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Welcome to Dedicated. i'm your host Doug brunt today we're talking with Melissa Francis listeners will come to know there's

nothing this woman can't do she began her career as a child actor appearing in dozens of

TV commercials then landed a starring role in Little House on the Prairie. Later, she took a

break from acting to get her undergrad degree at Harvard, and from there she's been a business

news reporter and anchor at CNBC and Fox Business Network, and a general news anchor at Fox News.

She's now developing and writing new shows for TV, both scripted and unscripted, and she's the

author of two books, including her memoir, Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter. Melissa, it's so great to see you. Thanks for coming in. I know this is so fun. Now, you know me and I know you. So let's dispense with everything else for a minute and get right to the liquor. We have these gorgeous bottles right in front of us. So I love the idea that you start every show with a drink. First of all, you know, people should know that Doug is a connoisseur when it comes to drinks. And I have a very unrefined palate. So, for example, I remember when we were in the Bahamas, and I made a picture of drinks and you, like, recoiled in horror. Because it was this syrupy sweet horrible. And you you were like your palate was like so offended um but i'm like the girl that walked around the party with the with the bartles and james coolers i have very cheap taste in alcohol my wine list is like very very cheap so we're at opposite ends but the story with this drink so this is a french tart that you're going to make the french tart tart. I'm going to get going on this way. And I'm interested to hear this because, you know, I've had many dinners with you and your husband, Ray, and I've generally known you should be a white wine drinker. So you need to explain yourself here. I pretty much never a cocktail. So the way that this happened was we were in Paris for Valentine's Day and we were at this very cool, very chic club that, you know, starts in midnight and goes all night. Ray and I arrived, and you know us well. We were like the oldest, fattest, ugliest couple in this place. Hardly. And we're sitting there, and we have this table and it's really fabulous. And, you know, Ray, I don't know, he went off to get drinks or something. we're sitting there and this group next to us of like supermodels said they were going outside to smoke, obviously. And would I watch their drinks when they came and, you know, make sure nobody took them. So they said, okay. Now, I should say at this point, we'd been out for a while, so I was a kind of three sheets to the wind. And so their drinks came

and I was like, oh, what is that? And they put it down on the table and I picked it up and just

drank their drink. I don't know what inspired me. It just looked so good. And it even worse than that,

Ray walks back to the table at the exact same time that the crew of supermodels walks back in and catches me like red-handed, just really enjoying their drink.

And it was the most embarrassing moment.

It was one of those things you would only do at like 2 o'clock in the morning in Paris.

But I had to say, embarrassed.

Wow, that was fantastic.

What was that?

We obviously need three more rounds of those to make good on it, but it was something

called very appropriately a French tart, which I kind of was at that moment, I guess.

But it's a drink that you would appreciate because it is sweet enough for me, but it's

not, you know, sickening sweet.

And I had to look for a while to see what was in it.

I was listening to your podcast and loving the drink part, but thinking that if you ever did invite me on, what would I make?

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