Real French home cooking with all the recipes from Rick's new BBC Two series. Over fifty years ago Rick Stein first set foot in France. Now, he returns to the food and cooking he loves the most ... and makes us fall in love with French food all over again. Rick’s meandering quest through the byways and back roads of rural France sees him pick up inspiration from Normandy to Provence. With characteristic passion and joie de vivre, Rick serves up incredible recipes: chicken stuffed with mushrooms and Comté, grilled bream with aioli from the Languedoc coast, a duck liver parfait bursting with flavour, and a recipe for the most perfect raspberry tart plus much, much more. Simple fare, wonderful ingredients, all perfectly assembled; Rick finds the true essence of a food so universally loved, and far easier to recreate than you think.

This is the perfect companion for exploring the hidden, tranquil corners that form the rural heart of France.

At the age of eighteen Lucy Wadham ran away from English boys and into the arms of a Frenchman. Twenty-five years later, having married in a French Catholic Church, put her children through the French educational system and divorced in a French court of law, Wadham is perfectly placed to explore the differences between Britain and France. Using both her personal experiences and the lessons of French history and culture, she examines every aspect of French life - from sex and adultery to money, happiness, race and politics - in this funny and engrossing account of our most intriguing neighbour.

Chronicles the development of the French secret services in the modern era, asks some fundamental questions about what France expected and expects from them, and offers a assessment of their role and influence in the state and the military.

This volume focuses on the question of how and why non-state actors - consuls, missionaries, and spies - could play a role in premodern diplomatic relations. It highlights their multiple loyalties, their volatility, and the porous boundaries of diplomatic activity.