Post by davidhr on Nov 9, 2021 8:14:29 GMT -5
Two big news items this week; we’ll start with the most novel news, the release of a duet between Lara and Felix Lemelin entitled ‘Chez Nous’. Lara announced it with several pictures on her FB and Instagram pages, at
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=466148974869401&set=pcb.466149331536032
and
The pictures included both Gabriel and Felix – just to make Lara’s loyalties clear – as did her accompanying text:
“Only complicity, again and again between us. We're celebrating with the release of the song "Chez nous" [At Our Home] that my husband Gabriele and I composed together for the fabulous Félix Lemelin Congratulations my dear Felix, we wish you the best of success.” And Lara's contribution was not simply as a writer, but she sang with him in a prominent way, and helped him get it recorded.
For his part, Felix shared one of those pictures, presumably the cover of the single release, on his Instagram site, at
www.instagram.com/tv/CV5LJBFF29P/
with the comment,
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“😭 My brand new single CHEZ NOUS, duet with the amazing Lara Fabian is now available on all digital platforms !!!!🙌🏻
To tell you how grateful I am to be able to share this song with you today... I have no words... Thank you Lara for allowing me to sing it alongside you. Thank you for being an exceptional mentor and for writing it for me. Thank you for allowing me to live all these beautiful moments since day 1. Thank you for being part of my life.
Thank you also to you Moh [Denebi] for the amazing moments in the studio recording this song. 🙏🏻❤️
Here it is, it is now yours and it is called CHEZ NOUS
*To listen to it, link in my bio!
Special Mentions: @larafabianofficial @labelste4 @musicor @denebi @umusic
Song credits: Lara Fabian and Gabriel Di Giorgio.
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In addition to the standard digital music platforms, one can find it on youtube at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=639QazN-4TQ
The release was discussed at (https://wiwibloggs.com/2021/11/07/new-music-from-arilena-ara-lara-fabian-il-volo-and-more/266969/):
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Lara Fabian & Félix Lemelin – “Chez nous”
Lara Fabian coached Félix Lemelin during the sixth season of La Voix (the French-Canadian version of TV singing competition The Voice), where he made it to the semi-finals. Now Lara has composed the new song “Chez nous” (“With us”) that she performs together with Félix. Luxembourg’s Eurovision 1988 singer starts the song off before Félix joins in and they deliver some nice harmonies in the chorus (and there’s a key-change for good measure). Lyrically, the pair sing about obtaining the courage to begin an adventure: “I see, I see this dream right in front / I’m scared, I’m scared, but I’m really, really going / With an open heart I fly /With a lost heart I take off”.
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The release was also discussed, and is available, at (http://torpille.ca/2021/11/felix-lemelin-chez-nous-feat-lara-fabian/), as noted below:
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FÉLIX LEMELIN - "CHEZ NOUS (FEAT. LARA FABIAN)"
03:39
FÉLIX LEMELIN PRESENTS
A DUO WITH LARA FABIAN CHEZ NOUS
AVAILABLE TODAY ON ALL DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Montreal, November 5, 2021 | After unveiling some of the songs that will make up his first album, including the popular I'm Done Anyway (enough talk), the first taste released in December 2020 which earned him the title of "Future star iHeartRadio of February 2021" at Rouge fm, Félix Lemelin is launching a brand new single today: Chez nous.
A pop song as sweet as it is catchy that he delivers as a duet with his mentor Lara Fabian. A star who guides him and takes a benevolent gaze on his artistic development since the La Voix adventure, Lara Fabian co-signs this song with Félix Lemelin and Moh Denebi.
“I recognized in Felix someone from my family, my soul family. It is unique. Kind of an embodiment of a very, very old soul. Félix Lemelin is the perfect example of an artist who embodies his life through music, and not who embodies the music in his life." - Lara Fabian
Bringing dreams and hope, delivered in a touching and superb harmony by the tandem, the song 'Chez nous' evokes the courage to attempt the adventure like that of finding one's home.
I see, I see this dream in front of
me I'm scared, I'm scared, but I'm really, really going
With an open heart I fly
With a lost heart I take off
from the heavens to the earth I color
my soul of light
Then I return
To our home
It was in 2018, at La Voix 6, that we met Félix Lemelin. We discovered with emotion his immense talent and his authentic sensitivity. Three years later, the one who capsized and moved Lara Fabian to tears from the Blind Auditions is preparing the release of a first record, directed by Scott Price, to be released on the STE-4 label in the winter of 2022.
Until then, Chez nous is available on all digital platforms!
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The other major news of the week was the actual release of Lara’s new book, “Je passe a table”. Lara placed the video promo for her book at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1304947483289956
and
And it’s on youtube at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgirvbOLvP4
Lara gave a shout-out to Josée and Hugo of La Presse on her FB page, writing “Thank you to Josee and Hugo of La Presse for this beautiful visit into my kitchen to talk food & life! My gourmet autobiography is available at all bookstores!
qublivre.ca/products/je-passe-a-table..."
Their report of their meeting with Lara is at (https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/1ce60dd0-3998-4140-88da-bfdc250007c8__7C___0.html?fbclid=IwAR1AlcfnUaHzKTl1h9Cm2XO8A6Hagt2sS7c9wQifTaW3UqYdehM-G7Hd6fg), translated below:
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GOURMAND
LARA FABIAN, COOK AT HEART
Je passe a table (I sit down to eat)
Lara Fabian
Libre Expression
208 pages
Lara Fabian has just launched 'Je passe à table', a “gourmet autobiography” in which she speaks in words… and in recipes. She cooked for us two dishes which appear in the book, and which remind her of her childhood in Belgium.
GRANNY MARIE
“I am not a chef. I am truly a cook at heart."
Lara Fabian welcomes us to her house in Bromont and is about to bake some apples with brown sugar, a very simple recipe which, each time she prepares it, brings her directly back to her “grandma Marie”.
Because all the periods of her life are linked to specific dishes, this is how Lara Fabian has chosen to tell about herself, in “Je passe à table” . “I found an autobiography to be a bit pompous and redundant. I wanted something more fun and unifying, whatever our culture."
And even though she has been cooking for over 30 years, she certainly did not want to pretend to be what she is not, that is to say a chef. This is why she preferred to propose a book where she would put them in context. “My mastery, it is in the desire to please, to make a nice table, and to say that we are good together."
JOY
“Yes, yes, there is butter in my apples,” said Lara Fabian, smiling. And brown sugar. And sugar. "It's so nothing, that dessert!" But as I tell in the book, I am not very good at desserts. Her daughter Lou, on the other hand, who is 13 years old and has been passionate about baking from a young age, is downright gifted. She has even developed delicious gluten-free recipes for her mother who is intolerant of it.
