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An Asian American in the White House !
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Russell Yee
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Sep 02, 2005 14:09 PDT
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Well, not as President, but as Executive Chef: one Cristeta Comeford,
originally from the Philippines. She is also the first woman and the first
non-white to be the White House's head chef.
O.K., I'm trying to think of a theological angle for this but it's too close
to lunchtime. Lumpia anyone?
Russell Yee,
Oakland
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Hail to the Chef
In Cristeta Comerford, Admirers See All the Ingredients of a Winning Recipe
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 22, 2005; C01
She's come a long, long, long way, this former hotel "salad girl." Before
she was hired as an assistant chef in the White House in 1995, before first
lady Laura Bush promoted her to White House executive chef last week,
Cristeta Comerford -- "Cris" to her neighbors and co-workers here in the
Washington area, "Teta" to her large but tight-knit Filipino family in the
Chicago suburb of Morton Grove -- was in charge of a salad bar.
"That's what I called her, 'salad girl.' She prepared Caesar salad, Cobb
salad," says Juanito Pasia, Cristeta's older brother, trying not to laugh.
It was Juanito who drove Teta -- then 23, newly arrived from the
Philippines -- in his blue Ford van to and from work at a Sheraton Hotel
near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. "Can you believe it?" he asks,
giving another hearty laugh. "Can you believe this is happening?"
Ask the people who have worked alongside the 42-year-old Comerford around
the world, whether in Chicago, Vienna or Washington, and the answer seems to
be a definitive yes. Her new position as the White House's top toque -- a
uniquely high-profile and sought-after celebrity chef job -- is an
affirmation, her former bosses and co-workers say, of the hard work, focus,
imperturbable demeanor and culinary talent she has shown in the kitchen.
"Over and over and over again," says Walter Scheib III, who as the former
executive chef -- hired by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1994, then asked to
resign by Laura Bush earlier this year -- lured Comerford to join the White
House kitchen staff in 1995. In the subsequent years, he adds, he considered
her not so much his assistant chef as his "co-chef." "She's an all-around
great chef, no question about it. Let me put it to you this way: In the
years that I've worked with her, there's been so many dishes she's made for
me, and I cannot think of anything she did that wasn't good."
Comerford, who lives in a two-story Colonial-style home in Columbia with her
husband, John, and their 4-year-old daughter, Danielle, declined to be
interviewed for this article. The White House is planning a "press event" in
the first week of September to accommodate the hundreds of requests -- "more
than 500 so far and counting," says an overwhelmed Susan Whitson, Laura
Bush's press secretary -- to interview Comerford (who, the very moment she
made headlines, left for an already-planned weeklong family vacation to
Cancun, Mexico).
"White House taps 1st woman, minority as head chef," read a headline in USA
Today.
"Her résumé reads like a classic American success story," read an editorial
in the Chicago Tribune.
The popular comedic news program "The Daily Show" weighed in, with faux
senior presidential correspondent Stephen Colbert reporting that Comerford
faces a tough confirmation battle (she doesn't, of course) because she once
deemed curried yams "too ethnic" (dubious, but funny).
* * *
Cristeta Comerford is the second youngest of 11 children, with six half
brothers, one half sister and three full sisters. Everyone was everyone
else's babysitter.
Born in October 1962 in Manila, she was raised in a working-class
neighborhood of Sampaloc, near the sprawling campus of the University of
Santo Tomas, a Catholic school founded in 1611. Honesto Pasia, her father,
was an elementary school principal; Erlinda Pasia, her mother, was a
dressmaker. "So driven," says Cristeta's older sister, Ofelia Aguila, a
design director for the College of American Pathologists. "So ambitious."
Erlinda, who's 78 and lives with Ofelia and her family in Morton Grove, a
20-minute drive from downtown Chicago, has only one word to describe her
Teta: " Napakabait. " That means "very kind" in Tagalog, the dominant native
language in the Philippines.
" Tuwang tuwa ang boong pamilia para sa kanya," says Erlinda. ("The family
is very, very happy for her.")
"I could feel within my heart that joy that is kind of just overflowing,"
says Ofelia, recalling Teta's phone call telling her about the promotion.
"Then I thought of my dad. Oh, if he were still alive!" Honesto died more
than 10 years ago, before Teta started working in the White House. "He would
have been very, very excited over this."
The Pasia daughters grew up in a house of food, with Erlinda as the
perfectionist, hard-to-please head chef. "It's either overcooked or too
salty, she would say. Too little this and too much that," says Ofelia. It
was rare for the family to eat out.
