![]() Ruggerio was candid during our conversations, sometimes shockingly so. A guy walked into the restaurant with a baseball bat and said, ‘You better pay, or I’m coming back and using this.’ I’m this nice girl from Brooklyn thinking, What in the hell?” “I remember we once owed money to a meat company. “When you called about David, my first thought was, is this the FBI calling?” said Dawn DuBois, a former corporate attorney who worked at Le Chantilly. It’s where Ruggerio has been writing his memoirs, which recount his rise to the highest echelon of the New York restaurant world but also reveal the secret he kept along the way: He was for decades-including the entirety of his cooking career-a working member of the Gambino Mafia family. An open laptop rested on a small desk next to the dining table. He was preparing an ambitious lunch menu: goat cheese terrine, mignon of lobster, wood-fired roast chicken, and crème brûlée. Now 59, his refrigerator-size body and T-bone thick hands made him appear too big for the cramped room. “Overnight it was gone,” Ruggerio recalled one afternoon last fall as he sautéed onions in the cluttered kitchen of his modest home at the end of a Long Island cul-de-sac. ![]() Within months, Food Network canceled his show, his restaurants closed, and he filed for personal bankruptcy. Ruggerio initially denied the allegations, but facing 15 years in prison, he pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in exchange for five years’ probation and an agreement to pay $100,000 in restitution. The Manhattan district attorney charged Ruggerio with defrauding a credit card company out of $190,000 by inflating diners’ tips-in one instance, by as much as $30,000. earned raves across the board, including Paste, The Bluegrass Situation, American Songwriter, Pitchfork, NPR’s World Cafe and others.This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.īut it all blew up on the afternoon of Thursday, July 2, 1998, when police entered Le Chantilly with a search warrant. PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG follows Cook’s first solo album, 2015’s acclaimed Southland Mission. He is a recording and touring member of Hiss Golden Messenger, has collaborated with Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, performed with Mavis Staples, and has been the Musical Director for The Blind Boys of Alabama. A full list of dates is below and at Cook has been involved in a number of projects, including psych-folk band Megafaun. Cook is also confirmed for the 2018 Pickathon Music Festival in Happy Valley Oregon August 3-5, as well as ACL Music Festival in Austin, TX Oct. He also joins Daniel Norgren on the road for a few dates in July and August. Empathy begins when we share in the fight for protecting black children from the disproportionate violence that they face in their everyday experience.”įor the full statement and “Another Mother’s Son” song lyrics see: Ĭook heads out on tour on June 7, kicking things off with a performance at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC. We exist in the same communities, but the systematic injustice of our country has divided us into two different worlds. This is a worry that my family will never know. However, to be the parent of a black child in America is to send your kid out the door each day with a target on their body. As a parent, I know that having fears and worries for my children is universal to the role. Cook enlisted another Durham NC hip hop artist and slam poetry-champion Kane Smego to help write this deeply personal track.Ĭook says, “We live in a society that is both connected and increasingly apathetic toward the human experience. Pre-order PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG here.Ĭook’s newest single is “Another Mother’s Son,” a modern-day civil rights song about police shootings, and a plea for community in a world full of disconnect. ![]() PAMD comes out June 1 on Psychic Hotline/Thirty Tigers. Singer/Songwriter Phil Cook is gearing up for the release of PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG, a collection of roots and gospel-infused songs written with a common message of community in each track.
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