“She actually has a joy. A treat”, says Lara Fabian. "That you passed on to her," adds her assistant Johanna. "The joy of cooking."
Johanna is by Lara's side that day to lend her a hand. But normally, the singer cooks alone for her family, every day, even when she is working. Which is by no means a feat, she wishes to clarify. “Our mothers and grandmothers have done this every day of their lives!"
She takes the apples out of the oven. “Yes!" She exclaims. They are appetizing and cooked to perfection, and in her kitchen, it smells of the sky.
“Cooking sounds intimidating, but it's not that much. In this book, there is a desire to reconnect with joy. And as soon as we are happy to do something, we are no longer intimidated." - Lara Fabian
And there is nothing more enjoyable than cooking for the people you love.
"The idea is to remember that it is a very simple gesture that gives so much pleasure, and that it is not necessarily the most complex, the most expensive, or the one that requires the most knowledge", adds Lara Fabian...
PREPARE
The recipes that Lara Fabian has chosen to publish are part of her career and as a singer. They transport us from her mother's Sicily to her native Belgium, from the countries of Eastern Europe to Tunisia. “I am the common thread, because it is a part of my life that I present to you."
The book is divided into 17 stories to which are linked dishes, and in which she relates the underside of her extraordinary artistic career, strong moments as well as dark moments. “Let's say it woke me up a few nights. Painful, no, but stirring, yes."
Thus, she reveals to have lived a long episode of eating disorders, which she got out of thanks to a Japanese friend who "relearned" to her to eat, and then gives us an overview of the art of the bento. Her success in Russia led her to relay a recipe for beetroot soup, which she tasted for the first time at the Pushkin cafe in Moscow.
Her former Tunisian mother-in-law - her daughter's grandmother - was an outstanding cook whose fish couscous was famous. A long-term project that she learned by observing it - “To do it well, it takes a full day” - and that she also reproduces for the most ambitious.
A book on food as a source of joy and comfort, therefore, transmitted by women who have helped her build herself. “I made a lot of repairs with the table. But I didn't want to dwell on it. It would be very inelegant, when you have a nice career, to be a little “poor little star”. There are things that I have deliberately omitted to tell. I used the humor and the food more, putting a grain of salt in it to say, “See how I went through this story.” "
THE BELGIAN NEIGHBOR
During our visit, Lara Fabian decided to also prepare a Belgian endive gratin, which reminds her ... of her Sicilian mother. “Because she herself learned how to do it. Let's say a béchamel with butter, endives in the ham ... it's not quite Etna, clayey soil, fish and eggplant! But it made daddy happy."
She remembers that it was their neighbor upstairs, Marie-France, who had shown her mother how to prepare them. “When my mother redid the recipe on her own, she added cream to the bechamel sauce, braised the endive ... Marie-France had told her [she takes on the Belgian accent]: 'They are better than those of my mother." Dad said the same thing."
Lara Fabian has adopted her mother's method and prepares more from time to time. “But not too often, it takes a week to recover!" Says the one who eats only one real meal a day, in the evening, and very lightly at noon.
“On show nights, at 4 pm I eat 100 g of carbohydrates and 100 g of protein. That's all. Finally, an Olympic athlete's program. And it works well. You sleep well, you have strength. No need for more. It must be just fuel."
KNACK
There is a small problem with the béchamel for endives, which is not thick enough. Lara Fabian adds diluted flour and stirs vigorously, begins to activate a little more. “I don't have my fingers in my nose in the kitchen, that's for sure!”, she says.
Just by observing it, it's obvious. For the book, it is moreover she who simmered all the dishes which were photographed, "without exception". A good thirty in all, at the rate of five or six a day in a week, with the faithful Johanna as assistant cook. The factory, what!
“There was no leader, and I wanted to. The knack, it had to be mine! It's hard to sell something that you don't have a sample with, frankly. I wanted to have a stylist to tell me how to put it on the plate, but I was the one who made the food. It was my only condition."
TRANSMISSION
Lara Fabian has been rediscovered a bit in recent years, first as a judge at La Voix, then as director of Star Académie last winter, where her warm and welcoming nature was revealed more. "It's normal, it opened the door more to the person than to the artist," said the singer, who wanted the second part of her career to be more devoted to transmission.
“I walked around the garden a bit, sang in the most beautiful and largest places in the world, sold tens of millions of albums. Truly, I have been blessed by the gods." - Lara Fabian
She will therefore return to Star Académie in January, which does not prevent her from continuing to write songs and resume in September 2022 her tour interrupted by the pandemic.
Very interested in permaculture, the blue economy and food self-sufficiency, Lara Fabian reads a lot on the subject and would like to put her notoriety at the service of the health of the planet - she dreams of making a second book including the plates would all be “zero kilometers”.
“That too can be passed on. I'm lucky to have a showcase, so I say to myself: how can I be of service? How can I be inspiring? I dream of embodying the change I want for tomorrow, and leaving something for my daughter that makes sense."
ACCOMPLISHMENT
While we are getting ready to taste the endives, a neighbor arrives. Lara Fabian, welcoming, prepares a plate for him, but true to her habits, she does not eat. She still takes a bite of cooked apples. Do they taste as good as those from her childhood? “Never,” she said with a soft smile.
When asked if she is proud of her book, she prefers to use the word "satisfaction". “Pride, you can have it more at the end of the course. It's more a feeling of a great accomplishment, of a great accomplished teamwork. "
In the book, her two favorite recipes are mushroom risotto - “because I do it well, and it gives a lot of joy when I do” - and osso bucco. “Because it's my mother."
“My mother, she would be proud of me."
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Other articles appeared on line, for example at (https://newswep.com/lara-fabian-at-the-table-with-her-daughter-lou-and-her-husband-gabriel-video/):
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Lara Fabian, “at the table” with her daughter Lou and her husband Gabriel
After long months of work, Lara Fabian proudly presented “Je Passe à Table”, a cookbook like no other! The singer, accompanied by her daughter Lou and her husband, delivers recipes, but also anecdotes and unpublished photos to immerse her fans in the heart of their intimate life …
Besides music and live performances, Lara Fabian is a big fan of small dishes that she cooks with love in the kitchen. It is therefore natural that the Belgian-Quebec singer wrote her first cookbook entitled "Je passe a table", released this November 3 in Quebec. In this book, the 51-year-old artist not only revealed her cooking secrets, she also wanted to indulge her fans. “As a friend”, as she explained in a promotional video on Instagram: “I tell about myself there in a new way. I reveal anecdotes never revealed, I share cooking recipes that are dear to me as well only exclusive photos from my personal archives “.
Lara Fabian unveils a “different autobiography”
Between some recipes and some childhood clichés, Lara Fabian signs here a “different autobiography”, born from an ingenious idea “few months ago“.
