White House Chef

Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One KitchenBy Walter Scheib Andrew Friedman

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2007 Walter Scheib
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-471-79842-2

Chapter One

MY CLINTON YEARS

America On The Menu

Getting the Job, Start Up, and Development

In 1994, I applied for the position of White House Executive Chef and, to my everlasting amazement, was hired.

The interview process for a job like this is, by design, quite taxing-created as much to evaluate the cuisine the candidates will cook as to uncover any temperamental or organizational tics that might prevent them from succeeding in a pressure-cooker environment.

This was a life-altering assignment, even before I began. Surprisingly, the food itself would prove the least challenging aspect; creating an environment in which to provide it was the much bigger task. That, and learning how to function under the intense internal and external scrutiny that greets any new White House team member.

JOB OPENING

"The chef of the White House just resigned," said my wife Jean, reading from a copy of that morning's New York Times, an article announcing that Pierre Chambrin was leaving after two years in the position, reportedly because he couldn't-or rather wouldn't-break away from rich, traditional French cuisine to cook in the healthful, American style the Clintons desired. The situation was succinctly encapsulated by the article's headline, "High Calories (and Chef!) Out at White House."

She looked up at me. "You should apply for that job."

Under normal circumstances, I might have come to that realization myself. But these weren't normal circumstances. It was the first week of March 1994 and we were boarding a flight from San Diego back to our home of West Virginia, where I had been executive chef of the Greenbrier-an opulent, colonial-style hotel and spa with a number of upscale dining rooms and cafs-for two and a half years. Jean and I lived in a nice house in nearby Lewisburg, where we were raising our two sons, Walter and Jim, then ages five and two, respectively.

Life was good, and I saw no reason to rock the boat.

"Jean," I snapped, "I'm not interested in any job. I just want to get home."

I don't normally speak to my wife in that tone, but this was one of the worst weeks of my life. My mother had just died following a long bout with cancer, and we had flown west for the funeral. All I wanted to do was get home, lick my emotional wounds, and lose myself in my work.

My mother, coincidentally also named Jean, was the person who first introduced me to food and cooking. In the roast-chicken-and-meatloaf days in which I grew up, she was a gourmet who'd clip recipes from magazines, experiment with ingredients most Americans probably couldn't pronounce, and encourage me to try new things such as pot au feu, paella valenciana, and smoked beef tongue. When my father dismissed the idea of cooking school, it was my mother who paid my tuition at the Culinary Institute of America from her personal savings.

In short, I owed her everything. She was my hero and my inspiration, and I was going to miss her more than I'd ever missed anyone or anything.

APPLY YOURSELF

Jean and I got back to the East Coast, the frosty indifference of winter the perfect reflection of my deep, deep sorrow. Sticking to my plan, I dove right into work.

After trudging through two days, I was home one morning, working at my desk, when Jean said to me, a mischievous glimmer in her eye, "I sent your resum in."

It seemed like a total non sequitur. "What do you mean, you sent my resum? Sent it to who?"

"To the White House."

I was incredulous. "You sent my resum to the White House?"

She couldn't have been more matter of fact. "Yep. You should probably give them a call."

We dropped what we were doing and proceeded to discuss the pros and cons of my going to work for the White House. It quickly became apparent that of the two of us, she was the clear-thinking one at that moment, because there were no cons. We had wanted to move back to D.C., and this would be a plum job, unlike any other in the country, maybe the world.

I walked over to the phone, called D.C. directory assistance, and was connected to the White House. The operator transferred me to the Usher's Office, home base for the staff that runs the First Family's domestic affairs.

An administrative usher answered.

"Hi. My name is Walter Scheib and I sent my resum in for the chef's position."

I was greeted with an undisguised chortle. "Yeah," she said. "You and about four thousand other people."

She went on to explain that so many resums had arrived that they had been boxed up in crates and set aside temporarily. The picture she painted made me think of that huge warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a hopelessly mammoth hangar from which artifacts are never retrieved.

I politely explained that I was the executive chef of the Greenbrier, and suggested that she or one of her associates dig out my resum and pass it along to the proper authorities.

"I don't for a minute think I'm the only qualified candidate for the job," I told her. "But I know I'm one of the few qualified candidates in those boxes you're talking about."

That might seem a rather boastful claim, but I was immensely proud of my hotel background. Restaurant chefs may get more of the glory in the glossy magazines and television shows, but the multiple kitchens I ran at the Greenbrier and the thousands of meals we served every day gave me great confidence that I had the chops for this assignment. In fact, I was convinced that a hotel chef was the only way to go in their search for a new White House chef.

"O.K. I'll make sure someone looks at it."

I thanked her and hung up, not knowing what to expect.

About four hours later, I got a phone call from a man who identified himself as Gary Walters, the chief usher of the White House. With the efficiency of an attorney, he dispensed with the small talk and got right to the point. "Can you come into town and see us the day after tomorrow?"

Washington, D.C., was about 250 miles from us. I had just returned from some very sad family business that had taken me away from my job. And it didn't make things any easier that I couldn't tell my higher-ups at the Greenbrier why I'd be absent on the day of the interview.

But this was the White House. So I said what any proud American chef would say when the office, or at least the home, of the president called on him: "No problem."

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Two days later, I drove to the White House. A Maryland native, I had walked or driven by the "people's house" my whole life, but had always admired it from afar, like any other D.C. resident or tourist.

This time, I drove up to a gate at the perimeter of the White House grounds, and was cleared through the first of two checkpoints-little white guard houses manned by the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, recognizable by their standard-issue uniform of black pants, white Oxford shirt with a crest on the left breast pocket, and police officer's hat. On their belts were a holstered gun, handcuffs, a canister of Mace, and a walkie-talkie.

As I got closer and closer to the White House itself, its columns came into high relief. Seen from the street, it's not much different from...