Duckfest Group--by Gabe Rodriguez

Join me with “The Queen of Gascony”, Kate Hill,  in Mid-Coast Maine as Kate brings her Camp Confit to America for the second time in 2010!

Just in time for the winter holidays, we’re going to start the season off with a three-day weekend of good food and fat ducks at my new Maine farm.  Three days/two nights of good food, conviviality, duck butchery and confit-making. Come and learn the little secrets of French farm-wives and time-honored traditional recipes for preparing and preserving confit de canard, terrine de foie naturale and le Grand Cassoulet.

December 3rd—Friday:

• Arrive on at the farm, mid-day, and join Kate and I at my Kitchen Garden Headquarters on Claddagh Farm for a traditional French, super-authentique, Camp Cassoulet class & feast. We will be pairing red wine and armagnac with the cassoulet. Enjoy this early winter dinner, full of locally sourced & foraged ingredients—many from the farm itself.

December 4th—Saturday:

• Breakfast: We will set ourselves up for the day with a light breakfast of coffee, tea & home baked pastries–My wife Kathy’s baked goods are not to be missed!
• Morning: Duck Butchery- I will lead a how-to workshop on Duck Butchery. A primer for the professional or home chef, come to the farm to learn humane slaughter methods, plucking, eviscerating & processing. This course is for beginners, chefs & cooks who want to know where and how their food gets from the farm to the table.

• Lunch: Kate and I will prepare a winter pique-nique of found and foraged foods to share the diversity of my mid-coast farm and Kitchen Garden Headquarters.

• Afternoon: Traditional French Confit Making Part 1- The importance of proximity becomes apparent as we work with the fresh carcasses, removing the natural fat livers, learning the meat cuts, then trimming and rendering the fat while learning the nuances of salting and seasoning. Fatted Ducks are larger and meatier than roasting ducks. Preserving meat by poaching in fat (confit) is the perfect way to showcase that flavor as well as store at room temperature.

Dinner: We will learn from Kate how the French dine as we pull together to improvise a dinner from the farm, the day’s activities, and the mood.

December 5th—Sunday:

• Breakfast:Start the day off right with coffee, tea, conversation, and more fabulous farm made delights.
• Morning: Cooking and preserving Confit Part 2- We begin the confit process, cooking the duck to perfection in a slow and patient process. No rushing allowed: stir, stir, rest. When cooked, we will preserve the tender meat for pantry storage with its translucent golden fat in glass jars.

• Lunch: A farm Feast of field & shore, severed with homemade breads and inspired by our time spent together.

• Afternoon: Final wrap up of thoughts while our new friends—you—prepare to depart with a basket of Ducky Delights in hand.

Cost:

Duckfest 2010- $495 per person 3 days/2 nights (accommodation available- request information)

Contact Us For more information

Blog Posts:

Here’s Food on the Brain blog’s great write up about Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Here’s a great writeup about a mini-Duckfest I did in February with the Staff of the Herbfarm Restaurant.

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