"I wasn’t tempted to make a cookbook to make a cookbook, I wanted to talk about the importance of the table in my life. How it was both great joys, and at the same time how it has been linked to more difficult times“, she confided.
Lara Fabian: her daughter Lou, 13, looks a lot like her
To support her in this new project, Lara Fabian was able to count on the two pillars of her life: her daughter Lou, she had with the director Gérard Pullicino and her husband Gabriel Di Giorgio, who can be seen in the images published via the social network. And that it was not a surprise to its subscribers discovering the resemblance of the young girl, who will soon be celebrating her 14 years old, with her pretty mom! “Here, we operate like a family, we are a team with my husband and with my daughter… We made everything possible because we are a team. And it is also a bit that which is honored in this book, it is how we have gone through the eras of my life by being a team at every stage “, assured the interpreter of 'Je t'aime'.
In Europe, the book 'Je passe a table' by Lara Fabian should be available in 2022, so a little more patience …
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Another article about the book can be found at (https://journalmetro.com/inspiration/2719751/lara-fabian-livre-cuisine/):
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INSPIRATION
Lara Fabian invites you to her table
Lara Fabian may not receive people often and not just everyone, but when she does, she gives herself up completely to her guests. Just like in her new gourmet autobiography 'Je passe a table', sprinkled with intimate anecdotes and recipes that have marked her life.
"I always knew that if I had to tell myself halfway through, it would be through the table," reveals the singer with 30 years of career.
Over the pages, she presents around thirty favorite dishes from all walks of life - from parmigiana eggplants to Tunisian couscous - associating them with her brightest moments, but also with darker episodes.
She tells about her childhood between Italy and Belgium, her evenings in piano bars, her meteoric rise, her descent into hell, then her recovery, without forgetting her tender moments with her Gabriel and her daughter Lou, who cheer up today, their daily life. All embellished with memories and personal photos.
If she admits to us that her relationship with food has not always been so healthy (to the point where she ate an apple a week that she separated into 7 quarters), she says that she has completely returned to the grub and has total respect to the quality of the ingredients, as simple as they are. Yes, we can feel her Italian roots!
Lara now cooks everyday, mostly simple dishes. “I am not a chef. I am a girl who cooks with the heart”, she says candidly.
And this love for gastronomy, she cultivates it thanks to the “founding moments” that she shared around a table. “I became who I am, I understood so many things, thanks to these privileged moments. […] Together, at the table, we become one, we form such special bonds.”
Eat at Lara's
But what does it look like to be received at Lara Fabian's? “You can expect generous tables, a good bottle of wine, dishes that don't take too long to prepare, that allow me to sit down with my guests, to take the time to get to know each other, to give them my full attention and love. […] I receive in the same way my mom transmitted to me.”
Her favorite dish? The mushroom or broccoli risotto that she serves with pecorino or parmigiano (which her mother always put on the table), which are also among the only cheeses that Lara consumes because of her lactose intolerance.
"[My gluten and lactose intolerances] are more restrictive for the others where I am going to eat," she laughs. "At first, I saw it as a big constraint, but [my intolerances] also allowed me to open up to other ingredients, to explore other ways of cooking, to digest as well. I have discovered wonderful products.”
When it comes to dessert, she relies on her daughter Lou, who is said to be particularly good at baking. "Me, I make basic things, mum's desserts", like her "French comedy pancakes" which, we are sure, have the effect of "I love you".
Je passe à table, published by Éditions Libre Expression, will be on sale from November 3.
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And Lara was on the cover, and interviewed, in “7 Jours”; thanks to the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions and the Lara Fabian Coeur de lumiere FB sites for the scans (https://www.facebook.com/LaraFabianLockdownSession/photos/pcb.399571605240945/399571415240964; www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/pcb.936491173655176/936490970321863/). Here’s the translation:
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Lara Fabian: All The Things That I Haven’t Said…
In writing her gourmet autobiography, Lara Fabian had the intention of going to the table, in every sense of the word. In fact, the singer comes back to her origins, her parents and their heritage, her loves, the man of her life, her daughter: no field has been neglected. Through the recipes she shares with us she gives us access to the essential of her intimacy. Even some unedited confidences...
Lara, what does your most recent project, "Je passe a table", offer?
LF: It's a gourmet autobiography that brings together stories and recipes. I didn't want to write an autobiography. While writing this book, I realized how much the table plays a fundamental role in my life and that it continues to do so. It can be heavy to tell a life story, as it can be heavy to read. I wanted to find a different angle. The table is the thing that keeps us busy, comforts us, makes us happy and sometimes even divides us. It is the place where we take the time to exchange. This recipe book is the result of my life story. I didn't wake up one morning with the desire to make a book of recipes, but rather with the desire to tell all those things I hadn't said.
The art of the table is usually a family heritage. Did the exercise allow you to confirm the richness of what you have inherited?
Lara: Yes, it is the heritage of my parents, my grandparents, my mother's sisters. Even today, if I want to plan a moment of joy, it will be around a table. I love to spend the time cooking for my guests. This love of the table does not come from nowhere, as my grandmother would say. Sharing is a true act of love. It is concrete. In the last 40 years, in our lives as women, we have been forced to see this preparation as an unavoidable step. I have never seen my mother cook out of obligation. I wanted to show, through my life as a super active woman, the immense simplicity of meal preparation.
Your daughter apparently cooks wonderful desserts and pastries. Do you think you have inspired her in turn?
Lara: If you ask her what she loves most, she will answer that apart from the beings themselves, it is eating. For her too, it is a joy, a blessing.
And Gabriel, your lover?
Lara: My boyfriend could eat a tuna salad sandwich or a bowl of cereal for dinner and he would be very happy. He has no demands. He is in gratitude and joy. That makes the exercise even more wonderful.
Since you mention having an eating disorder, is this book some kind of proof of your recovery?
Lara: Yes, completely, but at the same time, I didn't approach it as a milestone, but rather as a moment that I experienced, even though it lasted a few years. It didn't erase the joy of eating and that's why it was important to celebrate the table. It is a beautiful message of resilience for those who have a difficult relationship with food. It means that we can make peace. Being at peace means being present. When we suffer from a love disorder, we are not present to the joy and vitality of eating. I did not want to censor this part of my life, because it would not have been honest of me to not talk about it.
What will we find out about you that we don't know?
Lara: Stories and recipes whose tribulations represent at least three lifetimes. There is my life in Italy, the one spent in the northern countries and the one of my travels. These are the journeys of a destiny that have been cemented in the great moments around a table.
Has this life of movement and diverse influences created a great openness in you?
Lara: Yes, and when you look at my origins, you can see that I come from an Italian mother and a Dutch-speaking father who grew up in a French-speaking Belgian culture. I have family in Andalusia and the United States. Quebec is my adopted land. I am the result of a nomadism in terms of my destiny, but also in terms of my life choices. The great paradox is that all my life I have been looking for homes. It is my favorite hobby. Every time I found a house, a country, and said "I'm stopping here; this is my home and country", six months later I was in an a plane heading for another country...
