WINEFOODMUSIC LIVE - MELODY GARDOT

Gérard Bertrand: We have the pleasure and privilege of welcoming this evening the international star Melody Gardot who performed last year on stage at the Château l'Hospitalet and who is in Paris this evening. How are you Melody?

Melody Gardot: I'm fine, thank you, and you? I think you're better than me.

Gérard Bertrand: We are doing well because Chef Laurent Chabert is in great shape. He reopened the kitchens last week after three months of confinement and he prepared some great dishes for us tonight and above all he has become a music lover since then. This is the ninth Food Wine & Music evening tonight and since then he has been inspired, he makes dishes, he is constantly creating. What are we going to eat tonight, Chef?

Chef Laurent Chabert: So tonight we're going to eat, we revisited the stuffed tomato so completely vegetable with tomatoes stuffed inside tomatoes of all colors a little feta that we brought back from Greece and then lots of herbs from the garden especially basil and I'm going to decorate that then I worked on the capon because Michel Fugain talked about it last week and I said to myself it's true I forgot this fish.

Gérard Bertrand: Do you know what a capon is?

Melody Gardot: Yes

Gérard Bertrand : There are two capons, there is a capon which is a poultry and then there is the fish which is called the capon.

Melody Gardot: I didn't know.

Gérard Bertrand : Where does he come from? From the Mediterranean?

Chef Laurent Chabert: Like a big scorpion fish in fact and it's very red so of course it comes from the Mediterranean so we worked with a soup reduction juice in fact it's a potato a little celery a little wild fennel that we found in La Clape and then we'll finish with the Carabineros shrimp, one of my signature dishes with sheep's cheese tortellini and with lots of herbs and a little well-reduced tomato sauce.

Gérard Bertrand : You have to go to work, I'm going to have a drink with Melody.

Melody Gardot: It's the least I can do, considering the fact that I can't eat.

Gérard Bertrand : Since you can't eat, we're going to taste the Gris Blanc, the 2019 vintage. Cheers, Melody!

Melody Gardot: I love glasses that don't have stems because often with lots of people at home, as soon as we've had a lot to drink, the stem becomes dangerous, so I drink from glasses like that, I smell first. And we toast from a distance Chin!

Gérard Bertrand : Chin! I remember that last year you loved rosés and you know that tomorrow is a special day because it's World Rosé Day, it's Rosé Day, so tonight to celebrate that we're going to have three rosés tonight we're going to start with the Gris Blanc and then we're going to, I was introduced to the one behind you, so the Joy's and we'll finish with the Clos du Temple.

Melody Gardot: Is it true that last year I remember that everyone who arrived at the Château, it was the pink theme?

Gérard Bertrand : It was to celebrate the Melody Gardot evening where we had made a good offer to the bouquets of roses. We can say some worlds in English, because some people follow us from the USA and UK and you are from the USA from the east coast, yes?

Melody Gardot: Yes, from Philadelphia.

Gérard Bertrand : Philadelphia is closed to Harrisburg.

Melody Gardot: No, it is actually strangely closer to NY city than Harrisburg.

Gérard Bertrand : But it is in Pennsylvania?

Melody Gardot: Philadelphia is like 2 hours from NY city

Gérard Bertrand : When you speak in French, you have a French accent and when you speak in English you immediately find yourself with the American accent, do you realize that or not?

Melody Gardot: Oh yes, I made a huge effort to speak with as little accent as possible.

Gérard Bertrand : You have Welsh roots, is that it?

Melody Gardot: I would say Austrian and Hungarian.

Gérard Bertrand : Now we can say that you are more Parisian than American, because you live in Paris?

Melody Gardot : Yes and no, I remain international, it is necessary to go left and right but what I like however is that the decision to spend a little more time sometimes gives me a good feeling. It was by chance but I find myself confined here like everyone else and soon I am leaving again to see my family, my friends, my mother in the United States. I love this city, that is not a problem and we have the best wine right next door thanks to you.

Gérard Bertrand : And for music, is Paris better for you than working in the United States or is it important where you are?

Melody Gardot : For the kind of music that I do, we are often in Los Angeles because my team is there. There is a great place in the south of France that I have not yet had the pleasure of recording the album, which is called La Fabrique. The truth is that you depend on microphones that come from the 1950s, ingredients that help us to make the best quality of music so we mainly find this stuff in Los Angeles and just by chance there is my friend who got a lot of equipment that also exists in France.

