Mar-a-Lago by Laurence Leamer

Author:Laurence Leamer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

* * *

Even while he was tinkering with presidential politics, Trump kept a close watch on Mar-a-Lago, including the perennial quest to find a great chef. In August 2000, Bernd Lembcke showed the recent hire, French chef Bernard Goupy, where he would be spending his time. Lembcke led Goupy to a kitchen that was little changed since Mrs. Post had lived there. Goupy wondered how anyone could prepare hundreds of meals a day with only four stoves and eight burners. But he was a master chef of France, a title he had won by cooking everything from a buffet of culinary delights for six hundred at the Hilton International Hotel in Key West to onion soup served to the king of Bahrain in his palace.

Considering Trump’s grandiose taste, he might be expected to appreciate classic French food, with its succulent sauces. But Trump was a man of simple, direct tastes. His favorite meal was a blackened burger or his mother’s meat loaf. The first time the chef prepared a meal for his patron, he tried a compromise between Trump’s taste and what Goupy viewed as authentic cuisine. But he came up short, or, more accurately, long. Trump didn’t say a word, but Goupy could tell he was not happy. From then on, Goupy served Trump the food he liked without embellishments or artful additions.

Goupy became convinced that Lembcke wanted to replace him with a German chef, but he decided to fight this war on his terms, preparing food that was so memorable he could not be fired. A few days before New Year’s Eve, Lembcke handed Goupy the evening’s menu. Goupy wished he could have chosen the courses, but he could see Trump’s hand and taste on everything. As the chef saw it, the worst was the salad—nothing but lettuce, tomato, and cucumber.

This was particularly galling since Goupy was known for his signature Caesar salad. Starting with an edible bowl of parmesan cheese, he added the freshest lettuce, caper berries as large as small marbles, special croutons, and his secret dressing. Club members praised the dish, sometimes enjoying it more than the main course.

A few days later, Céline Dion and her Svengali-like elderly husband, René Angélil, arrived at Mar-a-Lago with ninety of their friends flown down from Quebec. The couple had a home in nearby Jupiter, and the occasion was a baby shower before the birth of the couple’s third child. Goupy put on a show, ending with exquisite dessert pastries. Dion insisted that Goupy come out of the kitchen to take a bow, and he did.

In February, after Goupy had been working at Mar-a-Lago for six months, he saw Trump and Lembcke talking around the pool. Lembcke kept looking at the chef, and Goupy felt it was ominous.

That evening Trump marched into the kitchen and shouted at Goupy, “You and your fucking Caesar salad. I’ll show you how to make a fucking Caesar.” Goupy recalled that Trump was “swearing like a truck driver.” But truck drivers are generally inventive in their profanity, while Trump settled on a single word in almost every part of speech.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.