THE TIMES-TRIBUNE

Josh McAuliffe/STAFF WRITER - This is a recent article from the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pennsylvania

Here’s a little White House dish, courtesy of Walter Scheib.

Hillary Clinton is a rack of lamb fanatic. George W. Bush enjoys a good peanut butter and honey sandwich. And Bill Clinton? Well, he’s a famously unfussy food lover from way back, or, as Mr. Scheib puts it, "a famous food eater."

Indeed, Mr. Scheib has the presidential palate down pat, having spent 11 years of his life as the White House’s executive chef. The first seven years were spent with the Clintons, while the final four were with the Bush family. All that time spent serving the most powerful people in the world will get you plenty of colorful anecdotes, and Mr. Scheib will be sharing several when he visits the Scranton Cultural Center at The Masonic Temple on Thursday at 7 p.m. as part of the Lackawanna County Library Lecture Series’ fall lineup.

Mr. Scheib, author of the memoir, "White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen," left his post at the White House after President Bush’s first term. These days, the Great Falls, Va., resident runs his own company, The American Chef, which allows him to alternate lucrative speaking engagements with consulting work at restaurants, hotels and resorts around the country. In addition, he serves as the culinary director of Hershey Entertainment and Resorts in Hershey. "It combines the best of both worlds," Mr. Scheib said during a recent phone interview. "As my wife says, I get to go to cocktail parties across the country and get paid for it."

Growing up in Maryland, Mr. Scheib was first exposed to fine cookery through his mother, an exceptional "hobbyist cook" who enjoyed experimenting with different ethnic cuisines. He jokes that his friends often declined to stay for dinner, afraid they would be served something like "beef tongue." Mr. Scheib, on the other hand, wasn’t the least bit timid when it came to mom’s food, and before long he was helping her prepare her innovative meals. "I’m not sure why, but I seemed to have a natural talent and desire to be around food and cooking," he said. After a year at the University of Maryland, Mr. Scheib dropped out to learn the restaurant business firsthand at a series of restaurants and hotels. Ultimately, he did his formal training at the Culinary Institute of America. By the time the mid-1990s rolled around, Mr. Scheib was working as the executive chef at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the Clintons had just moved into the White House, and Mrs. Clinton was on the hunt for a new chef. Since the Jacqueline Kennedy era, the White House kitchen staff had been devoted to a Continental European approach to cooking. Mrs. Clinton was looking to shake things up through finding a chef with a flair for innovative regional American cuisine.

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