L'Occitane en Provence is now coming to St. Pancras International station

I was recently in St. Pancras International station: - regrettably, I had to attend to a business engagement in London.  Tee hee!  When I was there, I noticed that L'Occitane en Provence is opening a store in the station on the 20th of March (two days' time at the time of writing).  I thought I would educate my readers about this chainstore, which seeks to bring the finesse of Provençale culture to the rest of the world.  Given Eurostar's plans to offer direct services to Marseille next year, I am hoping that Provençal tourism authorities and Eurostar will use this opportunity to tie up with L'Occitane en Provence to promote the area as a tourist destination, perhaps in the St. Pancras International branch.

Me personally, I don't tend to buy from them unless I am buying a cheaper alternative for a business client as a present if the person in question is too unsophisticated to know the difference between this and the highest quality stuff.  Sometimes, this has been necessary, on account of not finding out in advance of my arrival in the UK that I plan to visit the people in question.  In terms of what I personally use, I will spend whatever money is necessary to get the finest hand-crafted products locally in Marseille: - I'm the bee's knees (meaning that nothing but the best will do for me) and I must always look my best.  However, this doesn't mean that L'Occitane en Provence's products are poor quality: - it just means they aren't right at the very top of the quality scale, MDR.

If, for whatever reason, one is not able to travel to Marseille to buy the finest quality local handmade products and one doesn't want to do mail order, then I just adore going to L'Occitane en Provence.  When I lived in London, I sometimes had to do this.  Sometimes, I was working very long hours (despite my instincts as a Frenchwoman that efficiency was more important) and didn't have the time to travel to Marseille.  Under such circumstances, my parents would often send beauty products to me by post, but sometimes things didn't arrive and sometimes I was away overnight (e.g. attending post-show fashion show parties) and therefore unable to pick up the packages as normal.

A Frenchwoman just adores verbena perfume from Provence!  As Mireille Guiliano said, "French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne and a divine perfume".  Verbena perfume is exactly that: - divine (in the non-religious sense of the word).  The aforementioned woman also correctly said that we would never forget to dress up, even for taking out the rubbish: - added to my list of things to never forget would be my verbena perfume.  Mireille also advises caution about which perfumes to use in which circumstances: - of course, all this is second-nature to a sophisticated Frenchwoman such as myself.

I would also never be without Savon de Marseille, one of the things that make Marseille so sophisticated and without equal.  As L'Occitane en Provence explains, there are several criteria that soap must fulfil in order to receive the classification "Savon de Marseille", most notably 72% of the content being olive oil.  L'Occitane en Provence sells something vaguely related under its "Bonne Mère" label, though they have craftily worded some of the variants as "Bonne Mère Marseille Soap", presumably to get around the fact that it doesn't fulfil the criteria for Savon de Marseille.  I have no doubt that this is an attempt to dress an industrial product up as a small-scale hand-made product.  This is exactly what is done with Bonne Maman products: - they use packaging and a name to create this image, but the image they create is decidedly phoney.  If one wants to find the real thing, one should visit various provençale market towns.

I have a whole list of toiletries that I would not like to be without.  This is one of my reasons for my continued enthusiasm for travelling by train: - I like to have all my luggage with me and there are extreme restrictions on the quantities of liquids that can be taken aboard a plane!  Carrying around her lipsticks, perfumes, soap, shampoo, conditioner etc around with her is one of the ways in which dainty Frenchwomen such as myself get passive exercise that helps keep us dainty: - we don't drive around everywhere and keep them in the "trunk" (an American corruption of "boot").

In summary, L'Occitane en Provence's St. Pancras International branch will not sell things that are good enough quality and stylish enough for me, but I hope it will help bring Marseille and the provençale culture to the uneducated masses and inform them about Marseille (and indeed the whole of Provence) as a tourist destination.  Tee hee!

