My turn to cook for the diner des celibataires, when the women all go off to bingo and the men gather alone and we take turns to cook. 

I'm preparing a soup of beans based on the carcass of a duck, followed by an avocado pear stuffed with shrimps and my home-made mayonnaise. Then I'm serving Boeuf Perigourdin, which is like Boeuf Bourgignon except I use Pecharmant rather than Burgundy wine and I add a glass of my own home-made vin de noix. Then winter salad, cheese and I'm making tarte aux pommes except that I marinaded the apples (from my own trees) in calvados overnight. 

The wines will almost all come from my friends Sean and Caro Feely at Chateau Haut Garrigue in Saussignac, who only make bio-dynamic wines. I will start with their version of champagne, and then their Semillon blanc, followed by their 2007 Merlot for the beef. For the apple tart, I'm thinking of a 2005 Loupiac but I may be tempted away by a rather good Monbazillac. Choices, choices...

On returning to Périgord after the US book tour, I learned from Mayor Philippe Ducene that the town council of Sainte Alvère had on February 10 voted me “honorary citizen of the commune” with an official investiture to take place in the town this summer.

Sainte Alvère is the home of the famed black truffle of the Périgord and the seat of the market at which this pride of French gastronomy is traded. The third Bruno novel, ‘Black Diamond,’ is partly set in Sainte Alvère and the plot hinges on Bruno’s efforts to defeat fraudsters attacking the truffle trade.

The novel, which has been published in 14 languages in Europe, Asia and the Americas, comes out this summer in French.

What is it about being back in the United States that makes me crave a really good hamburger? 

So far, on this visit I have enjoyed a 5 Guys burger with hot green peppers and a splendid half-pounder from Black and Orange which included a Jamaican jerk flavoring that made it very spicy. 

There's a  gourmet burger chain in Britain called Byron which does a very decent burger but somehow on that side of the pond it doesn't feel quite right. Fish 'n chips taste so much better on the British North Sea coast, the best Wiener Schnitzel is found in Vienna and only in France do croissants seem to touch perfection. 

I always thought strawberries were at their best in Britain but now I long for the first fresh ones from my garden in Perigord and the first of my own tomatoes and eggs from my own chickens. 

Is my palate geographically sensitive or is something about the combination of memory, culture and location that goes beyond the purely physical sensation of taste? But how do we explain that can pizzas be magnificent outside Italy and Peking Duck better outside China? 

After being baptized by a duck, going through a taste test of 11 different versions of duck foie gras and three of goose, donning my medieval robes, hat and medal, and swearing my oath to uphold the honour of the great delicacy, I am now honored to be a chevalier of the Confrérie de Pâté de Périgueux. 

The event took place over the weekend in the market square of the capital of Périgord, in the presence of my mayor, Gerard Fayolle, Pierrot our village policeman (who inspired the Bruno books) and the owner of Fauquet’s café, where great fictional events unfold and whose croissants are beyond peer.

I had to make a short speech in French of thanks and appreciation for all that foie gras had done for me. We then went off for a celebratory lunch. 

We began with foie gras en croute en son jus des truffes, followed by turbot stuffed with spinach and a truffle risotto, followed by a pigeonneau stuffed with foie gras and finally a complicated chocolate thingy. 

By this time, having drunk an excellent Monbazillac, a glass of refreshing Bergerac rosé and a 1995 Moulis, night was falling, and so was I.

September so far has been unusually hot in the Perigord and the winemakers are crossing their fingers that the sunshine lasts through the rest of the month, which should mean an excellent vintage this year. 

The cold spring and rains in June and early July had worried them, but while the harvest will be late, it should be very good indeed. The one great fear is the storms that usually come with the equinox around September 21. 

My Green friends are also worrying, because more and more winemakers in the region are going bio and avoiding pesticides and chemical treatments. But if we get heavy rains later this month and not enough wind and sun to dry the grapes, they fear that an outbreak mildew of mildew could provoke an anti-bio backlash. And while sulphur dust in limited quantities is approved for organic farmers, they prefer to use something more bio. 

Some are experimenting with diluted milk as a preventive and others are using a solution of water and garlic. Put one whole bulb of garlic in a litre of water with a few drops of liquid soap for a day, then strain it and dilute in with ten times as much water and spray. It works in our vegetable garden.

This week I visited Sean and Caro Feely at their vineyard in Saussignac, which is in the process of being renamed Chateau feely (it used to be Chateau Hair Garrigue). 

It is not easy to find from the map offered by the Maison de Vin, but worth the effort. Take the D14 road from Bergerac to Ste Foy la Grande and take a left on the D4 to Saussignac, and after 400 metres there is a sign on the left for Chateau Haut Garrigue. 

They have a spectacular view over the Dordogne valley, and after visiting the vineyards and hearing Sean explain the bio-organic methods they use to keep the terroir healthy, we sat in the open air to taste their various wines. 

I was accompanied by my friend and neighbour Raymond, a retired officer of gendarmes and a great lover of wine. We came away with three cases, one of their wines called Sincerite, all Sauvignon Blanc, for me, and a case each of their 2007 Haut Garrigue reds which they are re-naming Resonance.

A little earlier, I visited my old friend Francis-Xavier at Chateau de Tiregand, accompanied by my new friend Klaus Einwanger, who has been taking the photos for the forthcoming Bruno cookbook. (You can find examples of his prize-winning work on www.foodfactory.de). 

