BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan – Martha Stewart is sending gracious living into orbit, picking a gourmet space meal of duck breast confit and semolina cake with dried apricots for her billionaire space tourist “best friend” and his comrades in the international space station.
Stewart came Friday to the bleak space town of Baikonur to say goodbye to Charles Simonyi, a software engineer and developer of Microsoft Word who paid between $20 million and $25 million for a 13-day trip to the space station.
Simonyi, one of the 400 richest Americans according to Forbes Magazine, is to lift off today aboard a Soyuz space capsule with two Russian cosmonauts.
Stewart and Simonyi have been friends for about a decade, and some celebrity-gossip publications have suggested they’re romantically linked.
Samantha Schabel, a spokeswoman for Stewart, declined to elaborate on the relationship, saying only, “They’re best friends.”
The founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., a multimedia empire dedicated to stylish living, Stewart ranks third on Forbes.com’s list of “The 20 Richest Women in Entertainment,” with assets of $638 million. In March 2005, she completed a five-month prison term for lying to federal investigators about a stock sale.
After arriving at the gritty spaceport set in the seemingly endless Kazakh steppes, she shared a private moment with Simonyi, 58, through a plate glass window protecting him and his crewmates from germs.
“He’s in excellent spirits,” Stewart, 65, said after their tete-a-tete. “He’s very fit and very well-trained.”
Stewart’s arrival in Baikonur inspired wide speculation the two would announce their engagement before liftoff. A spokeswoman for Space Adventures, the company that arranged Simonyi’s trip, declined to comment on her visit, other than to say she would watch the launch.
Baikonur, a collection of worn concrete buildings, would seem extremely low on Stewart’s list for an ideal place to announce her betrothal. But she’s already made an attempt at sprucing up the space trip.
Stewart chose the menu for a gourmet meal that Simonyi will take to the space station as a treat for his comrades in space. They plan a celebratory feast for Thursday, which Russia observes as Cosmonauts’ Day.
The menu includes quail roasted in Madiran wine, duck breast confit with capers, shredded chicken parmentier, apple fondant pieces, rice pudding with candied fruit and semolina cake with dried apricots. It was to be prepared by celebrity chef Alain Ducasse’s consulting and training center, ADF, according to Space Adventures.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
