By Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer

To celebrate the New Year, I wanted you to meet Camilla Radford-Furman. When she told me she had recently done a remote / online wine tasting, I thought to myself that only she could embody so well the ability to adapt to circumstances and turn an obstacle into a strength. And that’s what I call Hope in 2022. Camilla is certainly a violin teacher and an outstanding cook, but above all a specialist in French and Californian wines. She has been organizing dinners and tastings of French wines for several years and runs her own business: www.navigatingfrenchwines.com/about.

I first met Camilla in a Parisian brasserie where between drinks and chips we watched Trump’s inaugural ceremony, surrounded by journalists and curious people. Camilla was dressed in a bright red dress. She was apparently typical of the American woman in the French imagination. Or maybe typical of the Californian in the American imagination. In fact, to me, she was typical of a certain sort of American—often Anglo-Saxon or Brazilian—I sometimes meet. They emit a kind of energy that makes one think of the force of the great outdoors or the glare of the land scorched by the sun.

We have since become friends. She played violin at my wedding. She introduced me to American foods of which I only knew very bland copies, and she always amazes me when I see her doing giant puzzles.

While you are driving or preparing your dinner, whether you are in the north, south or west, I invite you to join us for a cheerful aperitif where red is not just a color…. I apologize in advance for the lightness of our words and the incompleteness of our opinions, but as the film says, nobody’s perfect!

Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer, Collioure, Dec. 30th, 2021

Related reading:

Gipsy Kings Hotel California

Camilla’s website