Filipino American Cristeta Comerford has retired as White House Executive Chef after working almost 30 years in the White House. She prepared food for five US presidents, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. This interview that she did with NPR has some interesting highlights of her long career.
She first moved from the Philippines as a 23 year old. As White House Executive Chef, she doesn’t just prepare and plan meals for the president, but needs to plan an execute State Dinners, events with high visibility, much complexity, and potential international consequences. The It is a role significant enough to have a Wikipedia Page of White House Executive Chefs, and US State Dinners have their own Wikipedia page also. One of my favorite stories from the NPR interview is whether she prepared anything Filipino. She said that since Barack Obama grew up in Hawaii, he was familiar with Filipino food and likes Filipino grilled barbecue skewers.
In addition to working in the White House, she has done other interesting things. She promoted healthy methods to prepare AAPI foods. She teamed up with Bobby Flay to win an episode of Iron Chef.
After retiring, Comerford moved to South Florida. I tried to find who her replacement is, but I couldn’t find who it is. My guess is that the decision is deferred, so either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will hire the next executive chef. To find out more on Cristeta Comerford and her previous role, check out this US State Department web page on State Dinners, along with her NPR interview.
