Foie Gras at the Mill House + Free Women’s Fiction Reads

Dear Readers of Taste, Chers Lecteurs du Goût,

December always makes me think of the mill house, La Belle Gasconne, in southwest France.

There’s a stone terrace where the Gélise River moves quietly past, a copper-filled kitchen that smells like onions softening in butter, and where Chef Marie-Claude Gracia believes in only one thing when it comes to ingredients:

“Il n’y a que la perfection.”

There is only perfection.

Years ago, my family and I returned there to cook with her at her auberge, La Belle Gasconne. We piled into tiny cars, chased lettuces and foie gras through the streets of Nérac, and watched Marie-Claude choose courgettes and salad greens with the kind of focus usually reserved for rare jewels.

My oldest son, Erick, worked quietly at her side.

A young photographer trailed us with her camera, catching the moments I was too busy feeling to see.

That day, in that kitchen, something in me clicked into place: the sense that recipes, landscapes, and people could braid themselves into one story.

Years later, that mill house and that chef would transform into Aurélie and her kitchen in my novel The Mistress of Apples and Bécasse.

A little December gift: free women’s fiction reads

This month, I’ve joined a Women’s Fiction With a Love Theme promotion on BookFunnel.

A circle of women’s fiction authors (including me!) are offering free ebooks for a limited time—stories about love in all its forms: romantic love, family love, second chances, and the courage to begin again.

My novel The Mistress of Apples and Bécasse is part of this collection. It’s a France-kissed story of a food stylist named Miel, an auberge haunted by memory, and a secret society that begins (of course) in the kitchen.

👉 Browse the promo and download your free reads here:

Free December Reads

Recette: Fruits vinaigrés à la caramélise (from The Mistress of Apples and Bécasse)

Because no visit to a Gascon kitchen is complete without something warm from the pan, here’s a favorite recette pulled straight from the pages of the novel. In Aurélie’s world, this dish appears as a quiet showstopper: simple fruit kissed with vinegar and caramel, spooned over everything from foie gras to vanilla ice cream.

Marie‑Claude’s Recette : Vinaigre des Fruits (Fruit Vinegar) 🫐

In her own words…

“Homemade fruit vinegar is a decoction of aged red wine vinegar, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, cane sugar, salt and pepper, which I reduce well, accompanied by ‘sacrificed’ fruits to give their taste to the vinegar.

I make thus, over the seasons: strawberry vinegar, cherry vinegar, néracais melon vinegar, ente plum vinegar, chasselas vinegar, and pear vinegar.

After reduction, when the liquid is at the desired consistency, I strain the vinegar and the hot fruits, and I poach: in the strawberry vinegar, the strawberries for a second; in the cherry vinegar, the cherries for 1 minute, etc. I then store them in stoneware or glass jars, and I draw from them as desired.

I even manage to make a sweet “cuddle” with the bigarreau cherries that I let ‘candy’ well — it almost looks like jam, it’s delicious.

Besides the cherry, plum, melon and chasselas (grape) vinegars are my favorites, and when I prepare them, I can’t resist biting into a few candied fruits in this delicious vinegar!

And this very hot fruit vinegar on hot pan‑fried foie gras gently spices my salad. The slight acidity balances out the richness of the hot foie gras.”

Want to read the full mill house story?

If you’d like to slip deeper into the real-life inspiration behind Aurélie and the mill house, I wrote a new Whispering Kitchen story on Substack about that 2006 visit to La Belle Gasconne—stick-shift adventures, lettuces in the wrong trunk, foie gras, and all.

👉 Read “Foie Gras at the Mill House” here:

Go to Dorette’s Substack

And if you download The Mistress of Apples and Bécasse through the BookFunnel promo—or make these fruits vinaigrés à la caramélise—I’d love to hear how it all lands in your own kitchen.

With warmth from mine to yours,

Dorette