In the cellars, we tasted the 2011, which is about to go into barrels and which promises to be a splendid wine. And he kindly gave me a rare bottle of the 2001 which I served at a small dinner for Raymond and the baron. 

We began with smoked trout from the Isle of Mull in Scotland, which we drank with a bottle of Monthuys champagne. With the Tiregand I prepared one of my favourite dishes, aiguilettes de canard au miel et aux grains de moutarde, to which I added a splash of Armagnac, and accompanied it with potatoes from the garden. 

The wine was magnificent, smooth and gentle at first and then its strength slowly became more apparent. We drank it in something close to reverence.

Back in France for the summer after the book tour in the USA. 

It was 40 degrees centigrade in Arizona and it was 40 degrees in Perigord when I arrived and the swimming pool has turned green, the filtration system overwhelmed by the heat. 

It is too hot to sleep upstairs at night, but thanks to the thick stone walls the ground floor is cooler. We keep the shutters closed all day and rise before 6am to water the vegetables. The flowers look to be beyond saving. 

The basset hound spends his day spread-eagled on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor and the chicken cluster in the shade, empty two bowls of water a day and refuse to lay any eggs. Angela Merkel, the most maternal of the hens, is in the cool of the dog’s old kennel, sitting on 4 hens’ eggs and two pheasant eggs, so we may have some new fledglings in time for the arrival of the food photography team who will be illustrating the Bruno cookbook. 

The cookbook starts with a new short story, set in the St Denis market, which I wrote while on the American book tour.

The whole village is hoping the rain stays away for this evening’s Feu de St Jean, an old custom that some of us have decided to revive. 

Everyone in the village has been invited, including some members who haven’t spoken to one another for years. We have collected the wood for the big bonfire, gained the mayoral permission to close off the little street and ban parking from the village square and put out the tables and chairs for the expected throng. Everyone has been asked to bring a dish of food and a bottle. 

Although it bears the name of saint, the event goes back to pre-Christian days: a midsummer night festival when after the food and wine and the fire dies down, husbands and wives, neighbours and children all leap hand in hand over the ashes of the bonfire to put behind us all the last year’s rows and arguments and start anew.

May marks the beginning of strawberry season in the Perigord, a time when the local markets are heaving with heady varieties like Seascape and Mara des Bois. The regions towns host strawberry festivals, and residents take to their kitchens, preparing their best tartes aux fraises for judging.

If you're lucky enough to be in France, the local varieties are best eaten straight from the punnet, bought from the market only moments earlier. The range of perfumes, textures, and flavours is beyond anything seen in the UK, and the berries are sold so ripe that they really must be eaten that day.

One way to use those strawberries which are so soft as to be almost liquid is to push them through a sieve, pour the liquid into champagne flutes, and top up with sparkling white wine.

Good strawberries are best eaten simply - on a French tart with short pastry and a creme patissiere, or covered in cream and a light sprinkle of sugar - but these days it can be hard to find good strawberries, even in season. Those sold in supermarkets are often under-ripe and tasteless, while farmers' markets and specialist shops can be very expensive.

There are always days spent out at pick your own farms, but it can be overwhelming to return home with several overflowing punnets of just-picked fruit, all of which need to be eaten or preserved in a matter of moments.

While the freezer is a perfectly acceptable way to preserve a strawberry, the more enterprising among you could try a trick from Cook's Illustrated that extends the shelf-life of all summer berries: give them a vinegar bath as soon as you get them home.

Rinse berries in a solution that is one part vinegar to three parts water, then pat them lightly with a paper towel to dry. Store the berries in the fridge in a lidded container lined with paper towels, and keep the lid slightly ajar. The vinegar kills external spores that lead to mould, and berries stay fresh in the fridge for days longer than normal.

For berries slightly past their best, simply macerate them by placing the chopped berries in a bowl, tossed through with some sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. The macerated berries can then be added to yogurt or cereal, eaten alone or with cream, or added to all manner of desserts.

According to a study published by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in conjunction with Conservation International, global warming could have a perilous impact on the vineyards of the Dordogne.

With the world getting warmer, traditional wine-growing regions including (but not limited to) the Dordogne could see a significant fall in production over the next forty years, with Conservation International forecasting a two-thirds drop in output.

The hot dry summers so typical of Aquitaine are not just attractive to the legions of tourists who journey to southwest France each year – they are crucial to the region’s vineyards, who rely on the sun to do its job plumping the grapes that will become some of the best-known wines in the world.

The study examined the potential effects of two different temperature increases on nine of the world’s greatest wine-growing regions – a ‘moderate’ 2.5˚C rise, and a more dramatic ‘worst-case’ 4.7˚C increase. Seventeen climate models were used in the course of the study.

Bordeaux, Rhone, and Tuscany were hardest hit by the researchers’ models, and showed an 85 percent drop in production by 2050.

“The fact is that climate change will lead to a huge shakeup in the geographic distribution of wine production,” said study author Lee Hannah. “We expected to see significant shifts, but we didn't expect to see shifts like these.

“It will be harder and harder to grow those varieties that are currently growing in places in Europe,” Hannah added. “It doesn't necessarily mean that [grapes] can't be grown there, but it will require irrigation and special inputs to make it work, and that will make it more and more expensive.”