Post by davidhr on Dec 28, 2021 8:27:11 GMT -5
If Lara followed through on her intentions, she is spending this and the next week or two in Belgium with her family – and her father. That might explain the lack of any Christmas message to her fans. In its place, we’ll move up the ‘interesting photos/videos of the week" segment to the front, acknowledging the Christmas wishes provided by some of the Lara fan sites, including:
The Lara Fabian est ton autre site:
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=453245752836898
The Lara Fabian America site, which provided a link to Lara’s singing of “All I Want for Christmas is You, at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uht9n9TPhpI
The Lara Fabian Connecting People site, which provided the video Lara sang for Christmas when she was on La Voix in 2019, a ‘formidable’ song:
vk.com/video-121236_456242046
Les Papillons Blanc site:
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158187634272204
The Lara Fabian Netherlands site:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianTheNetherlands/photos/pcb.493004555578279/493004278911640/
Coeur du Lumiere site:
www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/966459673991659/
The Lara Fabian International Page, which provided a link to Lara and Rick Allison singing ‘Petit Papa Noel’,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRo6FpY8A9k
And a special link from the Star Academie TVA FB site, with a beautiful scene,
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=974295666626487&ref=sharing
To which we will add our own (belated) link to the always favorite video of Lara singing “White Christmas”,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz0KzRChj6Q
These were generally accompanied by Christmas wishes for the fans to have a wonderful, peaceful and healthy holiday season – amen!
There were some additional interesting youtube offerings of Lara singing added in this past week that deserve notice:
Lara singing “I Loves You Porgy” with Matt Herskowitz on the piano and the Jazz trumpet player Lew Soloff, one of the few times one can hear Lara singing a pure jazz song,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VK9bVpGwUA
Lara singing an unreleased song, Hold onto my Heart,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7KTBmDdY9g
And – an English language version of ‘Parce que tu pars’…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=llBAJYOwC-g
Now for the translation of the next ‘story’ from Lara’s book “Je passe a table”:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth Story - We miss Sicily
If we can't go to her, we will bring her to us
That's it, I can't take it anymore!
I miss the light of Sicily very much.
After a winter of depression, mom, who is a sweetheart, and dad, who is a party lover, decide, naturally and without really telling each other, to introduce "too many people, too much food, too much noise weekends!"
Great
The other part of mom's family is always very present: they are my mother's brothers, the ones who have been living in Belgium for a long time.
Do you remember Tony, mom's older brother, dad's best friend, the pivot of their destiny?
The other brother is Pino.
My uncles. A whole poem.
Once or twice a month, on Saturdays, we meet at each other's houses. Or we go to the Greek's to eat "little bones". The restaurant is called Au bon coeur.
We dress as if we had fallen into our wardrobe in the aisles of the big nights. Mama puts on powder blue makeup and goes to her hairdresser, Louisette, to get her hair done just before the party.
Quite a program.
In these small restaurants, as I said, we go either with family or with friends. It's delicious, friendly and very affordable, and it gives mom a break. Sometimes, we go to eat a couscous at Yaya, dad's Tunisian friend. The oriental pastries are exceptional. The semolina served is of a great finesse.
Otherwise, we pick up a roast chicken at the butcher's shop in front of my uncle Pino's, mom's brother, and we eat it like that, with a tomato salad on a corner of the table.
The neighborhoods where it all happens - the restaurants, the family, the brothers and the stores - are called Anderlecht and Saint-Gilles, two of the nineteen communes of Brussels.
Saint-Gilles is where my uncle Pino has his cheese factory. He lives there with his three children, my cousins whom I adore, and his wife, Pepita. A colorful Spanish lady, originally from Andalusia. Pepita is good at being a cousin, but not so good at partying. I think the poor girl is also suffering from the lack of sun.
But I don't care at the time. In the end, what I like, especially when we pass through this neighborhood, is that I can go into my uncle's cheese factory and go upstairs to play with my cousins Gerard, Elene and Katy.
While pilfering on the table a fried sugar cake still warm.
Gargantua attention
In Anderlecht, my other uncle, the one who installed the slot machines with dad, has his own cafe. He lives there with his wife Paola and their three children, my other cousins, Anna Jo and Maria, mom's goddaughter.
The moments with them are also epic.
Going to the cafe at Uncle Tony's on Sundays is definitely sitting at one of the tables in the closed cafe, downstairs from his apartment.
Having a Cecemel (Belgian chocolate milk drink) directly from the fridge under the bar counter, and later tasting dishes with exceptional flavors, concocted by my aunt Paola, such as rabbit confit with onions or stuffed eggplants.
