|| 14 April 2024

The French Paradox Is Alive And Well

Our Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat has sent another report from France. This one to assure us that “The French Paradox is alive and well.”

Kat wrote:

I don’t know if I mentioned that, in addition to Matilda [Kat’s cat], a friend has been staying with us for a fortnight. As always, he shares our holiday food which tends to be a little more luxurious than what we cook at home.

Over the fortnight we enjoyed dinners of cote de boeuf with frites and bearnaise sauce, roast lamb with flageolets, artichokes with foaming Hollandaise, asparagus with melted butter, navarin of lamb and blanquette de veau, all accompanied by a glass or two of something nice, plus a filled half baguette for lunch and a little treat from the patisserie on Sunday, culminating with pate de campagne and pot au feu at the Roi de Pot au Feu in Paris yesterday to speed him on his way home.

We didn’t manage to do many long walks, because the weather hasn’t been great. I’m sure he expected to gain weight (he watches his diet carefully at home and doesn’t drink at all) and must have hopped straight onto the scales this morning, because he messaged me to say he’d actually lost a kilo! I never gain weight here either, and neither does my husband, which in his case is something of a miracle.

In Paris

Paris was showery, with everybody wrapped up in coats and parkas, so no fashion snaps this time. However, on a crowded Metro coming back from St. Denis, I couldn’t help noticing a group of French schoolgirls. They were aged about 16, and their slim figures, flawless skin (not a trace of makep) long glossy untinted hair, bright eyes and perfect teeth were a delight to behold.

The average British equivalent is plump, spotty, and these days likely to be wearing false eyelashes so thick you’d think some weird insect had alighted on her lids and stuck there. I’m surprised the schools allow it.

Finally, just to complete my supermarket commentary, I decided to buy a small slice of pate de foie from the Monoprix deli counter and also from the best butcher in town. As you can see from the photo, they look almost identical. The taste? I preferred Monoprix, my husband preferred the butcher’s!

Merci to Kat for her report and photo from France