A little vinaigrette

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The children came home for lunch today. Accompanying them was Olivia’s best friend before she met the other Olivia, Clemence Barre. For some reason she is never known simply by her christian name, notwithstanding the fact that as far as I know there is no other Clemence within a ten-mile radius of here.

SacrebleuI am always nervous about feeding French people. They seem to have this food thing so sussed. The first time Clemence Barre came to lunch my husband fed her baked beans on toast. She was not impressed. So today I went shopping and bought lovely hams, cherry tomatoes, salad, cheese and of course a baguette.

Half-way through lunch Clemence Barre said: “I don’t really like my salad.”

“Why not?” I asked

“I prefer my salad with a little vinaigrette,” she replied. Of course if I put vinaigrette on salad my children won’t eat it, it’s too strong, so I had left it out. I put some balsamic vinegar aux fruits rouges from Fauchon in Paris on Clemence Barre’s salad which she then ate happily. How is it that even aged seven the French are so much more sophisticated than us?

For those of you following the Heathcliff saga, I wasted no time in booking our summer holiday to stay with my mother and have sent him a text telling him we’re coming. This was about seven minutes ago and I haven’t heard back, but won’t go into terminal decline just yet. I’m bursting with curiosity to see what he’s like now. Funny to think that when I last saw him mobile phones weren’t invented. How old does that make me feel?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


3 thoughts on A little vinaigrette

  • ‘A little vinaigrette’ reminded me of an identical but reversed incident which took place some years ago, when my ‘baby’, now 17, had a friend over after school… naturally I prepared supper… nothing special… a cheese omelette with a salad and something for dessert… I noticed the friend didn’t eat the salad… I asked ‘what’s wrong?’… he scrunched his face in horror and said ‘IT HAS DRESSING IN IT!’

    Need I mention that my late mother-in-law never used dressing on her salad but kept a bottle of a [commercial] ‘salad ‘cream’ for our visits…

    Va savoir!

    Dedy,
    In a very sunny London…

  • Adorable! At seven she is already light years more chic than me in my dotage!

    And Dedy – please never mention salad cream again! It brings back horrible childhood memories!

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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