Bon appétit
Undeterred, I decide that day two should focus on a topic that is a close second to love for the French nation – food. French cooking, as we all know, is a glorious and cherished art, an expression of enduring love and creativity. But it’s also a huge time-sponge, soaking up great tracts of a day. You sieve, you strain, you deglaze, you pipe, you stir, you sieve again to get the lumps out. And you end up with something that makes your children cry and, because the portions are so small, leaves you sleep-walking to the snack cupboard (which is empty, since French women apparently don’t do snacks). But they do do butter, which is a blessing, as it’s my all-time favourite food group and I’m in need of a pick-me-up. I have taken to using lovely yellow salty butter with abandon… though this suddenly, off-puttingly, makes me think of Last Tango in Paris. Still. There’s always cheese. Part of the French paradox, apparently, is that they devour rich, creamy, artery-busting cheeses, but their heart-attack rate is renowned for being low – and the women are impossibly slim. Personally, I’d happily work my way around all 360 degrees of a Brie, but, in true French style, I merely have un peu, just enough to alert my mouth without unduly troubling my stomach. The same goes for wine. Rather than my usual guzzle-and-glug fest, I’m having one solitary glass of a charmingly audacious premier cru, sipped in slow motion and savoured to the last. Well, that’s the theory. In practice, 12 minutes into the first evening I’ve polished off my quota and I’m eyeing up the bottle,
wondering if French women occasionally get rollicking drunk and fall face-down in the vichyssoise. Sadly I think, as I open the Badoit, the answer is probably no.
Size matters
By day three, I’m trying to think about staying thin all the time. It’s a constant preoccupation in the way that men are supposed to think about sex. I have taken to eating till I am ‘80 per cent full’, which is a key tenet in the French philosophy of thin. It’s tricky, though. Given the chance, my mouth will generally accept anything broadly palatable that comes within striking distance. I test it with a mini éclair. Hmm, 75 per cent full, I think. Just room for a macaroon. I pop one in, humming Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. By this point, I’ve dispensed with breakfast altogether (I’m having black coffee instead. If I get hungry, I can always eat my lipstick) but I have embraced the idea of a long and leisurely lunch to make up for it, since my husband and I find ourselves both working from home for the day. There’s a crusty baguette (a meal without bread is unthinkable), some fatty saucisson (ditto meat) and skinny, garlicky haricots verts, plus a glass of Château Margaux, some dusky grapes, and sharp black coffee in tiny cups. We talk about politics and poetry and photography, and my husband can’t believe his luck when I ask, soothingly and with near-genuine interest, about his new iPhone app and how things are going in the cricket. That night, the kids, who are tired of being made to eat as a family every night, cry, literally cry, for crêpes, which we have had three times already this week. They are turning into pancakes, so I refuse. I ignore them as they eat the haricots verts in silence while I ask the beloved husband if he’d like a neck rub.
‘I’m eyeing up the bottle, wondering if French women occasionally get rollicking drunk’
The serious business of grooming
French fancy: you must flirt with your husband like a Moulin Rouge chorus girl
kohl. Voila! French Vogue editor Emmanuelle Alt. I decide to channel all those gorgeous Gallic girls who clog up the front row at fashion shows – people like Clémence Poésy, Joséphine de la Baume, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon – the ones who still look amazing in Chanel, but who warp it when they wear it with hi-tops or ripped jeans. Either way, it’s still impeccable style. Just mashed up a bit. I nip off to Waitrose, thinking that in a dim light I might look vulnerable, romantic, an ingénue, as if I’m sauntering along the Seine to St Germain to buy jonquils and fresh croissants, more bohemian than bourgeois. I wonder in the bin-bag aisle if I’ve overplayed it a bit. By the time I get to coffee and croissants with two girlfriends (they have almond croissants, pain au chocolat and enormous cappuccinos topped with froth and grated chocolate. I have coffee and a Gauloise), my eye make-up has migrated down my face and I look like Iggy Pop. ‘I’m living like a Frenchwoman,’ I announce breezily as they stare in bewilderment. ‘I wondered why you’re wearing patent ballet pumps,’ says Maddy, spooning froth into her mouth. Laura, who is married to a Frenchman and therefore has the inside scoop on these things, shows me her matching Agent Provocateur lingerie, confessing that she would never dream of wearing anything else out of respect for her husband. In passing, I catch a glimpse of her enviably flat stomach, which she puts down to ‘moderation’. Sigh. My belly is hideously British. You can tell at 30 paces. I clearly have a long way to go.
By the time I reach the halfway point, I am a woman possessed when it comes to getting dressed. Every outfit, every accessory – for me, for him – is executed with finesse, like a military operation, an art said to be taught to French kids at their mother’s utterly elegant knee. I’ve had a stab at the Chanel tweed suit, the silk blouse, the pearls and the midheeled courts. I drag out the Dior bag. Hmm. More Maggie Thatcher than Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. It soon transpires that I am nouvelle vague not chic classique, so I pull out my black waxed Topshop jeans, I scruff up my hair and get heavy with the
What lies beneath
I decide to take a leaf out of my friend’s book and get serious about my lingerie. French knickers are a very big deal apparently. Everyone says so. They should be exquisite, provocative and paired with an equally coquettish brassière, probably in coffee-coloured silk with a wispy Chantilly lace trim. French women would never be seen dead in unmatching or unflattering lingerie. I rifle through my jumbled underwear drawer and come up with the most likely candidates – burgundy (appropriate, I think) and complicated, with trailing ribbons and intricate latticework. As I wait for my husband to return from work, I waft around the landing, all femme fatale, stretching like a cat and muttering little oohs and aahs, a bit like Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg doing Je T’aime. My daughter Lily looks up from her edifying and educational book about Coco Chanel and how she revolutionised