Gérard Bertrand : So I'm going to show you because the chef is ready for the first course, so Chef, what are we going to eat there?

Chef Laurent Chabert: The tomato, so it really looks more like a farsi tomato like we can actually find at home but inside it is completely vegetable, a Chinese tomato of colors, feta, then the leaves and flowers of nasturtium, fried basil leaves.

Gérard Bertrand : I want to taste Melody I'm sorry with the rosé, it's perfect for yours Melody. I have a little surprise for you because last year you were so captivating on the one that everyone talks to me about you again it was really extraordinary your concert at the hospital and in July last year we're going to watch a little piece right away if that's okay with you.

Musical Moment

Gérard Bertrand : So does that bring back good memories?

Melody Gardot : She was a bit of a godmother to me in jazz music with her lessons on a performance of this song with Allen Broadbent, a pianist who made the arrangements adapted to put it on stage.

Gérard Bertrand : You who are very moved, what did it feel like to play in the middle of the vineyards Melody, was it the first time?

Melody Gardot : Yes, it's the first time but I found it so beautiful, that I spoke with Gérard just after because the invitation to come to a vineyard to play, for me I had the impression that it could be something huge because we have all these emotions. I loved it!

Gérard Bertrand : It was a great moment for us and I remember that we drank two or three glasses of rosé after the concert, it was very nice and people were jealous because he said to me, you see, another glass with Melody and we're waiting for you to arrive, so I thank you again because we drank Château La Sauvageonne and it was a very good time, so you know that this year we're going to do the ^17th edition of the jazz festival and we waited until the last moment and we're going to, we've just made the program official today, so we're very happy, because instead of doing five days, we're going to do six days because we've reduced the number of people a little to keep our distance, so we'll have Patrick Bruel for two evenings, then we'll have Kimberose, who has an extraordinary voice, who is a young French woman who went gold last year, then we'll have Christophe Maé, who you know, on July 25 and we'll finish with Jean Baptiste Guégan, so it's great because for For me it's the most beautiful week of the year because when we make the connection between wine and gastronomy, music and everyone vibrates together like that, we say that you have a communion of spirit, it's a common spirit and I know that for you it's very important to be connected like that.

Melody Gardot : Yeah I totally agree and I admire the fact that you have found solutions to continue despite the circumstances, it is very important. It turns out that there is a deafening silence in art in music so cooking in gastronomy, in culture ... total! And we have to find a way to play a little with these rules that we have in front of us because they have just posed something that is totally out of context that it is not at all natural. For people who are gourmets for example a good wine, a good meal, these are the most important however it is love is not what we were talking to you there it is the art of cooking the art of wine the art of music all seems you make a program like that and then you make the welcome and everyone comes to your place to participate in this feeling.

Gérard Bertrand : Exactly! So we're going to taste the Joy's which is the second wine, the source at Joy, that's it! We have to celebrate joy, so it's a wine that is an AOP Languedoc and Organic that's it, all these wines are available in our online store at www.gerard-bertrand.com I'm very happy because in fact you didn't taste this one last year because they weren't available yet it was a market that we did initially for the American market that we have now launched worldwide and Joy's, source at Joy's I think it's very pretty because we want to dive into a source of fresh water. Cheers!

Melody Gardot : I love it! So cheers and bravo, congratulations.

Gérard Bertrand : So what are we going to take with that, Chef?

Chef Laurent Chabert: Here the capon, I simply grilled it in a pan with olive oil, a little wild fennel, celery, fennel and a potato which were cooked in the soup then we have a celery rouille so with saffron and garlic and I added an orange condiment which will go very well with the soup, it's not really a soup, it's a reduction of juice.

Gérard Bertrand : Have you seen the chef's creativity? It's still extraordinary, I'm impressed every time I come to the kitchen on Friday. The team is complete, there are fifteen people in the kitchen because we've gone back to work, so the chef creates for us but he has 70 covers tonight.

Tasting moment.

Gérard Bertrand : You will be welcome this summer to drink rosé, white with us and have fun. So tell me, we talked a little about your activity since you launched a big project can you tell us a word about the project that you have just launched around love in Paris because what you have just done is quite exceptional. Can you tell us a little more?

