Hail to the Chef

" Tuwang tuwa ang boong pamilia para sa kanya," says Erlinda. ("The family is very, very happy for her.")

"I could feel within my heart that joy that is kind of just overflowing," says Ofelia, recalling Teta's phone call telling her about the promotion. "Then I thought of my dad. Oh, if he were still alive!" Honesto died more than 10 years ago, before Teta started working in the White House. "He would have been very, very excited over this."

The Pasia daughters grew up in a house of food, with Erlinda as the perfectionist, hard-to-please head chef. "It's either overcooked or too salty, she would say. Too little this and too much that," says Ofelia. It was rare for the family to eat out.

Filipino cuisine is determinedly eclectic, a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Spanish influence. Erlinda can whip out a classic chicken adobo, a kind of stew, or pancit canton, a kind of noodle dish, or lumpia Shanghai, the Filipino egg roll, all staples of any Filipino party, not so much "by formula," says Ofelia, but "by instinct." The mother passed that gift on to her daughters.

Encouraged by her family, Comerford studied food. She attended the University of the Philippines-Diliman, in Quezon City, and majored in food technology. Contrary to a news release issued by the White House, though, she didn't complete her degree. Juanito, an accountant and the first in the family to move to the States, had petitioned his parents, brothers and sisters to let her join him there, and Comerford opted to leave school when her visa was approved.

After stints at the Sheraton and Hyatt Regency hotels near Chicago O'Hare, Cristeta, with her husband, who's also a chef, moved here. She was a chef at two Washington restaurants -- Le Grande Bistro at the Westin Hotel and the Colonnade at the former ANA Hotel. For six months, she worked as chef tournant ("revolving chef") at Le Ciel, in Vienna, Austria, sharpening her mastery of French classical techniques. Scheib, then the executive chef at the White House, recruited her.

"As a chef, you need a certain feeling, a certain way of putting food together, not just cooking it but presenting it. It's hard to describe, but she has that feeling," says Siegfried Pucher, her former boss at Le Ciel.

In her 10 years at the White House, however, her specialty has been ethnic and American cuisine. What pleased the first lady is the way Comerford can more than satisfy the president with a lunch of enchilada or cheeseburger, then turn around to cook a state dinner that pairs chilled asparagus soup and lemon cream with pan-roasted halibut and basmati rice (with pistachio nuts and currants). In fact, the dinner for 134 guests held last month in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won Comerford the job.

"For those back home in the Philippines, and for the Filipinos who are working immigrants and naturalized citizens all over the world -- and there are millions of us -- she is this wonderful, wonderful example," says Greg Macabenta, a columnist for the Manila Times who lives in California.

The Filipino population in the United States, according to Census Bureau figures, hovers around 2.4 million, with almost half residing in California. The New Jersey/New York area, as well as Hawaii, have substantial Filipino populations, followed by the Chicago and Washington metropolitan areas.

"She's one of our own, she's doing very well, and we share in the pride," Macabenta says. "We want to tell our children, 'Hey look, don't believe that canard about the glass ceiling in the United States. You can be as good as the best of them in the world.' "

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The White House kitchen, located in the East Wing, is in a way the heart of the executive residence, with a style reflective of the administration it serves. Eleanor Roosevelt offered the king and queen of England hot dogs. Lyndon Johnson loved his barbecue (Texas style, naturally). The Carters favored southern food, grits and country ham. Nancy Reagan, a stickler for detail, had "tryout menus" of classic French cuisine for state dinners and had Polaroids taken of how the food should be presented. And though Hillary Clinton favored contemporary low-fat menus, Bill was famous for his not-too-rare Big Mac cravings.

In the 44 years since the title "executive chef" was introduced to the White House by Jacqueline Kennedy, only five people have held the post before Comerford: Rene Verdon, Henry Haller, Jon Hill, Pierre Chambrin and Scheib.

"Cris will surely bring her own flair to this job. But the pressure is different now that she's the boss," says Roland Mesnier, who was White House pastry chef for 25 years -- he retired in July 2004 -- and worked with Comerford for nine years. He still remembers that Chilean sea bass she asked him to taste, and goes on and on about how the fish "was so very flaky and white and just extraordinary." "Hers is a job that is extremely demanding, and she'll have to be focused at all times, which I'm confident she'll be. In my experience with her, she doesn't do one day better than another day. The minute she steps in that kitchen, the second she's in there, Cris is focused."

She'll be paid somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000 annually, with no overtime, and will be in charge of five full-time employees, though that number can rise to 25 for large parties, state dinners and, of course, the White House Easter Egg Roll. She's an early riser, which helps -- you never know just when President Bush, usually up at around 5:15 a.m., will want his breakfast.

So what will the White House kitchen run by Comerford look like, feel like, taste like?

Only Comerford knows.

The Comerfords returned from their vacation late Thursday night. The next morning, the new executive chef was back at work.