Filipino cuisine is determinedly eclectic, a mix of Chinese, Japanese and
Spanish influence. Erlinda can whip out a classic chicken adobo, a kind of
stew, or pancit canton, a kind of noodle dish, or lumpia Shanghai, the
Filipino egg roll, all staples of any Filipino party, not so much "by
formula," says Ofelia, but "by instinct." The mother passed that gift on to
her daughters.
Encouraged by her family, Comerford studied food. She attended the
University of the Philippines-Diliman, in Quezon City, and majored in food
technology. Contrary to a news release issued by the White House, though,
she didn't complete her degree. Juanito, an accountant and the first in the
family to move to the States, had petitioned his parents, brothers and
sisters to let her join him there, and Comerford opted to leave school when
her visa was approved.
After stints at the Sheraton and Hyatt Regency hotels near Chicago O'Hare,
Cristeta, with her husband, who's also a chef, moved here. She was a chef at
two Washington restaurants -- Le Grande Bistro at the Westin Hotel and the
Colonnade at the former ANA Hotel. For six months, she worked as chef
tournant ("revolving chef") at Le Ciel, in Vienna, Austria, sharpening her
mastery of French classical techniques. Scheib, then the executive chef at
the White House, recruited her.
"As a chef, you need a certain feeling, a certain way of putting food
together, not just cooking it but presenting it. It's hard to describe, but
she has that feeling," says Siegfried Pucher, her former boss at Le Ciel.
In her 10 years at the White House, however, her specialty has been ethnic
and American cuisine. What pleased the first lady is the way Comerford can
more than satisfy the president with a lunch of enchilada or cheeseburger,
then turn around to cook a state dinner that pairs chilled asparagus soup
and lemon cream with pan-roasted halibut and basmati rice (with pistachio
nuts and currants). In fact, the dinner for 134 guests held last month in
honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won Comerford the job.
"For those back home in the Philippines, and for the Filipinos who are
working immigrants and naturalized citizens all over the world -- and there
are millions of us -- she is this wonderful, wonderful example," says Greg
Macabenta, a columnist for the Manila Times who lives in California.
The Filipino population in the United States, according to Census Bureau
figures, hovers around 2.4 million, with almost half residing in California.
The New Jersey/New York area, as well as Hawaii, have substantial Filipino
populations, followed by the Chicago and Washington metropolitan areas.
"She's one of our own, she's doing very well, and we share in the pride,"
Macabenta says. "We want to tell our children, 'Hey look, don't believe that
canard about the glass ceiling in the United States. You can be as good as
the best of them in the world.' "
* * *
The White House kitchen, located in the East Wing, is in a way the heart of
the executive residence, with a style reflective of the administration it
serves. Eleanor Roosevelt offered the king and queen of England hot dogs.
Lyndon Johnson loved his barbecue (Texas style, naturally). The Carters
favored southern food, grits and country ham. Nancy Reagan, a stickler for
detail, had "tryout menus" of classic French cuisine for state dinners and
had Polaroids taken of how the food should be presented. And though Hillary
Clinton favored contemporary low-fat menus, Bill was famous for his
not-too-rare Big Mac cravings.
In the 44 years since the title "executive chef" was introduced to the White
House by Jacqueline Kennedy, only five people have held the post before
Comerford: Rene Verdon, Henry Haller, Jon Hill, Pierre Chambrin and Scheib.
"Cris will surely bring her own flair to this job. But the pressure is
different now that she's the boss," says Roland Mesnier, who was White House
pastry chef for 25 years -- he retired in July 2004 -- and worked with
Comerford for nine years. He still remembers that Chilean sea bass she asked
him to taste, and goes on and on about how the fish "was so very flaky and
white and just extraordinary." "Hers is a job that is extremely demanding,
and she'll have to be focused at all times, which I'm confident she'll be.
In my experience with her, she doesn't do one day better than another day.
The minute she steps in that kitchen, the second she's in there, Cris is
focused."
She'll be paid somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000 annually, with no
overtime, and will be in charge of five full-time employees, though that
number can rise to 25 for large parties, state dinners and, of course, the
White House Easter Egg Roll. She's an early riser, which helps -- you never
know just when President Bush, usually up at around 5:15 a.m., will want his
breakfast.
So what will the White House kitchen run by Comerford look like, feel like,
taste like?
Only Comerford knows.
The Comerfords returned from their vacation late Thursday night. The next
morning, the new executive chef was back at work.
Correction to This Article
An Aug. 22 Style article on the new White House executive chef, Cristeta
Comerford, omitted Hans Raffert from the list of former executive chefs.
Raffert served during the administration of George H.W. Bush.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101106.htm
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