WASHINGTON (AP) — A homemade starter of smoked salmon, red grapefruit, avocado and cucumber. Dry-aged rib eye beef in a sesame-sabayon sauce. Salted caramel pistachio cake under a layer of matcha ganache.
While President Joe Biden and his guest of honor chew on foreign policy at a state dinner at the White House, female chef duo Cris Comerford and Susie Morrison are handling the culinary diplomacy. They presented the above menu for the Japanese leader in April and on Thursday evening they will have a new range of delicacies for the Kenyan president.
Comerford, the White House Executive Chef, and Morrison, the Pastry Chef, are the first women to hold the position, a duo that has been tantalizing the palates of guests at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for nearly a decade. excites with their culinary creations. Comerford is also the first person of color to become a chef.
“Both are just exceptional examples of success in their fields,” the spokesperson said Bill Yosses, who served as pastry chef for seven years before leaving in 2014, paved the way for Morrison’s promotion. “They excel at what they do.”
Comerford and Morrison can do it again on Thursday when Biden and his wife become first lady Jill Biden, hosting the government’s sixth state dinner for Kenyan President William Ruto and his wife Rachel. It will be the first honor for an African head of state since 2008 and the first for Kenya since 2003.
A lavish state dinner is a tool of American diplomacy, a high honor reserved for America’s longtime and closest allies. In the case of Kenya, Biden wants to improve a relationship that he sees as crucial for security in Africa and beyond.
Jill Biden planned to preview the dinner lineup for the news media Wednesday afternoon.
Planning for the state dinner is done by the first lady’s staff and the White House social services office, and begins months in advance. Ideas are tried out before the chefs propose a few different menus. The meals are prepared, served as they would be served and tasted by the social secretary and the first lady, who ultimately decides what will be served.
The menus change, but the overarching goal remains the same.
“We’re trying to highlight American food, American regions, American farmers,” while including small tributes to the guest of honor, Yosses said. “It’s rare that we actually try to imitate something from the guest’s country.”
The ingredients for the state dinner in April for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko came from California, Maryland, Oregon and Ohio. The wines came from Oregon and Washington state.
During the media preview for that glitzy event, Comerford explained that preparations take into account the diets of the Bidens and the visiting dignitaries, along with those of other guests.
“When we formulate and create the menu for the state dinner, we take into account all the patrons and most of our guests,” she said. “We also take the season into account because right now is the perfect time for some great rewards, with spring coming, with all the morels and mushrooms, and Susie’s cherries and all the stuff she has on her plate .”
The chefs contact their regular suppliers to find out what’s in season, and go from there.
The salmon appetizer served in April was inspired by the California roll, which Comerford said was invented by a Japanese chef.
Morrison’s dessert highlighted Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the United States, many of which were planted in Washington, and the matcha tea. She decorated the pistachio cake with sweet mini cherry blossoms.
“We wanted to bring a little piece of the cherry blossoms that are here in the Tidal Basin into our dessert so that everyone can enjoy the cherry blossoms that we enjoy every year,” she said.
Serving dinner to hundreds of guests at once comes down to timing. Thursday’s event will take place in a large pavilion on the South Grounds of the White House.
Sam Kass, who was an assistant chef during President Barack Obama’s administration, says tradition holds that the president is the first to be served and that the plates are cleared when he’s finished eating.
“You have to have a service that is efficient and fast enough to get the plates out so that the last table has a chance to eat,” he said.
Comerford, 61, honed her culinary skills while working in hotels in Chicago and restaurants in Washington before the White House appointed her as an assistant chef in 1995. She is a naturalized American citizen and Filipino and was appointed chef in 2005. Her responsibilities include designing and executing menus for state dinners, social events, holiday parties, receptions and official luncheons.
Morrison, 57, started at the executive mansion in 1995 as a contract pastry chef while working at a hotel in northern Virginia. She was named assistant pastry chef in 2002 and became executive pastry chef in November 2014 — just in time to sweat over the details of that year’s White House gingerbread for the holidays.
The pair have worked together in the White House for almost thirty years.
Yosses recalled at least one instance where the honoree’s wishes dictated the menu selection.
In 2015, China’s Xi Jinping wanted a very American menu, “which I think was the polite way of saying he didn’t think we could eat Chinese food very well,” Yosses said.
The Chinese leader was served butter-poached Maine lobster and grilled Colorado lamb.
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AP News researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
