lectured on cooking at venues such as Longue Vue Gardens and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

CHARLES L. LEARY holds an AB degree, magna cum laude, with high honors and distinction in history, from Kenyon College, and MA and PhD degrees in modern Chinese history from Cornell University. He has taught on the adjunct faculty at Tulane University and was a research fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and at Newcomb College’s Center for Research on Women.

He has lived in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and has a special love of and expertise in Chinese cuisine. Born in Oregon, he has also lived in various parts of the U.S. From 1990 until 1998 he served as co-proprietor of Chicory Farm, where he produced European-style, raw-milk cheeses and marketed them to chefs around the United States, while also assisting in mushroom & organic produce cultivation. Under Dr. Leary’s guidance, Chicory Farm acted as a purveyor to New Orleans' prominent restaurants including Commander's Palace, Emeril's, the Grill Room, Bella Luna, Brigsten's, Andrea’s, Peristyle, and NOLA, and also to restaurants across the country like Everest (Chicago), An American Place, Picholine, Le Bernardin, and Gramercy Tavern (New York), and the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton (San Francisco). With his direction, Chicory Farm cheeses received accolades and recommendations from the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, & the TV Food Network, and were served at the Mobil 5-Diamond Chef's Awards in Atlanta in 1997 and at the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. Chicory Farm's soft-bodied, washed-rind Catahoula cheese, developed by Dr. Leary and Vaughn Perret, received praised as the best American cheese in a New York Times interview with Maitre fromager Max McCallman, co-author of The Cheese Course.

He has researched cheese production in France's Loire Valley under the auspices of ITOVIC, and also at the Washington State University Creamery. In addition to East Asia, Dr. Leary has traveled extensively in Mexico, Central and South America, and Western Europe. Dr. Leary oversaw cheesemaking at La Ferme d'Acadie, and along with Vaughn Perret directs the kitchen at Trout Point Lodge. He has written on numerous occasions for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and also for Fine Cooking, American Way, Republican China, and recipes for Louisiana Cookin’ and Food & Wine.

The 1996 Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration