Captain, cook, and writer Kate Hill changes hats as often as needed to combine the pleasures and challenges of living on a canal barge and running a private cooking school in Southwest France. Kate honed her recipe-gathering skills as she traveled extensively through Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean by land and water. The historic Julia Hoyt became her home and floating “one-table-restaurant and two-room-hotel” in 1986. For over a dozen years Kate has chartered the Julia Hoyt along the Canal de Deux Mers in Southwest France, serving up fine food and adventure to contented clients.

In 1991, she started European Culinary Adventures, a land-based cook’s tour of regional cuisine and culture, to introduce eager cooking students to distinctive European culinary destinations. Kate has since opened the French Kitchen Cooking School at “Camont,” a 200-year-old restored Gascon pigeonnier perched on the towpath near Agen.

She is the author of A Culinary Adventure in Gascony: Recipes and Stories from My French Canal Boat (Ten Speed Press). When not touring, teaching, or cooking Kate writes mystery stories based on her life as a barge captain.

Michael Huber, chef/educator/matelot, has taught five years at the Academy of Culinary Arts in Mays Landing, New Jersey. A graduate of the Restaurant School, Philadelphia, PA, Michael has cooked extensively in France, including studying at La Varenne, Paris; working with Jean Michel Bouvier at his Michelin one-star, L’Essential, Chambery; and working as a private chef on barges, yachts and in villas in the sunny south. Dubbed “The Cranky Chef” for his seriously dry wit and quirky humor, Chef Huber writes a monthly and quarterly column and contributes to a weekly radio program for Ed Hitzel’s food and beverage industry publications.

Awarded an IACP Scholarship to the Greenbrier’s Professional Food Writing Symposium, March 2000, Huber keeps one eye on the funny side as he seriously cooks the good food he finds in France Profonde. When not living in Ventnor NJ, walking the boardwalk, drinking champagne, or dusting his cookbooks, he is an accomplished towpath walker and keeps Dupont, the barge dog, in shape.

Yvette “Vétou” Pompele has lived her entire life within the high flood mark of the Garonne River. Learning to cook first as a young bride and later as an eager amateur, Vétou later became owner-chef at Chez Vétou, a canal-side creperie-café. An effervescent and lively companion, Vétou draws on a natural and highly developed palette to infuse her authentic regional French dishes with care and style.

Whether cooking for family and friends in the tiny Garonne River Valley village where she lives, adding a note of authenticity to the French Kitchen Cooking School, or singing away in the bistro-galley of the Julia Hoyt as her signature Poule-au-Pot simmers, Madame Pompele dispenses kitchen philosophy and wisdom in French as she ladles the herb-steeped broth into each waiting dish. Her own love of La France Profonde is captured in her delicately perfumed cooking.

Born of a Griffon father—a noble French hunting dog—and a Labrador mother who had, as Vétou would say, “une vie agitee,” Dupont and his brother Dupond, were left to their own devices at the tender age of two months. Rescued by the SPA, he and Kate Hill found one another six months later. Brother Dupond had already been adopted into a good French home, and the adventurous soul of Dupont willingly signed up for barge duty on the Julia Hoyt in 1998, just in time for Christmas.

He is mad about ducks, mad at swans, and is a willing walking companion on any towpath in Europe. Dupont learned to swim last year and now joins the Julia Hoyt cocktail swim team at various evening moorings in the Long Village. His winning personality endears him to most everyone and his rust-edged whiskers have inspired many a Frenchwoman to remark, “quel beau moustache, mon toutou!”

Julia Hoyt, a 19th-century Dutch tjalk, was originally built to haul cargo—a floating big rig. The 85-foot, 65-ton steel-hulled vessel navigated the canals and seas of Europe for over a hundred years. Refurbished in 1986 as Kate Hill’s floating home, the Julia Hoyt is still a working vessel—discovering the regional cuisine, culture and stories along the canals and rivers of three countries.

Built when people traveled for discovery, not speed, the Julia Hoyt is a cocoon of simple luxury—sturdy, stable and comfortable. Two guest cabins are outfitted with queen-sized beds and full private baths. The crew shares two additional cabins and bath. Her picture window saloon, Kate’s bistro-galley, a flower-garden deck and wheelhouse lounge provide the perfect environment from which to discover “The Long Village.”