All the President's meals

If he had his way, former US President Bill Clinton would have eaten barbecued ribs every single day. His wife, Hillary, reportedly favored rack of lamb. As one of the first ladies who were always on diets, lamb wouldn’t have gone against the tenets of Hillary’s regimen, the South Beach Diet, which eschews simple carbohydrates like fried potatoes and white rice. Daughter Chelsea, meanwhile, loved Kraft macaroni and cheese as a young teen but eventually graduated to healthier fare like steamed broccoli. By the time she left the White House to go to college, she became an outright vegan.

Once it came turn for the Bushes to enter the White House, they surprisingly didn’t demand the “down home” cuisine that Arkansan Bill Clinton was partial to. Being Texan, you would think George W. Bush would insist on good ole barbecue and Tex-Mex, but “sophisticated restaurant food” was what the Bushes wanted on the menu, preferably with a wow factor.

Dubya told Filipino White House executive chef Cristeta Pasia-Comerford that he wanted “no soup, no salads, no greens or wet fish,” which Comerford eventually deciphered to mean any seafood that wasn’t baked, broiled or fried. In reality, when he wasn’t presiding over a state function, President Bush preferred to chow down on hamburgers and sandwiches like any regular American — grilled cheese or peanut butter and honey were regular fillings. It was his wife, Laura, who was a staunch believer in healthy, organic cuisine.

In fact, it was First Lady Laura Bush who appointed Cris Comerford as White House executive chef in 2005, making her the first woman and first Filipino to assume the position.

That distinction was recognized by the Bank of the Philippine Islands on Aug. 25, when it named Comerford one of its three BPInoy awardees for 2009. Based on the qualities of being “matipid, mapagmahal and masipag,” Comerford won a cash prize of P100,000 for her charity of choice along with two other awardees, economist Dr. Eli Remolona, the chief representative for Asia and the Pacific of the Bank for International Settlements, and modernist painter Anita Magsaysay-Ho, according to BPI SVP and chief marketing officer Josephine Ocampo. Past awardees include Lea Salonga, Monique Lhuillier, Josie Natori, Dado Banatao and Rico Hizon.

“BPInoy is to show the world we are world-class in very different fields, from culinary to art to banking,” says Teresita Tan, BPI’s VP for banking, Overseas Group. “It’s also teaching Pinoys all over the Philippines to save and invest, and to give every overseas Filipino an account, both the workers abroad and the families they’ve left behind.”

Now that the Obamas are in the White House, Comerford says it was “not a political decision” to retain her as head of the world’s most famous kitchen. “If they wanted to bring their own chef in they could have,” but they didn’t, which speaks loudly about the talents of this Philippine-born chef.

“Cristeta Comerford brings such incredible talent to the White House operation and came very highly regarded from the Bush family,” Michelle Obama said in an official statement.

Since the Obamas have placed their trust in her, part of Comerford’s job description is not to betray that trust. All she will reveal about the first family’s dining habits is that they are healthy eaters who watch their portions and exercise. And that some ingredients for their daily fare are sourced from the most local of suppliers: the White House vegetable garden.

“We have this kitchen garden back home where we pick okras, tomatoes and eggplants,” she says. “It feels like a homecoming — almost like my grandma’s house — because growing up here in the Philippines we’d go to Bulacan on summer break where people grew their vegetables.” She adds that she’s come full circle: “Going back to the old way of growing your vegetables and incorporating that into our daily preparations and daily meals — that’s such a good thing right now.”

According to Comerford, Michelle Obama is knowledgeable about healthy eating and, like Laura Bush, “very big on organic products.” Daily, the Obamas eat lots of very simple steamed vegetables and brown rice to go with their healthily prepared proteins.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of olive oil,” she admits, but that doesn’t mean they’re on a Mediterranean diet, either. “It’s always a different repertoire. As a chef, you should be able to do anything, from Mexican to soft-boiled eggs.”

Though she hasn’t served any Filipino dishes outright (even at a state dinner for President Arroyo in Washington she served scallops and lamb), White House residents and guests have definitely tasted stealth Filipino flavors. “It doesn’t have to be obviously adobo, it can be an adobo filling for a pastry bun,” she says. “There’s always something in there that makes it Filipino because it’s part of who I am.”

Though the last time she visited the Philippines was six years ago for a high school reunion, Comerford says that she rarely gets a hankering for home cooking because most Filipino ingredients are available in Asian markets abroad. “I miss Filipino fruits the most, like chico and atis.”

Growing up in Sampaloc, Manila, as the second to the youngest of 11 children, the chef learned the culinary ropes from the most exacting of cooks: her mother, Erlinda. She studied Food Technology at the University of the Philippines-Diliman before migrating to the States at 23. Working as a chef in Vienna trained her in French classical techniques, while stints in Chicago and Washington, D.C. restaurants honed her expertise in American and ethnic cuisines. Comerford literally had her “salad days” in Chicago as the chef in charge of the salad bar at the Sheraton Hotel. She later met her husband, John Comerford, when she applied for a job at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency hotel. John was the chef she applied to, and he recalls “there were two of them, but I wanted to talk to the cute one.” They now have an eight-year-old daughter, Danielle, who already seems to be following in her parents’ footsteps: she’s already given her first cooking demo at school.

In 1995, Comerford was hired to work in the Clinton White House by then executive chef Walter Scheib III, who called her “the best technical chef anywhere.” When Scheib later resigned, his protégé distinguished herself with her unflappable demeanor in the kitchen, a trait she credits to her Filipino upbringing and the bayanihan spirit. “Wherever I am, it’s always that sense of family, of community,” says the chef, who manages a regular staff of seven. “What’s important is treating the people around you well.”