LEWISTON — The Franco-American Heritage Center’s monthly French language luncheon, known as “La Rencontre,” will be held on Thursday, April 4 beginning at 11:30 a.m.

The menu will consist of chicken pot pie and a biscuit from KFC along with coleslaw, and a flaky pastry with a raspberry and cream filling for dessert. The cost of the meal and an hour of entertainment afterward is $7.

The scheduling of the event on a Thursday is unusual. La Rencontre typically takes place on the first Friday of each month, although it is being held one day earlier so that the Franco Center can host film screenings beginning Friday, April 5, as part of the Lewiston-Auburn Film Festival.

The normal schedule resumes in May with La Rencontre falling on Friday, May 3.

Entertainment is being provided by fiddler Frank Ferrel of Bath, who will be accompanied on piano as he performs traditional French-Canadian jigs and reels. Joining Ferrel on a couple of tunes to demonstrate traditional French-Canadian dances will be Cindy Larock of Lewiston, an accomplished folk dancer recently nominated to the Franco-American Hall of Fame and who in 2004 was named a Master Artist by the Maine Arts Commission.

Ferrel has performed numerous times on “A Prairie Home Companion,” the nationally syndicated live radio program heard Saturday evenings at 6 p.m. on NPR stations around the country, including MPBN here in Maine, where Ferrel works as a news producer. His “Yankee Dreams” CD was chosen by the Library of Congress to include on their 1991 list of 25 Representative Recordings of American Folk Music.

Larock is organizing an ensemble of folk dancers to bring Ferrel’s jigs and reels to life with some dancing reminiscent of the house parties once common in Lewiston’s Little Canada neighborhood and other Franco-American communities throughout Maine until two or three generations ago.

La Rencontre is open to the public, although advance reservations must be made by 4 p.m. on Monday, April 1, in order to allow Franco Center staff to order the proper number of meals. The maximum number of patrons that can be served at La Rencontre is 280.

Reservations may be made by calling either the Franco Center at 783-1585 or volunteer Claudette Violette at 786-6936.

“We had excellent cooperation last month with the implementation of our advance registration requirement,” said executive director Louis Morin. “We were close to being at full capacity and only a half-dozen people had to wait to be seated because we didn’t have their names on our registration list, a number we hope to reduce to zero in April.”