Celebrity Dinnertime Chez Madoff
For Bernard Madoff, who federal prosecutors say ran a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, there’s little hope these days of getting out for a leisurely dinner at Daniel, at Davidburke & Donatella, or at any of the tony restaurants near his manse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
But Madoff’s wife, Ruth, should have no trouble preparing for her husband a range of gourmet dishes such as Dover sole poached in vermouth, buckwheat risotto with wild leeks and goat cheese, and double lemon mille-feuille; they are among the many recipes in a 1996 cookbook that she co-edited.
In “Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher: Over 175 Recipes From America’s Greatest Restaurants,” Madoff and one of her co-editors, Idee Schoenheimer (Karen MacNeil also edited the book), reached out to several world-renowned chefs — including Daniel Boulud, David Burke, and Emeril Lagasse — and asked them to provide kosher renditions of their favorite dishes. Proceeds from the 185-page, photo-filled cookbook benefited Jewish National Fund.
The cookbook features a picture of an apron-clad Madoff, standing alongside Schoenheimer. Madoff’s bio touts her master’s degree in nutrition and refers to her as “Director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities,” her husband’s now-collapsed company that may have cost investors as much as $50 billion.
The now-notorious Wall Street trader may want to relish fancy fare while he can; if convicted of securities fraud, he could spend the next 20 years eating prison food and commissary snacks.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO