24 of us made an early start for the Association's visit to Samatan in the Gers. If you remember we did the same trip last year to buy foie gras. We'd left sunshine only to find very wet and cold weather when we arrived for lunch at a gîte in the countryside. When we saw only 4 half litre carafes of wine on the table things didn't look too promising but they ended up ok. In the afternoon we occupied ourselves with a visit to a nearby chateau where we shown around by the owner. A 
lovely place in need of repair set in lovely grounds carpeted with wild cyclamen. There were photos of the chatelaine with the Queen Mum who had come to tea at some point. The place was obviously too draughty for an overnight stay. Our gite, in contrast was simple but fine and we were able to enjoy a couple of bottles of cava before dinner.25.10.10
The weather was still cold this morning but we set to with gusto to seek out the best livers and birds. This year I was encouraged to buy a duck but as it had taken the whole of the morning for me to come around to the idea, I ended up with the last duck in the place at 2€ more than the rest had paid! I'm just sorry that I didn't take a photo as it looked so forlorn on its own in the huge hangar. Once back in the village, we came back to our place where Gilles set about giving us
all a master calss in cutting up a duck and doing a confit of duck legs. Christian dealt with our carcass receiving lots of praise for his knife work. Once the five birds had been done, the six of us settled down to mael of duck mousse, pâté, terrine and sausage with a some green salad to balance things up a bit.All in all a great trip and at 14€ for two confited duck legs, two fine duck breasts, three lots of stock and a jar of pure duck fat (can't you just see Delia nodding in approval, I don't think 14€ was a bad deal and it did mean that the producer could finally go home to the warm.
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