Lara Fabian, cook at heart | Press

Lara Fabian just launched I go to the table, “Gourmet autobiography” in which it is told 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.

Josée Lapointe
Press

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 put brown sugar apples in the oven, 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 chose to tell herself, in I go to the 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 offer 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. His 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 him,” adds his 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.

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 his mother’s Sicily to his 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 separated 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 good 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 béchamel sauce, braised the endives… Marie-France had told her [elle prend l’accent belge] : “They’re better than my mother’s.” 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 stirred 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 was keen on it. 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

We have rediscovered Lara Fabian a little in recent years, first as a judge at The voice, then as director of Star Academy 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.

It will therefore come back to Star Academy in January, which does not prevent him from continuing to write songs and resume in September 2022 his 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 the ones from his 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, his 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. “

I go to the table

Lara Fabian

Free expression

208 pages

Receipts

Lara Fabian cooked for us two dishes that appear in the book I go to the table.

Belgian endive gratin

For 4 people

Ingredients for the béchamel

• 55 g (11 tsp) butter
• 60 g (1/2 cup) flour
• 700 ml (3 cups) milk
• 15 ml (1 tbsp.) Sour cream
• 30 g (1 oz) gruyere cheese, grated
• Nutmeg
• Salt and pepper

Ingredients for the endives with ham

• 3 cloves of garlic
• 55 g (11 tsp) butter
• 8 endives
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 8 slices of ham
• 200 g (7 oz) gruyere cheese, grated
• 30 ml (2 tbsp.) Breadcrumbs
• 6 knobs of butter

Preparation for the béchamel

• 1. Melt the butter, add the flour and mix. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
• 2. Pour in the milk all at once and heat until it boils while stirring so that no lumps form.
• 3. Add the crème fraîche, grated Gruyère cheese and nutmeg. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation for endives with ham

• 1. Preheat the oven to 200 ° C (400 ° F).
• 2. Brown the garlic in the butter. Add the endives and cook for about 20 minutes.
• 3. Meanwhile, rub the bottom of a casserole dish with a crushed garlic clove.
• 4. Wrap a slice of ham around each endive and place in the gratin dish.
• 5. Pour the béchamel sauce over the endives. Add the grated Gruyère cheese, breadcrumbs and knobs of butter.
• 6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Apples with brown sugar

For 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 very sweet apples
• 120 g (1/2 cup) butter, divided
• 60 g (1/4 cup) brown sugar
• 60 g (1/4 cup) sugar

Preperation

• 1. Preheat the oven to 200 ° C (400 ° F).
• 2. Wash the apples, keep them whole, but remove the seeds and core.
• 3. In the hole of each apple, put a knob of butter and a quarter of the brown sugar.
• 4. Place apples in a baking dish. Add a few knobs of butter (about 15 g / 1 tablespoon per apple) and sprinkle with a few grains of sugar.
• 5. Bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy hot with sour cream or ice cream.