Melody Gardot : I just spoke in my mind that this deafening silence, I decided to find ways to continue despite, it turns out that I am used to spending most of my time with musicians who originally come from the United States, we were supposed to do a collaboration with an orchestra and a week before the lockdown it was clear on and certain that everything was slowed down. After a month, I know that I can have a solution an idea and I said to myself we will try to break the silence. So we decided to do global casting worldwide as it is digital worldwide. I explain because it is very complicated, it is. In fact we put music and participants on my site, the arrangement was redone for this trial because it is very difficult so the arrangement is completely changed adapted for this way of recording and finally we had received incredibly many, and now a finality of five people who come from all over the world, we put the pieces together. It's that the sound that seems practically the same as if we were in the studio and it's also because the five people already confined each of them recording and we married all these musics together, and it will be released next Friday June 19 with a video clip too.

Gérard Bertrand : So you're going to play music and you're also going to sing on this song?

Melody Gardot : In the song I sing the song I wrote called From Paris with love. And we found it perfect simply because I was confined in Paris, so the only message I can send to the planet is "I love you from Paris." So I sing with Anthony Wilson, he's a huge jazz guitarist and my usual band they're a trio and then all the other musicians come from all over the world, so that means I don't even know these people.

Gérard Bertrand : So we'll be able to follow this on your Instagram MelodyGardotOfficielle, and I understand that there's a 17-year-old person who's also going to participate.

Melody Gardot : What is very interesting is that we launched this project, I decided to do this with my team and with the help of Universal, the studios are closed we can't do anything anymore it's dangerous and in addition they are athletes, if we don't have what it takes to practice free connected feel the vibrations of the group then that is something also to inspire people and so all these people who came, there was a lady a little girl of 17 years old who comes not far from Paris who was so incredible that now she is also in my project, I will soon put her little clip in my Instagram. It's cool!

Gérard Bertrand : So Melody, the chef is ready for the third course but before we taste it, I would like to introduce you to the Clos du Temps, which you know since we are going to taste, the last rosé of the evening. We are very happy because the Clos du Temple, wines were elected last week by the Global Rose Master as their best rosé in the world in England by a magazine called Drink Business, so Chef, we can toast together and Chef, what do you want to drink this rosé with?

Chef Laurent Chabert: So what I did was the Carabineros shrimp which was just cooked at a low temperature so here we are at 48 degrees so that it remains very soft, the brousse tortellini which near Carcassonne a tomato reduction which we made stewed on the barbecue at the start and then really reduced and some small herbs.

Gerard Bertrand : It's magnificent! Can I taste it, Chef?

Chef Laurent Chabert: Treat yourself!

Gérard Bertrand : I'll start with the tortellini, I should have been at the Michelin Guide to do the blind tastings. And so this is the Carabineros shrimp that comes from Palamos in Spain. So while Melody Gardot finds her phone charger, I'll take advantage of it, Chef, great job!

Melody Gardot : I didn't know it was voted the best, at least if it had a description: "I didn't know it as the best or nothing, I just love it, it is fantastic"

Gérard Bertrand : I like your accent from Philadelphia. 

Melody Gardot : Thak you very much, forget about it!

Gérard Bertrand : You remember Philadelphia as the sound of Bruce Springsteen, it is a great song.

Melody Gardot : Streets of Philadelphia.

Gérard Bertrand : Go ahead, you can give us three notes if you want on Streets of Philadelphia. I had the chance to have dinner next to him because I'm very good friends with Jonh Bon Jovi since you know we did a rosé together in the United States, it was a special moment because they told each other rock star stories and so I listened because it was a good time and the two of them tasted it and we drank a glass of rosé like that in a little restaurant in New York, it was a little moment out of time like that. Melody we will wish you a beautiful summer we will send you an invitation to come to the jazz festival not to sing.

Melody Gardot : With pleasure!

Gérard Bertrand : But to come and spend two, three days with us because we have lots of programs, we visit the vineyards, we walk around and then we go partying and everyone needs it, it's not love from Paris but from L'Hospitalet tonight and we'll see you very soon, have a good weekend.

Melody Gardot : I hope so, thank you and congratulations!

Gérard Bertrand : Thanks, Chao!