So East it's Ouest

Ducks are so nice.        I love ducks.      They      are  delicious.   S outhern France how I love your love of duck.  Foie gras (inh umane I kno w, a discussion for another time) , cuisse de canard confit, magret du canard, oscillicoccimum, parmentier au canard...etc etc.  The south west especially is known for their love of chicken's more classy and dignified (noisy) water cousin the duck or canard { kaa-nar} in French.  Try duck and you will taste the difference.  Duck has much more dark meat and a richer flavor and a much thicker layer of fat under their skin.  It also has to be cooked well in order to be nummy (or nummy nummy nummy), if it's overlooked it will be tough and chewy. In the southwest however they take duck to a whole 'nother level.  They feel that duck fat is healthy for you.  In fact they swear by it.  Say what?!  The people in...

Thankfully my mother in her wisdom decided to teach me how to cook, no matter how much I made a complete mess in the kitchen, ruined knives, or 'needed' to buy weird ingredients.  Real cooking, when you know how much a tablespoon of oregano is by putting it in the cup of your hand kind of cooking, and I learned to enjoy it too (maybe not when I'm starving or when I'm expected to, but I cook what I like to eat).  This has come in very handy because I am living with a family while the parents are away on vacation, so I have been looked upon as the chef de cuisine.  I've figured out that with the passing of time, just like in the US, the French have gotten away from the 'homemade' style of cooking and have moved toward Picard frozen meals, jarred ratatouille, and bags of frozen pre-sliced onions.  Which to me is sad because they have such an amazing cultural connection to good fresh food.  This is not saying that they do not appreciate good food but that they n...