Restaurateur & Vinaigrette-Words to Respect

A Living Lettuce - like a rose

Two lovely words often pronounced badly...

• Restaurateur
• Vinaigrette

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Let’s respect these words.
The Collins dictionary has apparently now accepted the word restauranteur. Ugggh! Heavy, ugly with its clunky stress on the third syllable.
Think of the beautiful origin of the word and you won’t be tempted to mispronounce it.
Restaurateur is so kind, so gentle, so meaningful.  After the French Revolution, eating-houses began to appear serving restoring meats and bouillons where the owner / chef hoped to restore you, both your body and your temperament.  So try saying restaurateur – lovely word (emphasis on the first syllable).
 
Lettuce dressed with vinaigrette is my dessert island dish.  I'd have to have been dumped on that island of course with some good oil and vinegar.  (Strangely, undressed lettuce is totally repugnant to me.) Roger has grown these sturdy lettuces, where the centres are pale butter yellow and the leaves can be removed one at a time (and the plant keeps growing).      .

Vinaigrette –is three syllables – vin – nay - gret.  It is not vinegar + ette.
It is a fusion of (for me) a minimum of 4 parts oil, one part vinegar, possibly emulsified with French mustard, possibly with garlic.  It is certainly not vinegary.

​Australian John Baxter has been living in Paris for over twenty years.  He is a serious writer on film, an historian and biographer of various directors.  On a lighter side his books on living in Paris and his walking tours are a delight.  Dominique, who later became his wife, suggested he add an egg yolk to his vinaigrette.  (Don't panic, the vinegar "conserves" the yolk if you chose to keep the dressing for another day.)  See john baxter paris
Not a classic vinaigrette but nicely unctuous.  I like it. 

What I don't like is the willy-nilly use of so-called Balsamic vinegar.  If your infantile taste buds need a sweet dressing, throw your dignity to the winds and dump in some sugar.  (That's what the Balsamic swindlers do.)  See Rosa Matto's blog Balsamic Vinegar Swindle for a stronger take on this.