Kitchen staff use two forklifts, a small elevator, and a spiral staircase between pantries to transport food from floor to floor. If you were a chef in the White House, you would probably think that your responsibilities would essentially be limited to cooking. The Executive Chef of the White House is a member of the kitchen staff with an incredible amount of responsibilities. Jacqueline Kennedy converted a living room into a chef's kitchen in 1961, and the Clintons turned it into a more traditional family kitchen.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, a rabbi from Chabad in Washington, DC, who works closely with White House staff to prepare kosher food, suggested that the entire reception be kosher to avoid confusion in the future. I also didn't realize how many kitchens the White House must have, although it would be a bit silly if I had thought about how huge the place really is. Thomas Jefferson took several enslaved young women to the White House to learn French cuisine under the tutelage of a French chef, including Ursula Granger Hughes, 14, Edith Hern Fossett, 15, and Frances Gillette Hern, 18. In a C-SPAN interview, host Susan Stamberg asks former White House chefs if they would cook this meal for Nixon. In 1902 a large main kitchen and an everyday kitchen were built with white, nickel-plated tiles and bright white painted wall and floor finishes that shone.
George Washington's enslaved chef from his Mount Vernon home, a man named Hercules, continued to prepare his food during his presidency (the White House was still under construction, so Washington worked in New York and Philadelphia). The large kitchen used to prepare meals for state functions had four gas ovens and two hotel-sized gas stoves. The newspaper wrote, Nixon talked about his dish during an appearance at the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. Considering that Comerford has been able to openly discuss some of his experiences in the White House kitchen, it is interesting that he was not allowed to comment on the selection process.
Making the White House kitchen kosher involves Saran wrap, aluminum foil, and vats of boiling water to cover and purify non-kosher surfaces. When the White House kitchen is cooking for the president, staff members will probably give their boss something he wants to eat. The executive chef is responsible for all the different kitchens, a team of four Sous Chefs and reports directly to the head of the ushers.
