The Case of the Missing Coq au Vin 

Merle Trudeaux had the French namesake to fit right into the Gascony countryside. His very own great grandparents and ancestral line had come from Toulouse. He looked a bit French on certain days.  He felt he was stubborn enough and took excessive pride in food and language.  But he was finding that moving his family to the French countryside at Gers while at the same time not only  

trying to solve his little "food caper," as his wife would smilingly put it on the sunniest of days, all the while learning as he went along techniques of French cuisine, was beginning to feel a little like he might have bit off a bit more than he could chew, pun most definitely intended. 

  The rented out farmhouse was large enough to suit the three children.  The pool outback shimmered an aqua blue and from the distance of the passing drive it was indeed the very postcard of rustic living which was to be eventually soaked up into the dishes he would one day serve up in his own French Bistro back in Soldiers Grove. He was to name it Auberge d' Artagnan, after the cafe he was on his way to visit in Lupiec for a meeting with his French connection Henri Henri Henri (often just called Henri III).