Being fat is a sign of stupidity

Och, ah jist read aboot a study in Scotland sayin' that fowk wha' dinnae keep their figures in check dinnae dae sae well in exams the noo!  Translation for those of us who don't understand this corrupted form of English: - "I just read about a study in Scotland saying that people who don't keep their figures in check don't do so well in exams".  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-26523602

This is a very diplomatic way of saying that being fat is a sign of stupidity.  During my time living in the UK and my various travels in the Anglo-Saxon world, it gradually became increasingly clear to me that Anglo-Saxon women are in fact stupid.  When I speak with such women, they often tell me about their ridiculous dieting strategies.  Since they tend to tell me such things over business lunches (during which I will always say, "La moitié, s'il vous plaît", unless it is a buffet, in which case, I take food to suit my own stomach), it is normally necessary for me to be diplomatic.  If I weren't constrained by the need to be diplomatic, I would tell them how idiotic they were.

I know of one American woman who tried the diet mentioned in "The Devil Wears Prada" (eating nothing at all and then eating a cube of cheese when close to fainting).  She lasted about three days on the diet and the next time I saw her, she had gone from obese to morbidly obese.  As Mireille Guiliano points out, any regimen you can't maintain for life is bound to fail you.  Granted, French cheese (the cheese in the picture below is Banon, from the eponymous Provençale town, a.k.a. Banon à la feuille) is so delicious that it can satisfy with a single cube, but the diet described removes pretty much all of life's pleasure.

I have also seen countless examples of Anglo-Saxon women having only a green salad at lunchtime (though often covered in very sugary dressings) and then snacking all the way through the afternoon.  Similarly, many women much fatter than myself proudly tell me that they have skipped breakfast, yet by mid-morning, they are munching on disgusting-looking preservative-laden muffins!  When will Anglo-Saxon women wake up and realise their own stupidity?

There is nothing particularly complicated about how we Frenchwomen manage to stay pencil-thin.  These are a few of the main rules (though we admittedly have a few other tricks): -
1)  The three main reasons why French women are so thin are portion control, portion control and portion control: - practice saying "La moitié, s'il vous plaît" several times a day
2)  Only eat food of the highest quality: - get your jollies from your taste buds, not from your stomach being stretched
3)  No snacking
4)  Only make desserts as sweet as they need to be to cleanse your palate of the previous course: - excessively sweet desserts are characteristic of bumpkins and minimally sweet desserts are characteristic of stylish Frenchwomen
5)  Passive exercise: - my mother won't consider using the lift unless her destination is at least 10 floors away and the figure for me is 20 floors, not forgetting to walk everywhere as well, though Paris-Marseille at almost 750km is a little too far even for me!
6)  Slim-fitting high-quality fashion: - if a woman finds herself struggling to fit into her clothes, she will have an extra source of motivation to be dainty in her eating
7)  Living in a society where a trim figure is necessary for success: - I despair when I hear the phrase, "It's not what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside", as it can cause women to become demotivated and lazy about keeping their weight down, like Anglo-Saxon women
8)  Only doing vigorous pursuits if they bring pleasure: - maybe this means hillwalking, maybe this means tennis, à chacun son goût, but make sure it is pleasurable
9)  Only eating chocolate if it is above 60% cocoa: - only really stupid people consume chocolate with lower cocoa proportions, as the difference is often made up with sugar and it doesn't have the same filling effect
10)  Taking care of one's appearance: - if one takes pride in one's appearance, one will not want to spoil it by overeating (even when a Frenchwoman is "in the field", she will always have at least two lipsticks, one for the day and one for the evening)
11)  Making sure to read fashion magazines promoting beanpole-thin figures as the ideal: - one's standards should always be set high
12)  Not watching television excessively: - there is always some scouring to be done in markets for the choicest ingredients
13)  Not making ridiculous excuses about one's weight: - occasionally, people have differences when it comes to metabolism rates (e.g. Bilal's coeliac disease causing him to have malabsorption problems, meaning he has an enormous appetite), but I am tired of hearing gormless Anglo-Saxon women justify their huge waistlines with excuses such as genetics, being big-boned etc

It is time Anglo-Saxon women stopped coming up with all these fad diets (Atkins, South Beach, Beverley Hills etc).  The only fad diet (if one would call it that) that has any basis in reality when it comes to becoming and remaining thin is the Okinawan habit of "hara hachi bu" ("eat until you are 8/10 full"), which is a variant of the French teaching of only eating food of the highest quality in the daintiest quantities.  Anglo-Saxon women, stop being stupid, pretending that you have the faintest idea about how to be beanpole-thin and slavishly replicate the impossibly perfect example that we Frenchwomen set!