Do you feel you have found the home of your life?
Lara: I don't dare say it...(smile)
I would like to stay there. It's funny, because my boyfriend used to say that as soon as he puts the last nail in the last project, we are usually four or six months away from leaving. Recently, he told me that he finished the workshop and had nothing left to do... So, I'm thinking of building an extension! (smile)
Through your story, you pay tribute to your parents. What did they leave you most precious?
Lara: Love. And love is not a feeling, it is a vibration. I vibrated through the love they showed. They never stopped loving. They were capable of great love. That is the most important thing they left me. They taught me how to love and that is still true today with my dad who will be 80 years old on December 25th. My parents, it's 55 years of love, but it's not a smooth story. I don't believe in smooth stories that last more than a decade.
Reading your book, we discover that you were the baby of reconciliation. Has this marked your destiny?
Lara: I believe that this is my mission in life. I never want to allow the line to be broken. It must be strengthened with love. I was the agent of transformation in the love affair of my parents. In the midst of life's turmoil, my mom and dad have experienced a loss of meaning in their relationship. But each time, their eyes turned to us. For them, service was the word. The book explains the meaning of this tribute, and this is what I am trying to reproduce. My family is a different family, but it is also beautiful. Every morning I see Gabriel and Lou leave for school. He gets up with me in the morning to prepare the lunch box. He is the one who would pick her up at school.
When you have a model like your parents' in front of you, it's still a great inspiration. And on the other hand, do you ever think that the bar is high in this respect?
Lara: The universe has been good to me. It sent me a material from which a very nice bar was made...(smile). The one I'm holding in my hands is made of a wood that can rival my parents'. Gabriel and I have already accomplished a decade. I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity of fate. It is the realization of a deep thought that I have always had. I always knew that this being exists. I never doubted. I didn't know when or with whom, but I never doubted that I would be able to experience a great love. I have always believed in it.
Wasn't it your grandmother who told you that one day you would meet your half of an orange?
Lara: That's what she used to tell me. It is a great privilege, because it allows you to transcend everything. It does not necessarily mean that everything becomes easier, but rather that everything becomes possible. This is not the easiest thing to achieve in life... Some people spend their life looking for the other. I don't want to be a psychologist, but I believe that as long as we don't reconnect with our capacity to love, to love ourselves, it is impossible for the universe to open the door to this mirror. We must have the feeling that we deserve it, that we are entitled to it. To achieve this, I had to do some work, conscious and unconscious.
In Je passe a table, you come back on your love stories, and even on the difficult moments. Is there any hope?
There are some stories that are like paving stones in the face. I didn't want anyone to think "Poor little girl..." I know what I went through! It's important to bring that light. At the time I was living these stories, I was wondering if I was going to make it... It's not like we spontaneously show resilience. You are only resilient when you understand that resilience is about turning difficulty into opportunity. It is to say that pain does not necessarily have to be a roadside companion. When you are hit by an arrow, it hurts...but if you don't plant it in your heart again after the first impact. This is my way of saying that it is possible to overcome pain with faith, with strength.
We have always felt this strength and faith in you. Are they part of your nature?
Lara: Yes, I have faith in life and in the connection we have with some people. Happiness is to be useful, even if it's only to one person. It's wonderful to reach out. The great discovery I made at La Voix in 2017 is that what contributes the most to the other person is not to tell them how to do it, but to tell them that you are there to help them discover how to do it.
Is that what you do with your daughter too?
Lara: Yes, even if we are less objective with our children. As Lao Tsu said so well "The lantern is a light that only illuminates the heart of the person who carries it".
You also pay tribute to your daughter's father. It's rare that you talk about him...
Yes, to him and to his mother. Mr. Pullicino, it is the origin of Lou, my daughter. It was normal. I am filled with gratitude. No matter how far down the road this may have gone, between us it will never end. We will always have a bond, Lou. It was right and proper to talk about it.
A Little Culinary Secret
If you ask Lara about a comforting recipe, her baby pasta recipe takes her back to her childhood. “To my chagrin, I can't eat gluten," she says, "but this recipe has always been my favorite. It's so easy to make and a great alternative to cereal in the evening when you really don't feel like cooking."
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Wonderful interview, as always!
The publicity was not only via the press. Lara was on the show “On va se la dire” on Ici Radio discussing the book. The video can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/iciradiocanadatele/videos/210899094452059/
Lara explained that in writing this ‘gourmet autobiography’, “above all in my life, I ended up realizing that you converged around the table, that all the events that were fundamental in my life or founder of joy or a healer or sometimes even in an exponential way that have allowed things in my life, they have almost all happened around a table and I will tell you that it is a little bit of transmission, it is first of all transmission and then it is what I have made of the transmission.“…”Indeed the table has always been very important. We crystallized the fact that a gesture of love was the table. It was through the farm that it happened in the first place and I have perpetuated this tradition for sure but today I find that more than ever the pressures that it is a place where can converge as well what unites us as what disunites us and we can solve almost everything. I find around a table especially, it is a good bottle of wine to the
person, there are many revelations that happen.“
As for fans’ reaction: On ‘Goodreads’ so far there have been two reviews – one 4*, one 5*. The 5* review had this comment (by Clara Therrien-Gros-Louis): “I learned some surprising anecdotes about Lara (especially about the performance at the Royal Albert Hall, you would never have believed it!!), other situations left me wanting to know more, and the recipes look nice!” As Lara said in her interview, she didn’t want to go fully into some of the darker episodes, so we should not expect to learn everything…
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from the Lara Fabian est ton autre FB site, a relevant picture of Lara interacting with food:
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=424557832372357&set=a.216252733202869
From the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions FB site, four wonderful photos from the book,
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianLockdownSession/photos/pcb.400198641844908/400198471844925/
From larafabian_fanpage_, 7 more of Lara the cook…
⠀
instagram.com/p/CV_DuTgo_HB/?utm_medium=share_sheet
And finally, the nice picture that Lara posted on her FB page today from the bookseller Renaud-Bray, the largest network of francophone bookstores in North America:
www.facebook.com/renaudbray/photos/a.146818024897/10159391431189898/
They included the comment, “Everything brings Lara Fabian back to the table. For her, meals symbolize family, friends, comfort, joy and gratitude.” A nice summary. The book is available from them at bit.ly/3kfgyUv.
It’s conceivable that Lara will have more promotion to do for her book, and possibly even for her duet with Felix, or for the Star Academie. A busy time has returned for her; good for her, and good for us! Stay safe, everybody.
