La Pitchoune: Cooking in France

After much uncertainty, the Courageous Cooking school at Julia Child's cottage in France is back with a new group of students. Makenna Held and her husband, Chris, run the recipe-free school with executive chef Kendall Lane and her husband, Ross.

Makenna and her team welcome retired nurses, an engineer, busy parenting expert and a perfectionist who are pushed out of their culinary comfort zones to learn recipe-free cooking. Follow their journeys as they learn cooking freedom.

Makenna and the team invite Chris's mother and 94-year-old grandmother to celebrate his 40th birthday and take cooking classes at the school along with other new students. As his Grammy says, you're never too old to learn.

Makenna and Kendall highlight hyperlocal Provence ingredients. Meanwhile, students with a wide range of skills -- from a complete novice to a cookbook author -- prove to be a challenge. And Chris identifies a kitchen gadget that dates back to the 1950s.

Makenna and Kendall reinvent a menu created for Julia Child by her business partner, Simone Beck. Then they task Level 2 students with making the dishes for a dinner party celebrating a special guest and what would be Simone's 118th birthday.

School is almost over as Makenna teaches guests how to use seasonal ingredients from nearby local farms, while she and her team help a former chef find joy in cooking again, and teach a couple how to work together in the kitchen.

During this last cooking class of the season, Makenna and Kendall experiment with new classes for a group of entrepreneurs. The guests learn how to hunt for truffles, while Kendall closes up Julia's kitchen for the summer.