A Gascon Year: Novembre continues Kate Hill’s 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. AGY: Novembre is a simple approach to the Autumn Gascon kitchen. Within this issue, you’ll find some of her favorite recipes and a few stories that paint the picture of November over the years. In her words: Claude always said... “Si il y a du brouillard en Novembre, il y a Noël en Décembre.” The beginnings of any month offer a litany of dictons or proverbs, in French as well as English. So while April Showers and May Flowers announce Spring, November straddles that Autumn to Winter mode and the arrival of the Garonne River Valley. When my dear friend Claude Pompèle announced that “If there is fog in November, there is Christmas in December” he was reminding me that every November there are foggy days as soon as the nights get clear and cold enough while the still warm river runs through the valley. This white misty veil hangs across many November days and draws us in closer to hearths and kitchens. It’s not just romantic clichés but the reality of warming the stone and brick houses, the terracotta floors, and the spirit that will hibernate a bit longer throughout the winter. Typically my kitchen is full of simmering pots of beans for countless cassoulets, roasting pumpkins in hot ovens, while the gentle burble of duck legs and wings are preserved as Confit du Canard in their golden fat. Looking at these many recipes for beans and duck, sausage and pork, I see how much I am drawn to the details that declare cassoulet the recipe of the November: the cassoles or terracotta pots we cook in; the diversity of beans and charcuterie; and the barely sweet fruit and cheese desserts to finish the meal. A la Sainte Catherine, to