David
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=466148974869401&set=pcb.466149331536032
and
http://instagram.com/p/CV6NT0nrc1K
The pictures included both Gabriel and Felix – just to make Lara’s loyalties clear – as did her accompanying text:
“Only complicity, again and again between us. We're celebrating with the release of the song "Chez nous" [At Our Home] that my husband Gabriele and I composed together for the fabulous Félix Lemelin Congratulations my dear Felix, we wish you the best of success.” And Lara's contribution was not simply as a writer, but she sang with him in a prominent way, and helped him get it recorded.
For his part, Felix shared one of those pictures, presumably the cover of the single release, on his Instagram site, at
www.instagram.com/tv/CV5LJBFF29P/
with the comment,
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“😭 My brand new single CHEZ NOUS, duet with the amazing Lara Fabian is now available on all digital platforms !!!!🙌🏻
To tell you how grateful I am to be able to share this song with you today... I have no words... Thank you Lara for allowing me to sing it alongside you. Thank you for being an exceptional mentor and for writing it for me. Thank you for allowing me to live all these beautiful moments since day 1. Thank you for being part of my life.
Thank you also to you Moh [Denebi] for the amazing moments in the studio recording this song. 🙏🏻❤️
Here it is, it is now yours and it is called CHEZ NOUS
*To listen to it, link in my bio!
Special Mentions: @larafabianofficial @labelste4 @musicor @denebi @umusic
Song credits: Lara Fabian and Gabriel Di Giorgio.
----------------------------------------------------
In addition to the standard digital music platforms, one can find it on youtube at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=639QazN-4TQ
The release was discussed at (https://wiwibloggs.com/2021/11/07/new-music-from-arilena-ara-lara-fabian-il-volo-and-more/266969/):
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Lara Fabian & Félix Lemelin – “Chez nous”
Lara Fabian coached Félix Lemelin during the sixth season of La Voix (the French-Canadian version of TV singing competition The Voice), where he made it to the semi-finals. Now Lara has composed the new song “Chez nous” (“With us”) that she performs together with Félix. Luxembourg’s Eurovision 1988 singer starts the song off before Félix joins in and they deliver some nice harmonies in the chorus (and there’s a key-change for good measure). Lyrically, the pair sing about obtaining the courage to begin an adventure: “I see, I see this dream right in front / I’m scared, I’m scared, but I’m really, really going / With an open heart I fly /With a lost heart I take off”.
------------------------------------------
The release was also discussed, and is available, at (http://torpille.ca/2021/11/felix-lemelin-chez-nous-feat-lara-fabian/), as noted below:
---------------------------------------
FÉLIX LEMELIN - "CHEZ NOUS (FEAT. LARA FABIAN)"
03:39
FÉLIX LEMELIN PRESENTS
A DUO WITH LARA FABIAN CHEZ NOUS
AVAILABLE TODAY ON ALL DIGITAL PLATFORMS
Montreal, November 5, 2021 | After unveiling some of the songs that will make up his first album, including the popular I'm Done Anyway (enough talk), the first taste released in December 2020 which earned him the title of "Future star iHeartRadio of February 2021" at Rouge fm, Félix Lemelin is launching a brand new single today: Chez nous.
A pop song as sweet as it is catchy that he delivers as a duet with his mentor Lara Fabian. A star who guides him and takes a benevolent gaze on his artistic development since the La Voix adventure, Lara Fabian co-signs this song with Félix Lemelin and Moh Denebi.
“I recognized in Felix someone from my family, my soul family. It is unique. Kind of an embodiment of a very, very old soul. Félix Lemelin is the perfect example of an artist who embodies his life through music, and not who embodies the music in his life." - Lara Fabian
Bringing dreams and hope, delivered in a touching and superb harmony by the tandem, the song 'Chez nous' evokes the courage to attempt the adventure like that of finding one's home.
I see, I see this dream in front of
me I'm scared, I'm scared, but I'm really, really going
With an open heart I fly
With a lost heart I take off
from the heavens to the earth I color
my soul of light
Then I return
To our home
It was in 2018, at La Voix 6, that we met Félix Lemelin. We discovered with emotion his immense talent and his authentic sensitivity. Three years later, the one who capsized and moved Lara Fabian to tears from the Blind Auditions is preparing the release of a first record, directed by Scott Price, to be released on the STE-4 label in the winter of 2022.
Until then, Chez nous is available on all digital platforms!
------------------------------------------
The other major news of the week was the actual release of Lara’s new book, “Je passe a table”. Lara placed the video promo for her book at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1304947483289956
and
http://instagram.com/p/CV0HXQhP-7V
And it’s on youtube at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgirvbOLvP4
Lara gave a shout-out to Josée and Hugo of La Presse on her FB page, writing “Thank you to Josee and Hugo of La Presse for this beautiful visit into my kitchen to talk food & life! My gourmet autobiography is available at all bookstores!
qublivre.ca/products/je-passe-a-table..."
Their report of their meeting with Lara is at (https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/1ce60dd0-3998-4140-88da-bfdc250007c8__7C___0.html?fbclid=IwAR1AlcfnUaHzKTl1h9Cm2XO8A6Hagt2sS7c9wQifTaW3UqYdehM-G7Hd6fg), translated below:
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GOURMAND
LARA FABIAN, COOK AT HEART
Je passe a table (I sit down to eat)
Lara Fabian
Libre Expression
208 pages
Lara Fabian has just launched 'Je passe à table', a “gourmet autobiography” in which she speaks in words… and in recipes. She cooked for us two dishes which appear in the book, and which remind her of her childhood in Belgium.
GRANNY MARIE
“I am not a chef. I am truly a cook at heart."
Lara Fabian welcomes us to her house in Bromont and is about to bake some apples with brown sugar, a very simple recipe which, each time she prepares it, brings her directly back to her “grandma Marie”.
Because all the periods of her life are linked to specific dishes, this is how Lara Fabian has chosen to tell about herself, in “Je passe à table” . “I found an autobiography to be a bit pompous and redundant. I wanted something more fun and unifying, whatever our culture."
And even though she has been cooking for over 30 years, she certainly did not want to pretend to be what she is not, that is to say a chef. This is why she preferred to propose a book where she would put them in context. “My mastery, it is in the desire to please, to make a nice table, and to say that we are good together."
JOY
“Yes, yes, there is butter in my apples,” said Lara Fabian, smiling. And brown sugar. And sugar. "It's so nothing, that dessert!" But as I tell in the book, I am not very good at desserts. Her daughter Lou, on the other hand, who is 13 years old and has been passionate about baking from a young age, is downright gifted. She has even developed delicious gluten-free recipes for her mother who is intolerant of it.
“She actually has a joy. A treat”, says Lara Fabian. "That you passed on to her," adds her assistant Johanna. "The joy of cooking."
