In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

Campidoglio, and Vaticano! The Louvre is provincial compared to all
this! And the ruins! Sandro will have to give you the grand tour, he
knows everything there is to know about his maternal city, as a true
child of Caesar! (She patted his hand). Did you know our family was
descended from the emperors of Rome?"
"Mama, basta!" He looked up from his vermicelli. "She lies, she
cannot accept the humility of her true lineage. Gypsies, thieves and
beggars from nowhere! Saracens from Calabria and Sicily. Not Romans.
Her putana mother could not read and her father is a mystery! This is
the shame of our family."
Beatrice got up and left the table without a word. Sandro hissed
at Ula on his way out, but she just plowed through her black mess of
boiled dandelion and stared into empty space.
Sandro's doors were locked when Penny made it upstairs, so
she ran a bath to get warmed up, then crawled under the duvet. After
tossing and turning, it dawned on her how he had gotten that new
bruise.
Next morning, seated at the piano for a run through of
Chopin's nocturne in C sharp minor, Sandro surprised her with a kiss
on the back of the neck. Already packed, she was there to stay out of
Beatrice's way.
Later they ate a quick dinner in the kitchen with the help. Leek
soup with crème fraiche, then ham, olives and cornichons and dessert
of fat little cheese logs wrapped in paper called Petit Suisses and eaten
with sugar jam. Rosalinda, the chubby maid who was also Mario's
girlfriend, bragged about the ten kilos she lost on a diet of these alone.
"You must try Ula's immortal vegetables régime." Sandro
teased, because she was still a little butterball. This led into one of
Antoine's legendary sermons on the evils of genetically engineered
foods.
Pointing to a pile of broccoli on the table, Sandro launched into
the nature, or un-nature of this popular cruciferous vegetable,
introduced to France during the Renaissance by the Italian born French
queen, Catherine de Medici.
"So you see, Antoine, we have had Franken-food since Roman
times, when peasants 'engineered' your little broccoli flower from the
lowly cabbage."
The non-plussed Antoine deftly whittled a miniature
Frankenstein head and wagged it before Sandro's face, sending
everyone into convulsions and to bed with sore jaws.
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