The intense pleasure of yoghurt

As a stylish Frenchwoman, yoghurt is a food I like to consume a lot of.  When made properly, it is an absolutely delicious food that a French woman can't get enough of (if one ignores the fact that she has a dainty appetite, tee hee).  Mireille Guiliano wrote a post about the magic of yoghurt at http://frenchwomendontgetfat.com/content/magic-yogurt .

As I have said in a previous post, low-fat low-sugar low-flavour foods are a poor strategy when it comes to dieting and I much prefer the strategy of eating a dainty Frenchwoman's portion of the real thing.  There is another disadvantage to low-fat low-flavour yoghurt that helps explain why a French woman will not touch the stuff.  If one dips one's spoon into low-fat low-flavour yoghurt and lifts it out again, the so-called yoghurt tends to dribble off the spoon.  With real full-fat yoghurt, if one does the same, one can turn the spoon upside-down and it will stay on the spoon.  A Frenchwoman eats her yoghurt by turning the spoon upside-down like this, slowly inserting it into her mouth upside-down, closing her eyes, slowly withdrawing the spoon whilst pouting and keeping her lips gently pressed against the spoon and gaining a sensation of pure pleasure in the process.

I wouldn't know personally, given that I go for artesanal producers and the closest thing to a supermarket I am willing to enter is Le Bon Marché.  However, from what I have heard, the brands of yoghurt that appear in French supermarkets that also appear in Anglo-Saxon supermarkets tend to have different formulations, i.e. the full-fat varieties appear in French supermarkets.

Obviously, the last part is impossible if it is low-fat low-flavour yoghurt, MDR.  Only the highest quality of yoghurt is sufficient to cause someone with a refined palate such as a Frenchwoman to gain a sensation of pure pleasure in this way.  For this reason, if one wants to be effortlessly thin, but still gain pleasure from eating yoghurt (i.e. from the taste, rather than one's belly being stretched), one has to select the finest yoghurt the way a Frenchwoman would do.

Firstly, one should always go organic.  A Frenchwoman's refined palate can detect anything unnatural a mile off.  Secondly, one should buy from the farm gate whenever possible.  A Frenchwoman's refined palate much prefers yoghurt that is artesanal and make by the hands of a skilled craftsman.  If one lives within a city, one should pay someone to drive or travel via TGV to a parkway station (Avignon TGV and Aix-en-Provence TGV being examples of parkway stations) to travel to a farm where artesanal yoghurt is produced, rushing it back into the city without delay.  Real yoghurt does not have unnatural preservatives in it to make it last longer: - a Frenchwoman's sophisticated palate (which can detect such things with the greatest of ease) will cause her to wince when it passes her lips.

So there you have it: - a Frenchwoman knows that yoghurt is something that needs to be done properly if one is to get maximum pleasure from it.

An unpatriotic chef

In recent years, British celeb chef Jamie Oliver has been in the news for his dislike of his own country.

There were two main areas that he discussed.  One was the working ethos of his fellow Brits.  He claimed that British youngsters don't work very hard and are wet between the ears, with parents phoning in for 23-year olds saying they are too tired to do a 48-hour week.  He claimed that in his twenties, 80-100 hours was the norm.  My comment is that a Frenchwoman knows that a 35-hour week is quite enough to get one's work done.  He said, "I've never experienced such a wet generation.  Meanwhile I've got bullet-proof, rock-solid Polish and Lithuanians who are tough and work hard."

