THINK of asparagus dripping in butter, fat chilli-marinaded prawns, and chocolate panna cotta. Or eating pineapple carpaccio for breakfast? Doesn’t it conjure up some great pictures?

But how about if it’s all been cooked by the man in your life?

Wouldn’t that be something special?

I’ve spent the last few weeks in the south of France, in a small village called Cruzy in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. My friend Petra runs a cookery school there and I was giving her a hand. Last week’s course was for Men Only. The idea was to show men how to seduce by cooking sexy food, matched with the right wines in the right atmosphere.

We had three lovely Englishmen, from around the London area, for the week. All now retired, they had worked together for years in the construction business.

When they met up some time around last Christmas, they thought it would be a bit of fun to go away for a week or so together.

Organiser Malcolm trawled through the Internet and found Petra’s website and decided that learning how to cook sexy food was just the job. The other two, Guy and Brian, were quite happy to fall in with this suggestion.

Brian was a very eager student. He arrived in to the kitchen, bright and early, ready to cook delicious French toast with roasted peaches and toasted almonds for breakfast. And he made a very good job of it.

Guy turned out to be the cherry-stoner extraordinaire – Petra has a great little gadget that her grandmother gave her for taking the stones out of cherries.

Malcolm didn’t let his camera stray very far from his hands – he photographed the dishes being demonstrated every step of the way. Just so he could remember what they were supposed to look like, he said.

How long do you think it could take three blokes to walk two minutes down the road to the boulangerie and pick up a few croissants? Five minutes? Ten minutes?

The coffee was nearly cold by the time they strolled back, minus the croissants but with some gorgeous freshly-baked pain au chocolat. Or as they pronounce it in this region, peng au chocolat.

I reckon they were either chatting up the two ladies in the bakery with all their newfound knowledge of sexy food or were engaging the baker in conversation about the bread.

And as they had visited the bakery the previous morning to see how a boulangerie works behind the scenes, maybe this was it.

Petra’s friend Robert, from the nearly village of Mirepeisset, is a professional chef and he cooked a wonderful fresh tuna Catalan for dinner one of the evenings. Full of peppers and onions, this was simmered while the tuna seared on the pan.

We sat outside in the courtyard and happily consumed this, with carafes of red wine, followed by Irish coffees. It’s just as well most Irish people know exactly how to make this; we’re asked to do it all the time. But we had no problem – Petra always has a bottle or two of Paddy or Jameson in the cupboard.

On the lads’ last night, we made paella. Obviously a Spanish dish, it was full of chickens, prawns, mussels, saffron rice, and tomatoes – gorgeous. Chocolate fondant pudding was the icing on the cake for the boys. They went back home next day, delighted with themselves and with a folder of great recipes.

I’m already looking forward to another week in France later in the year.

Jeanne Quigley is Expatica Spain's blogger from Fuerte. Her fortnightly blogs will be published on alternate Fridays.

PS: A few weeks ago I wrote about finding a tomato plant in the back garden. When I got back from France this week, you can imagine my delight on finding some fat juicy tomatoes, growing happily. I’m very proud – it's the first food I’ve ever grown and eaten!