I will never eat such good food again.
Peace to her soul.
All this, it lasted a while. It shaped the beginning of my adolescence.
Later on, it would sometimes make me angry too, because a big family means big conflicts.
What I keep, nevertheless and above all, are only the good moments. I leave the taste of bitterness in the mouth of those who do not know the miracle of forgiveness.
It's true that later on, inextricable family quarrels will ruin the atmosphere and will destroy, in the name of the holy Omerta, the beauty of this Sicilian clan that, against all odds, keeps the most beautiful moments of my childhood warm.
In the end, the rest is life, I pass.
It's not funny.
In fact, before life really changed, before I left for Quebec, at least once a month, at home, it was great.
Let me tell you about Mom's Sundays. They were spectacular.
She would make great meals.
They were all on parade. The family of course.
My friends especially!
Watch your eyes.
Dad's Spanish collaborator, Pedro.
The Belgian friend, biker at his time, Bernard.
Raoul, the beer delivery man, a bit of a rascal.
Tony the sailor, married, a woman in every port, my favorite.
Robert, the tall blond guitarist.
Their couple of gay friends: Filos, he is Turkish and a cab driver; his lover is Manu, he is a singer at the Opera in Brussels.
Mom's Italian friends, ALL gay, without exception: a painter, a sculptor, a hairdresser.
Ahhh, my parents, they weren't stuck up, they were really cool. I never knew that, discrimination.
My mother used to get up at dawn. She had already done the shopping the day before, of course. And she would start.
Cold and hot entrees.
Risotto or pasta.
Main course, meat and fish.
Side vegetables, grilled, stewed, pan-fried, baked and au gratin.
Cheese, salad.
Desserts.
Sweets and Irish coffee.
I can say without exaggeration that the invitees came out happy, but with the bottom teeth swimming. And that even in the most slapstick scenes of Monty Python movies, no one was as full as at my parents' table.
I won't be able to list all the dishes my mother prepared during my adolescence, because this book would have to be written in several volumes.
So here are the recipes that I have retained.
Even today, these ingredients are part of my daily shopping list.
----------------------------------------------
Expect another quiet week coming up for Lara, publicly, though hopefully she’s having a joyous and long overdue reunion with her father. The ‘year in review 2021’ will be provided in the next news update. Happy New Year, everybody!
David
The Lara Fabian est ton autre site:
www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=453245752836898
The Lara Fabian America site, which provided a link to Lara’s singing of “All I Want for Christmas is You, at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uht9n9TPhpI
The Lara Fabian Connecting People site, which provided the video Lara sang for Christmas when she was on La Voix in 2019, a ‘formidable’ song:
vk.com/video-121236_456242046
Les Papillons Blanc site:
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158187634272204
The Lara Fabian Netherlands site:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianTheNetherlands/photos/pcb.493004555578279/493004278911640/
Coeur du Lumiere site:
www.facebook.com/larafabiancoeurdelumiere/photos/966459673991659/
The Lara Fabian International Page, which provided a link to Lara and Rick Allison singing ‘Petit Papa Noel’,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRo6FpY8A9k
And a special link from the Star Academie TVA FB site, with a beautiful scene,
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=974295666626487&ref=sharing
To which we will add our own (belated) link to the always favorite video of Lara singing “White Christmas”,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz0KzRChj6Q
These were generally accompanied by Christmas wishes for the fans to have a wonderful, peaceful and healthy holiday season – amen!
There were some additional interesting youtube offerings of Lara singing added in this past week that deserve notice:
Lara singing “I Loves You Porgy” with Matt Herskowitz on the piano and the Jazz trumpet player Lew Soloff, one of the few times one can hear Lara singing a pure jazz song,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VK9bVpGwUA
Lara singing an unreleased song, Hold onto my Heart,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7KTBmDdY9g
And – an English language version of ‘Parce que tu pars’…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=llBAJYOwC-g
Now for the translation of the next ‘story’ from Lara’s book “Je passe a table”:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth Story - We miss Sicily
If we can't go to her, we will bring her to us
That's it, I can't take it anymore!
I miss the light of Sicily very much.
After a winter of depression, mom, who is a sweetheart, and dad, who is a party lover, decide, naturally and without really telling each other, to introduce "too many people, too much food, too much noise weekends!"
Great
The other part of mom's family is always very present: they are my mother's brothers, the ones who have been living in Belgium for a long time.