Johanna is by Lara's side that day to lend her a hand. But normally, the singer cooks alone for her family, every day, even when she is working. Which is by no means a feat, she wishes to clarify. “Our mothers and grandmothers have done this every day of their lives!"
She takes the apples out of the oven. “Yes!" She exclaims. They are appetizing and cooked to perfection, and in her kitchen, it smells of the sky.
“Cooking sounds intimidating, but it's not that much. In this book, there is a desire to reconnect with joy. And as soon as we are happy to do something, we are no longer intimidated." - Lara Fabian
And there is nothing more enjoyable than cooking for the people you love.
"The idea is to remember that it is a very simple gesture that gives so much pleasure, and that it is not necessarily the most complex, the most expensive, or the one that requires the most knowledge", adds Lara Fabian...
PREPARE
The recipes that Lara Fabian has chosen to publish are part of her career and as a singer. They transport us from her mother's Sicily to her native Belgium, from the countries of Eastern Europe to Tunisia. “I am the common thread, because it is a part of my life that I present to you."
The book is divided into 17 stories to which are linked dishes, and in which she relates the underside of her extraordinary artistic career, strong moments as well as dark moments. “Let's say it woke me up a few nights. Painful, no, but stirring, yes."
Thus, she reveals to have lived a long episode of eating disorders, which she got out of thanks to a Japanese friend who "relearned" to her to eat, and then gives us an overview of the art of the bento. Her success in Russia led her to relay a recipe for beetroot soup, which she tasted for the first time at the Pushkin cafe in Moscow.
Her former Tunisian mother-in-law - her daughter's grandmother - was an outstanding cook whose fish couscous was famous. A long-term project that she learned by observing it - “To do it well, it takes a full day” - and that she also reproduces for the most ambitious.
A book on food as a source of joy and comfort, therefore, transmitted by women who have helped her build herself. “I made a lot of repairs with the table. But I didn't want to dwell on it. It would be very inelegant, when you have a nice career, to be a little “poor little star”. There are things that I have deliberately omitted to tell. I used the humor and the food more, putting a grain of salt in it to say, “See how I went through this story.” "
THE BELGIAN NEIGHBOR
During our visit, Lara Fabian decided to also prepare a Belgian endive gratin, which reminds her ... of her Sicilian mother. “Because she herself learned how to do it. Let's say a béchamel with butter, endives in the ham ... it's not quite Etna, clayey soil, fish and eggplant! But it made daddy happy."
She remembers that it was their neighbor upstairs, Marie-France, who had shown her mother how to prepare them. “When my mother redid the recipe on her own, she added cream to the bechamel sauce, braised the endive ... Marie-France had told her [she takes on the Belgian accent]: 'They are better than those of my mother." Dad said the same thing."
Lara Fabian has adopted her mother's method and prepares more from time to time. “But not too often, it takes a week to recover!" Says the one who eats only one real meal a day, in the evening, and very lightly at noon.
“On show nights, at 4 pm I eat 100 g of carbohydrates and 100 g of protein. That's all. Finally, an Olympic athlete's program. And it works well. You sleep well, you have strength. No need for more. It must be just fuel."
KNACK
There is a small problem with the béchamel for endives, which is not thick enough. Lara Fabian adds diluted flour and stirs vigorously, begins to activate a little more. “I don't have my fingers in my nose in the kitchen, that's for sure!”, she says.
Just by observing it, it's obvious. For the book, it is moreover she who simmered all the dishes which were photographed, "without exception". A good thirty in all, at the rate of five or six a day in a week, with the faithful Johanna as assistant cook. The factory, what!
“There was no leader, and I wanted to. The knack, it had to be mine! It's hard to sell something that you don't have a sample with, frankly. I wanted to have a stylist to tell me how to put it on the plate, but I was the one who made the food. It was my only condition."
TRANSMISSION
Lara Fabian has been rediscovered a bit in recent years, first as a judge at La Voix, then as director of Star Académie last winter, where her warm and welcoming nature was revealed more. "It's normal, it opened the door more to the person than to the artist," said the singer, who wanted the second part of her career to be more devoted to transmission.
“I walked around the garden a bit, sang in the most beautiful and largest places in the world, sold tens of millions of albums. Truly, I have been blessed by the gods." - Lara Fabian
She will therefore return to Star Académie in January, which does not prevent her from continuing to write songs and resume in September 2022 her tour interrupted by the pandemic.
Very interested in permaculture, the blue economy and food self-sufficiency, Lara Fabian reads a lot on the subject and would like to put her notoriety at the service of the health of the planet - she dreams of making a second book including the plates would all be “zero kilometers”.
“That too can be passed on. I'm lucky to have a showcase, so I say to myself: how can I be of service? How can I be inspiring? I dream of embodying the change I want for tomorrow, and leaving something for my daughter that makes sense."
ACCOMPLISHMENT
While we are getting ready to taste the endives, a neighbor arrives. Lara Fabian, welcoming, prepares a plate for him, but true to her habits, she does not eat. She still takes a bite of cooked apples. Do they taste as good as those from her childhood? “Never,” she said with a soft smile.
When asked if she is proud of her book, she prefers to use the word "satisfaction". “Pride, you can have it more at the end of the course. It's more a feeling of a great accomplishment, of a great accomplished teamwork. "
In the book, her two favorite recipes are mushroom risotto - “because I do it well, and it gives a lot of joy when I do” - and osso bucco. “Because it's my mother."
“My mother, she would be proud of me."
---------------------------------------------
Other articles appeared on line, for example at (https://newswep.com/lara-fabian-at-the-table-with-her-daughter-lou-and-her-husband-gabriel-video/):
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Lara Fabian, “at the table” with her daughter Lou and her husband Gabriel
After long months of work, Lara Fabian proudly presented “Je Passe à Table”, a cookbook like no other! The singer, accompanied by her daughter Lou and her husband, delivers recipes, but also anecdotes and unpublished photos to immerse her fans in the heart of their intimate life …
Besides music and live performances, Lara Fabian is a big fan of small dishes that she cooks with love in the kitchen. It is therefore natural that the Belgian-Quebec singer wrote her first cookbook entitled "Je passe a table", released this November 3 in Quebec. In this book, the 51-year-old artist not only revealed her cooking secrets, she also wanted to indulge her fans. “As a friend”, as she explained in a promotional video on Instagram: “I tell about myself there in a new way. I reveal anecdotes never revealed, I share cooking recipes that are dear to me as well only exclusive photos from my personal archives “.
Lara Fabian unveils a “different autobiography”
Between some recipes and some childhood clichés, Lara Fabian signs here a “different autobiography”, born from an ingenious idea “few months ago“.
"I wasn’t tempted to make a cookbook to make a cookbook, I wanted to talk about the importance of the table in my life. How it was both great joys, and at the same time how it has been linked to more difficult times“, she confided.
