Review: Great Menu at the Dutch Treat Club... Gabrielle Stravelli & Corby Kummer

The Dutch Treaters were watching with great interest what Food Author Corby Kummer and Vocalist Gabrielle Stravelli ordered for dinner at the informative and entertaining event on the evening of April 7. I didn’t notice Gabrielle having any honey with her meal, but her voice was rich and thick with sweetness and her command of melody and phrasing puts her in a class by herself. She is truly one of the greats of the cabaret and concert world. Artfully accompanied by pianist Michael Kanan, she delighted us with “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” by Irving Berlin, “Stairway to the Stars”, by Malneck, Signorelli and Parish, “They Say It’s Spring” by Bob Haymes and a rarely heard delicacy, “With The Wind and The Rain in Your Hair” by Clara Edwards. She knows her subject matter and charmingly gave us some of the historical tidbits of these songs. We were lucky to have her, because in May, Gabrielle will make her debut appearance at the Royal Albert Hall’s Late-Night Jazz series.  Gabrielle has collaborated with world-renowned jazz pianist Fred Hersch three times, most recently recording his song cycle “Suspended In Time.” She toured the U.S. premiering "Abyssinian" with Wynton Marsalis and as a U.S. State Department "Jazz Ambassador" since 2015, she has performed and taught throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South America. NYC audiences are lucky to see her regularly in her month-long residencies at Birdland Jazz Club and this April 21st, she'll do two sets at NYC’s Mezzrow Jazz Club. More info at Gabriellestravelli.com.

Speaker Corby Kummer, who was clearly enthralled by Ms. Stravelli’s performance, admitted he had a very tough act to follow, but he came through in spades. Charming and ebullient, he regaled us with current food topics ranging from the “Stealth Health” movement, to food insecurity solutions to  “Slow Food”, a global movement founded in Italy in 1986 to combat the fast-life culture and promote local, sustainable, and traditional food, to how areas of lobster farming impact the whale population and their subsequent fascinating solutions.

As the executive director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute, he founded the “Food As Medicine” movement - he is vested in the ethical and sustainable production of food for all people and is a driving force in making food healthier and getting it to those who need it. His passion and joy for the subject were infectious. Kummer is a senior editor of The Atlantic, and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science. The author of The Joy of Coffee and The Pleasures of Slow Food, the first book in English on the subject. He has been called "a dean among food writers in America" by The San Francisco Examiner. Julia Child once said, "I think he's a very good food writer. He really does his homework. As a reporter and a writer, he takes his work very seriously." He has received six James Beard Journalism Awards and appears frequently on television and radio programs with a weekly appearance on WGBH's Boston Public Radio as a featured food policy commentator and as a judge on The Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay.

For more info: https://aspenfood.org/team-member/corby-kummer/

For more information about the Dutch Treat Club, visit www.dutchtreatny.org

Below, see photos from the event.

Gabrielle Stravelli

Gabrielle Stravelli

Corby Kummer

Raissa Katona Bennett, Entertainment Chair & Gabrielle Stravelli

Corby Kummer & Nancy McGraw

KT Sullivan, President Dutch Treat CLub

Gabrielle Stravelli

Michael Kanan & Gabrielle Stravelli

Gabrielle Stravelli

Nancy McGraw

Dawn Derrow, Eda Sorokoff, KT Sullivan

Eda Sorokoff & KT Sullivan