A Frenchwoman is effortlessly perfect and she works efficiently to get her work done in 35 hours per week.  So therefore, if Jamie Oliver worked 80-100 hour weeks, he probably wasn't very efficient.  An efficient and competent worker should have no need to work longer than his/her contracted hours.  In Britain, my fashion magazine employers would scowl at me for leaving on time, insinuating that I wasn't committed to my job, even though I got twice as much done as the people who worked twice as long as me.  Lots of them were just pretending to be working and looking busy, rather than producing things: - a Frenchwoman has much more important things to do than pretending to be working or staying in useless post-5PM meetings, such as scouring the local markets for the choicest ingredients with the best flavour.  What is it like working at my fashion magazine?  I scowl at my workers if they stay past normal closing time!  MDR.

However, it is the second main subject he covered that caught my attention.  Jamie Oliver's words were as follows: -
"I meet people who say, “You don't understand what it's like.” I just want to hug them and teleport them to the Sicilian street cleaner who has 25 mussels, 10 cherry tomatoes, and a packet of spaghetti for 60 pence, and knocks out the most amazing pasta. You go to Italy or Spain and they eat well on not much money. We've missed out on that in Britain, somehow."

Now, a stylish Frenchwoman like me is sure to agree with this.  I know that it is possible in most places to buy the food items he mentioned for the price he mentioned.  Even in Monaco, this is probably possible or nearly so, given that there is a branch of Carrefour in the country.  As for me personally, I can't verify whether or not it is possible to buy the items mentioned at the price mentioned.  As my regular readers will know, my mentality for shopping is buying the best at whatever cost.  I'm the bee's knees: - nothing but the best will do for me!  It is probably possible to buy these things at that price, but they wouldn't be of the highest quality.

Mind you, I do agree with the things Jamie Oliver says about the immense stupidity of British people.  When I was a fashion journalist, I was given the task of writing a fake rags-to-riches story about a fashion designer who had come from a pikey household with a single mother and a child eating chips and cheese from a styrofoam container in front of a huge television like the one described by Jamie Oliver.  The fashion designer had actually come from a boho chic household with parents who were very knowledgeable about sartorial matters (not a very common household type in Britain), but my editor demanded that I write a fake rags-to-riches story, because hey, the truth doesn't sell as many magazines as a sensationalist lie.  We visited a chav home, having bribed them with £50 to participate in this blatant lie.  The photographers took photos of the mother with her brood of various different skin tones (indicating the low likelihood that any of them had a father in common) sitting in front of the large television watching reality TV (the word "reality" is a bit misleading), occasionally punctuating this with video games.  The children and the mother were eating burger and chips, cheese and chips, battered sausage and chips, battered Mars bars etc.  Yeek!  The mother was a big fat ugly chav and the house reeked of the fast food and I spoke with this woman to discuss what sort of lies we would tell about how this stylish designer grew up in this impoverished situation, but rose above it.

We wrote the article, published it and got away with it, but I must say, this article is still a huge stain on my conscience.  I kept trying to tell the editor that we should follow my mother's example of openly repudiating our background if we dislike it, rather than telling lies about it.  Apart from the fact that my mother did not emigrate early enough to acquire a native-level competency of French and therefore makes idiomatic errors in her French and doesn't have a French accent, she is pretty much as French as possible: - she only eats very dainty portions of the best quality food, she refuses to take the lift if the destination is less than 10 floors away, she walks wherever she is able and she is therefore effortlessly thin in spite of all the children she has had (I'll do an article on the tax system in France favouring "familles nombreuses" another time).

Anyway, this visit to a chav British household, apart from scarring my conscience, left me psychologically scarred for life, lol.  People might accuse me of being supercilious, but I just can't stand being in the presence of such disgusting people.  Even French people just above the breadline have more class than this.  In an earlier post, I linked to an article by Cécile Delarue where she talked about how an elderly widowed Frenchwoman with a limited income who grows her own fruit and vegetables will eat well and not waste food, knowing how much effort it takes to produce it this way.  Being an impeccably stylish French woman, I go for the best quality at whatever price, but if one has been stupid and lazy in life and therefore does not have money to burn like me, it is still possible to eat very well.

Some British right-wingers would respond to Jamie Oliver's sentiments by saying, "If you don't like our glorious homeland, don't let the door hit you on your way out".  My response would be similar: - if you hate Britain, your severely un-stylish homeland, do what my mother did: - emigrate to France and surround yourself with lots of stylish French people.