Do you remember Tony, mom's older brother, dad's best friend, the pivot of their destiny?
The other brother is Pino.
My uncles. A whole poem.
Once or twice a month, on Saturdays, we meet at each other's houses. Or we go to the Greek's to eat "little bones". The restaurant is called Au bon coeur.
We dress as if we had fallen into our wardrobe in the aisles of the big nights. Mama puts on powder blue makeup and goes to her hairdresser, Louisette, to get her hair done just before the party.
Quite a program.
In these small restaurants, as I said, we go either with family or with friends. It's delicious, friendly and very affordable, and it gives mom a break. Sometimes, we go to eat a couscous at Yaya, dad's Tunisian friend. The oriental pastries are exceptional. The semolina served is of a great finesse.
Otherwise, we pick up a roast chicken at the butcher's shop in front of my uncle Pino's, mom's brother, and we eat it like that, with a tomato salad on a corner of the table.
The neighborhoods where it all happens - the restaurants, the family, the brothers and the stores - are called Anderlecht and Saint-Gilles, two of the nineteen communes of Brussels.
Saint-Gilles is where my uncle Pino has his cheese factory. He lives there with his three children, my cousins whom I adore, and his wife, Pepita. A colorful Spanish lady, originally from Andalusia. Pepita is good at being a cousin, but not so good at partying. I think the poor girl is also suffering from the lack of sun.
But I don't care at the time. In the end, what I like, especially when we pass through this neighborhood, is that I can go into my uncle's cheese factory and go upstairs to play with my cousins Gerard, Elene and Katy.
While pilfering on the table a fried sugar cake still warm.
Gargantua attention
In Anderlecht, my other uncle, the one who installed the slot machines with dad, has his own cafe. He lives there with his wife Paola and their three children, my other cousins, Anna Jo and Maria, mom's goddaughter.
The moments with them are also epic.
Going to the cafe at Uncle Tony's on Sundays is definitely sitting at one of the tables in the closed cafe, downstairs from his apartment.
Having a Cecemel (Belgian chocolate milk drink) directly from the fridge under the bar counter, and later tasting dishes with exceptional flavors, concocted by my aunt Paola, such as rabbit confit with onions or stuffed eggplants.
I will never eat such good food again.
Peace to her soul.
All this, it lasted a while. It shaped the beginning of my adolescence.
Later on, it would sometimes make me angry too, because a big family means big conflicts.
What I keep, nevertheless and above all, are only the good moments. I leave the taste of bitterness in the mouth of those who do not know the miracle of forgiveness.
It's true that later on, inextricable family quarrels will ruin the atmosphere and will destroy, in the name of the holy Omerta, the beauty of this Sicilian clan that, against all odds, keeps the most beautiful moments of my childhood warm.
In the end, the rest is life, I pass.
It's not funny.
In fact, before life really changed, before I left for Quebec, at least once a month, at home, it was great.
Let me tell you about Mom's Sundays. They were spectacular.
She would make great meals.
They were all on parade. The family of course.
My friends especially!
Watch your eyes.
Dad's Spanish collaborator, Pedro.
The Belgian friend, biker at his time, Bernard.
Raoul, the beer delivery man, a bit of a rascal.
Tony the sailor, married, a woman in every port, my favorite.
Robert, the tall blond guitarist.
Their couple of gay friends: Filos, he is Turkish and a cab driver; his lover is Manu, he is a singer at the Opera in Brussels.
Mom's Italian friends, ALL gay, without exception: a painter, a sculptor, a hairdresser.
Ahhh, my parents, they weren't stuck up, they were really cool. I never knew that, discrimination.
My mother used to get up at dawn. She had already done the shopping the day before, of course. And she would start.
Cold and hot entrees.
Risotto or pasta.
Main course, meat and fish.
Side vegetables, grilled, stewed, pan-fried, baked and au gratin.
Cheese, salad.
Desserts.
Sweets and Irish coffee.
I can say without exaggeration that the invitees came out happy, but with the bottom teeth swimming. And that even in the most slapstick scenes of Monty Python movies, no one was as full as at my parents' table.
I won't be able to list all the dishes my mother prepared during my adolescence, because this book would have to be written in several volumes.
So here are the recipes that I have retained.
Even today, these ingredients are part of my daily shopping list.
----------------------------------------------
Expect another quiet week coming up for Lara, publicly, though hopefully she’s having a joyous and long overdue reunion with her father. The ‘year in review 2021’ will be provided in the next news update. Happy New Year, everybody!
David
