By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter12:31PM GMT 05 Dec 2013Follow
He may have been married to a Domestic Goddess, but Charles Saatchi hardly ever allowed Nigella Lawson to throw dinner parties, a court has heard.
Miss Lawson told a jury she only held dinner parties once every two years, because: "Mr Saatchi likes to take people out to Scott's restaurant."
Nigella Lawson gives evidence: live updates
Details of life in the Saatchi-Lawson household were given to the jury in the trial of two former aides to the TV cook who deny fraudulently spending £685,000 on company credit cards.
Karin Arden, defending Francesca Grillo, a housekeeper, suggested that her client was allowed to buy herself treats using the credit card as a reward for working long hours, which including clearing up after dinner parties.
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Miss Lawson said: "I would say I had dinner parties once on a two-year basis at Eaton Square (the marital home in west London). I was not happy about that.
"I can hardly remember a dinner party at Eaton Square. Mr Saatchi likes to take people out to Scott's restaurant."
It was following a row at Scott's, when Mr Saatchi was photographed grabbing his wife by the throat, that the couple split up and later divorced.
Miss Lawson told the jury that Mr Saatchi was very particular about the way his house was kept, objecting strongly to the suggestion that being in charge of housekeeping was "the job of a woman".
She said: "It was Mr Saatchi's job and my job. He would go round and point at marks he wanted removed. He is a person with a tremendous eye for detail."
Mr Saatchi was also particular about his food. While the weekly shopping would be ordered from Waitrose and delivered by Ocado, Miss Grillo was "very involved in the purchasing of Mr Saatchi's eggs" and would also be sent out for his Frappucino coffees.
She said Francesca and her sister and co-defendant Elisabetta would, like other aides, order food for the house.
"We would have the Ocado order up and people would shout out 'we need this, we need that'. I would say (to the Grillos) 'do you want ravioli as a treat' in the same way that I would buy the others something."
Miss Lawson also liked to treat her staff to days out and gifts, including an outing to Brussels with all of her aides to shop in a Christmas market.
Asked about her aides' other duties, she said: "I'm afraid to say I make them appear on my television programmes. When I'm testing a recipe they write it down."
They did not, however, look after her Twitter account. "I do my own Twitter account," she said.
She also said she was "quite happy to do the washing up" but Mr Saatchi "didn't want me washing up" so he would phone Miss Grillo and ask her to do it.
The Grillo sisters were treated "like family" and took Miss Lawson and Mr Saatchi's children from their previous marriages on up to five foreign holidays per year, to locations including New York, San Tropez and Italy.
Miss Arden suggested Miss Lawson had a "penchant for all things Italian" and she replied: "I do, and I don't see how that could ever be interpreted by anyone as a criticism."
She admitted to phoning Miss Grillo when the aide was on holiday in Spain to ask her if she knew where the TV remote control was.
"That would have made Mr Saatchi incredibly irritable," she said. "I have made a lot of similar phone calls over the years."
The court also heard that the couple had a 12ft x 12ft "silver room" full of tea and coffee services and candlesticks.
Miss Lawson said she was "very glad to see that back of it" when the couple moved, and asked if she ever cleaned it said: "I like cleaning silver and I like cleaning shoes. It's a wonderful task, I find it very therapeutic."
Asked if Miss Grillo was allowed to withdraw up to £800 per month cash on the credit card to pay a specialist silver cleaning firm, she said: "Francesca had a great job as a cleaner who could employ other cleaners," but doubted that the couple spent up to £9,600 per year hiring people to do something that "a bit of Duraglit" would sort out.
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