"Furck, furck, furck. Furck zis; furck zat. It's not ze way to cook," says the diminutive French chef in front of me. In one fist he holds a limp, freshly skinned rabbit carcass. In the other a long, sharp knife. I'm not about to disagree.
If there's one thing worse than my overconfident schoolboy French, it's my underconfident schoolboy cooking (read microwave meals). So I'd come here, to a Michelin-starred auberge in France's deep south, to tackle both of my betes noires simultaneously.
La Bastide de Moustiers may sound like the title of an Alexandre Dumas novel, but it's also the name of a boutique hotel and venerated restaurant, owned by one of France's most celebrated chefs, Alain Ducasse. One afternoon in 1994, the story goes, he was riding his motorbike through this part of rural Provence and spotted the 17th-century bastide (country house) "rising up out of the fields of lavender and olive trees". The property was for sale, and he instantly fell in love. His original plan, he admits, was to make it his own "safe haven" but, with commitments across the globe, he later decided to open it as a 12-bedroom guesthouse.
It seems ironic that I've picked somewhere so cosy to leave my comfort zone. For the duration of my crash course in gastronomy, I'm at the mercy of La Bastide's resident chef – and one of Ducasse's chief lieutenants – Christophe Martin.
First I'm issued with a crisp white chef's smock with gold, intertwined initials. I look like I mean business. Sadly, I have no idea what that business is. Or, indeed, what anyone around me is saying.
My tuition works in reverse: we're preparing the end of the evening meal first. I'm introduced to La Bastide's glamorous pastry chef, Martina, who shows me how to make the petits fours to be served with coffee. I mix pine nuts and raisins with flour and three carefully broken eggs, before piping the gourmand gloop into a cake tray and hefting it ovenwards.
To her credit, Martina is calm and patient with me, and we get along fine in stuttering Franglais. The experience couldn't be further from the Kitchen Nightmares scenario I'd pictured: all flaming pans and shrieking, flour-fingered psychopaths.
When the petits fours emerge, it's immediately obvious which were mine and which Martina's. Mine look like lopsided mountains after an avalanche. Martina laughs and says they're très bien. I'm not sure a Michelin Guide critic would agree. For the main course, I'm instructed by Christophe himself. My first job is dissecting the rabbit carcass he thrusts at me with one word: "Roger" – even my French is robust enough to know this is a joke. The task isn't as bad as it sounds: it's more clinical, as I learn how to extract the most meat with tactical chopping and slicing, starting around the spine.Christophe is an old friend of Ducasse and travels the world to supervise his best restaurants. "Wherever I put my suitcase, that's my home," he smiles. "And my suitcase is full of saucepans."
Learning one step removed from a maestro is an eye-opener. He always crushes a clove of garlic under his palm (faire claquer) rather than chopping it, and the skin is left on as it's tossed into the pot. I learn exactly which herbs to pick from the picturesque potager, or kitchen garden, to enhance flavour; not to mention how to core a carrot (which Christophe says should always be done, because the centre "tastes like wood"), and the finer points of difference between 14 types of basil. It's genuinely a great deal of fun in the sunny Provençal kitchen. Christophe is at pains to point out that this is the Ducasse way: the preparation of good food is something that should be both enjoyable and relaxing. Not "furking" stressful and confrontational, like some of Ducasse's more nightmarish celebrity contemporaries. His team of five chefs move sleekly about the kitchen like a school of fish in a fast-flowing stream – albeit a stream with a cumbersome lump of rosbif carelessly dropped into it. Lines of herbs hang from the homely ceiling like Christmas decorations, while old glass jars containing curious, exotic ingredients sit neatly on high shelves. Our rabbit stew is left to bubble away in big vats, and the kitchen current shifts as we move on to a starter of lamb ravioli. Again, Christophe passes on a number of tips, including his ardent assertion that summer savory is the best herb for lamb in any situation, never mint.
As we prepare the fresh pasta (my job is folding and sealing the ravioli), La Bastide's two full-time gardeners appear at the door with trays of fresh homage to the chef. It's snapped up, washed up, chopped up and dropped into pans around the kitchen, while the gardeners return with more bounty, bowing ever so slightly as they deliver it to the kitchen door. I suspect they killed Roger rabbit.
The potager, and the location in general, is stunning. The sun-drizzled courtyard is heavy with lavender and, once my work in the kitchen is done, I can practise my French by the heated pool and enjoy the stunning views down the hillside. There's a deep sense of peace and tranquility here; as if summer itself has somehow been captured in a glass jar, and the lid firmly sealed.
I feel a strange sense of pride that evening when, sitting in the small dining room, I watch paying customers order and eat both the lamb ravioli and the rabbit stew from the menu. It's not often you get to enter the home of a Michelin-starred chef, let alone learn to cook in it. You have a completely different appreciation of food, haute cuisine or otherwise, once you've been in a kitchen like this: the effort, the artistry, the preparation that goes into the delicate, complex flavours.
Having said that, I can still recognise my work – and cringe – when the petits fours are served to a table of businessmen.
What I've learnt from this little corner of paradis is more than just a few recipes and a sprinkling of French. It's the lesson that making good food doesn't need to be either stressful or a chore. My microwave meal days are over: that's not ze way to furking cook.
• The trip was provided by Kirker Holidays . Three nights at La Bastide de Moustiers from £799 per person, based on two sharing including breakfast, return flights to Marseille and car hire, booked through Kirker. The cooking class costs €150 per person and is only for one or two guests at a time.