Lara Fabian: her daughter Lou, 13, looks a lot like her
To support her in this new project, Lara Fabian was able to count on the two pillars of her life: her daughter Lou, she had with the director Gérard Pullicino and her husband Gabriel Di Giorgio, who can be seen in the images published via the social network. And that it was not a surprise to its subscribers discovering the resemblance of the young girl, who will soon be celebrating her 14 years old, with her pretty mom! “Here, we operate like a family, we are a team with my husband and with my daughter… We made everything possible because we are a team. And it is also a bit that which is honored in this book, it is how we have gone through the eras of my life by being a team at every stage “, assured the interpreter of 'Je t'aime'.
In Europe, the book 'Je passe a table' by Lara Fabian should be available in 2022, so a little more patience …
----------------------------------
Another article about the book can be found at (https://journalmetro.com/inspiration/2719751/lara-fabian-livre-cuisine/):
---------------------------------------------
INSPIRATION
Lara Fabian invites you to her table
Lara Fabian may not receive people often and not just everyone, but when she does, she gives herself up completely to her guests. Just like in her new gourmet autobiography 'Je passe a table', sprinkled with intimate anecdotes and recipes that have marked her life.
"I always knew that if I had to tell myself halfway through, it would be through the table," reveals the singer with 30 years of career.
Over the pages, she presents around thirty favorite dishes from all walks of life - from parmigiana eggplants to Tunisian couscous - associating them with her brightest moments, but also with darker episodes.
She tells about her childhood between Italy and Belgium, her evenings in piano bars, her meteoric rise, her descent into hell, then her recovery, without forgetting her tender moments with her Gabriel and her daughter Lou, who cheer up today, their daily life. All embellished with memories and personal photos.
If she admits to us that her relationship with food has not always been so healthy (to the point where she ate an apple a week that she separated into 7 quarters), she says that she has completely returned to the grub and has total respect to the quality of the ingredients, as simple as they are. Yes, we can feel her Italian roots!
Lara now cooks everyday, mostly simple dishes. “I am not a chef. I am a girl who cooks with the heart”, she says candidly.
And this love for gastronomy, she cultivates it thanks to the “founding moments” that she shared around a table. “I became who I am, I understood so many things, thanks to these privileged moments. […] Together, at the table, we become one, we form such special bonds.”
Eat at Lara's
But what does it look like to be received at Lara Fabian's? “You can expect generous tables, a good bottle of wine, dishes that don't take too long to prepare, that allow me to sit down with my guests, to take the time to get to know each other, to give them my full attention and love. […] I receive in the same way my mom transmitted to me.”
Her favorite dish? The mushroom or broccoli risotto that she serves with pecorino or parmigiano (which her mother always put on the table), which are also among the only cheeses that Lara consumes because of her lactose intolerance.
"[My gluten and lactose intolerances] are more restrictive for the others where I am going to eat," she laughs. "At first, I saw it as a big constraint, but [my intolerances] also allowed me to open up to other ingredients, to explore other ways of cooking, to digest as well. I have discovered wonderful products.”
When it comes to dessert, she relies on her daughter Lou, who is said to be particularly good at baking. "Me, I make basic things, mum's desserts", like her "French comedy pancakes" which, we are sure, have the effect of "I love you".
Je passe à table, published by Éditions Libre Expression, will be on sale from November 3.
---------------------------------------------------------
And Lara was on the cover, and interviewed, in “7 Jours”; thanks to the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions and the Lara Fabian Coeur de lumiere FB sites for the scans (https://www.facebook.com/LaraFabianLockdownSession/photos/pcb.399571605240945/399571415240964; www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/pcb.936491173655176/936490970321863/). Here’s the translation:
------------------------------------------
Lara Fabian: All The Things That I Haven’t Said…
In writing her gourmet autobiography, Lara Fabian had the intention of going to the table, in every sense of the word. In fact, the singer comes back to her origins, her parents and their heritage, her loves, the man of her life, her daughter: no field has been neglected. Through the recipes she shares with us she gives us access to the essential of her intimacy. Even some unedited confidences...
Lara, what does your most recent project, "Je passe a table", offer?
LF: It's a gourmet autobiography that brings together stories and recipes. I didn't want to write an autobiography. While writing this book, I realized how much the table plays a fundamental role in my life and that it continues to do so. It can be heavy to tell a life story, as it can be heavy to read. I wanted to find a different angle. The table is the thing that keeps us busy, comforts us, makes us happy and sometimes even divides us. It is the place where we take the time to exchange. This recipe book is the result of my life story. I didn't wake up one morning with the desire to make a book of recipes, but rather with the desire to tell all those things I hadn't said.
The art of the table is usually a family heritage. Did the exercise allow you to confirm the richness of what you have inherited?
Lara: Yes, it is the heritage of my parents, my grandparents, my mother's sisters. Even today, if I want to plan a moment of joy, it will be around a table. I love to spend the time cooking for my guests. This love of the table does not come from nowhere, as my grandmother would say. Sharing is a true act of love. It is concrete. In the last 40 years, in our lives as women, we have been forced to see this preparation as an unavoidable step. I have never seen my mother cook out of obligation. I wanted to show, through my life as a super active woman, the immense simplicity of meal preparation.
Your daughter apparently cooks wonderful desserts and pastries. Do you think you have inspired her in turn?
Lara: If you ask her what she loves most, she will answer that apart from the beings themselves, it is eating. For her too, it is a joy, a blessing.
And Gabriel, your lover?
Lara: My boyfriend could eat a tuna salad sandwich or a bowl of cereal for dinner and he would be very happy. He has no demands. He is in gratitude and joy. That makes the exercise even more wonderful.
Since you mention having an eating disorder, is this book some kind of proof of your recovery?
Lara: Yes, completely, but at the same time, I didn't approach it as a milestone, but rather as a moment that I experienced, even though it lasted a few years. It didn't erase the joy of eating and that's why it was important to celebrate the table. It is a beautiful message of resilience for those who have a difficult relationship with food. It means that we can make peace. Being at peace means being present. When we suffer from a love disorder, we are not present to the joy and vitality of eating. I did not want to censor this part of my life, because it would not have been honest of me to not talk about it.
What will we find out about you that we don't know?
Lara: Stories and recipes whose tribulations represent at least three lifetimes. There is my life in Italy, the one spent in the northern countries and the one of my travels. These are the journeys of a destiny that have been cemented in the great moments around a table.
Has this life of movement and diverse influences created a great openness in you?
Lara: Yes, and when you look at my origins, you can see that I come from an Italian mother and a Dutch-speaking father who grew up in a French-speaking Belgian culture. I have family in Andalusia and the United States. Quebec is my adopted land. I am the result of a nomadism in terms of my destiny, but also in terms of my life choices. The great paradox is that all my life I have been looking for homes. It is my favorite hobby. Every time I found a house, a country, and said "I'm stopping here; this is my home and country", six months later I was in an a plane heading for another country...
