A Gascon Year

A Gascon Year: Février is the second in a series of twelve seasonal cookbooks featuring food and stories as warm and comforting as a hot supper cooked in an old French Farmhouse. Kate Hill, writer, cook and teacher, entices the reader into her life in Southwest France as she shares the regional and delicious recipes of Gascony. Along with trucs and tips, this beautiful book offers generous instruction on all things duck: how to shop a farmers market for winter food; roast a duck; braise a duck; prepare duck confit; preserve foie gras; make rillettes and cracklings; bake with duck eggs and duck fat. Each of these monthly cahiers de cuisine or kitchen notebooks is built on seasonal inspiration and instruction with personal essays, recipes, and photographs that are timeless. Easy to follow recipes for aperitifs and soups, main courses, and desserts fill these delectable volumes. A Gascon Year: Février introduces the reader to Kate Hill Cooks, the online teaching courses at Kitchen-at-Camont.com and all the good food she creates within its 18th century stone walls for her students around the globe. Included in February's volume are a baker's dozen of authentic recipes for: Roast Duck with Shallots and Concord Grapes; Wine-Braised Duck Legs with Agen Prunes; Duck Fat Polenta with Duck skin Fritons; preparing and canning confit de canard; rillettes; Magret Séché (or Duck Bacon); Poultry Bouillon; Parmentier de Canard; Pain d'Épice (spice cake); Quatre-Quarts (French Pound Cake) and Cornmeal Duck Lard Cookies.