Do you feel you have found the home of your life?
Lara: I don't dare say it...(smile)
I would like to stay there. It's funny, because my boyfriend used to say that as soon as he puts the last nail in the last project, we are usually four or six months away from leaving. Recently, he told me that he finished the workshop and had nothing left to do... So, I'm thinking of building an extension! (smile)
Through your story, you pay tribute to your parents. What did they leave you most precious?
Lara: Love. And love is not a feeling, it is a vibration. I vibrated through the love they showed. They never stopped loving. They were capable of great love. That is the most important thing they left me. They taught me how to love and that is still true today with my dad who will be 80 years old on December 25th. My parents, it's 55 years of love, but it's not a smooth story. I don't believe in smooth stories that last more than a decade.
Reading your book, we discover that you were the baby of reconciliation. Has this marked your destiny?
Lara: I believe that this is my mission in life. I never want to allow the line to be broken. It must be strengthened with love. I was the agent of transformation in the love affair of my parents. In the midst of life's turmoil, my mom and dad have experienced a loss of meaning in their relationship. But each time, their eyes turned to us. For them, service was the word. The book explains the meaning of this tribute, and this is what I am trying to reproduce. My family is a different family, but it is also beautiful. Every morning I see Gabriel and Lou leave for school. He gets up with me in the morning to prepare the lunch box. He is the one who would pick her up at school.
When you have a model like your parents' in front of you, it's still a great inspiration. And on the other hand, do you ever think that the bar is high in this respect?
Lara: The universe has been good to me. It sent me a material from which a very nice bar was made...(smile). The one I'm holding in my hands is made of a wood that can rival my parents'. Gabriel and I have already accomplished a decade. I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity of fate. It is the realization of a deep thought that I have always had. I always knew that this being exists. I never doubted. I didn't know when or with whom, but I never doubted that I would be able to experience a great love. I have always believed in it.
Wasn't it your grandmother who told you that one day you would meet your half of an orange?
Lara: That's what she used to tell me. It is a great privilege, because it allows you to transcend everything. It does not necessarily mean that everything becomes easier, but rather that everything becomes possible. This is not the easiest thing to achieve in life... Some people spend their life looking for the other. I don't want to be a psychologist, but I believe that as long as we don't reconnect with our capacity to love, to love ourselves, it is impossible for the universe to open the door to this mirror. We must have the feeling that we deserve it, that we are entitled to it. To achieve this, I had to do some work, conscious and unconscious.
In Je passe a table, you come back on your love stories, and even on the difficult moments. Is there any hope?
There are some stories that are like paving stones in the face. I didn't want anyone to think "Poor little girl..." I know what I went through! It's important to bring that light. At the time I was living these stories, I was wondering if I was going to make it... It's not like we spontaneously show resilience. You are only resilient when you understand that resilience is about turning difficulty into opportunity. It is to say that pain does not necessarily have to be a roadside companion. When you are hit by an arrow, it hurts...but if you don't plant it in your heart again after the first impact. This is my way of saying that it is possible to overcome pain with faith, with strength.
We have always felt this strength and faith in you. Are they part of your nature?
Lara: Yes, I have faith in life and in the connection we have with some people. Happiness is to be useful, even if it's only to one person. It's wonderful to reach out. The great discovery I made at La Voix in 2017 is that what contributes the most to the other person is not to tell them how to do it, but to tell them that you are there to help them discover how to do it.
Is that what you do with your daughter too?
Lara: Yes, even if we are less objective with our children. As Lao Tsu said so well "The lantern is a light that only illuminates the heart of the person who carries it".
You also pay tribute to your daughter's father. It's rare that you talk about him...
Yes, to him and to his mother. Mr. Pullicino, it is the origin of Lou, my daughter. It was normal. I am filled with gratitude. No matter how far down the road this may have gone, between us it will never end. We will always have a bond, Lou. It was right and proper to talk about it.
A Little Culinary Secret
If you ask Lara about a comforting recipe, her baby pasta recipe takes her back to her childhood. “To my chagrin, I can't eat gluten," she says, "but this recipe has always been my favorite. It's so easy to make and a great alternative to cereal in the evening when you really don't feel like cooking."
------------------------------------------------
Wonderful interview, as always!
The publicity was not only via the press. Lara was on the show “On va se la dire” on Ici Radio discussing the book. The video can be seen at:
www.facebook.com/iciradiocanadatele/videos/210899094452059/
Lara explained that in writing this ‘gourmet autobiography’, “above all in my life, I ended up realizing that you converged around the table, that all the events that were fundamental in my life or founder of joy or a healer or sometimes even in an exponential way that have allowed things in my life, they have almost all happened around a table and I will tell you that it is a little bit of transmission, it is first of all transmission and then it is what I have made of the transmission.“…”Indeed the table has always been very important. We crystallized the fact that a gesture of love was the table. It was through the farm that it happened in the first place and I have perpetuated this tradition for sure but today I find that more than ever the pressures that it is a place where can converge as well what unites us as what disunites us and we can solve almost everything. I find around a table especially, it is a good bottle of wine to the
person, there are many revelations that happen.“
As for fans’ reaction: On ‘Goodreads’ so far there have been two reviews – one 4*, one 5*. The 5* review had this comment (by Clara Therrien-Gros-Louis): “I learned some surprising anecdotes about Lara (especially about the performance at the Royal Albert Hall, you would never have believed it!!), other situations left me wanting to know more, and the recipes look nice!” As Lara said in her interview, she didn’t want to go fully into some of the darker episodes, so we should not expect to learn everything…
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from the Lara Fabian est ton autre FB site, a relevant picture of Lara interacting with food:
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=424557832372357&set=a.216252733202869
From the Lara Fabian Lockdown Sessions FB site, four wonderful photos from the book,
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianLockdownSession/photos/pcb.400198641844908/400198471844925/
From larafabian_fanpage_, 7 more of Lara the cook…
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instagram.com/p/CV_DuTgo_HB/?utm_medium=share_sheet
And finally, the nice picture that Lara posted on her FB page today from the bookseller Renaud-Bray, the largest network of francophone bookstores in North America:
www.facebook.com/renaudbray/photos/a.146818024897/10159391431189898/
They included the comment, “Everything brings Lara Fabian back to the table. For her, meals symbolize family, friends, comfort, joy and gratitude.” A nice summary. The book is available from them at bit.ly/3kfgyUv.
It’s conceivable that Lara will have more promotion to do for her book, and possibly even for her duet with Felix, or for the Star Academie. A busy time has returned for her; good for her, and good for us! Stay safe, everybody.
David
