
Friday night was a lot of fun having dinner on our back porch with our great friends, the Scheibs. Walt Scheib has non stop funny stories and Jean accompanies those stories with her dry wit, which always has me laughing. They are both graduates of the Culinary Institute and both started out as chefs, but Jean just embarked on a real estate career and Walt is always on speaking tours as
“the American Chef.” Most people know that Walter Scheib was the President’s chef for 11 years, with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 2005, he gave up cooking for another passion, public speaking. Walt is now a world class speaker with engagements to speak to business groups on what it was like to be the White House chef all those years, while they enjoy a lunch or dinner. He does not prepare the lunches or dinners, but he does prepare the menu for the engagement. After his retirement he also published a cookbook titled
White House Chef with recipes, stories, and great pictures of Presidential events. It reads like a novel and the recipes are truly worth cooking. It is also a testament to his healthful cooking that both Walt and his wife, Jean, are thin and fit and it is the big reason the Clinton’s wanted him.

Friends comment, “What do you cook for dinner? I would be nervous." But the Scheibs are totally casual. So, I planned a casual dinner. First, we started with a lime cilantro shrimp cocktail made by Jean. It was so delicious my son Steve, who joined us for a bit, commented that he would like to eat the whole platter. For dinner we had fresh mahi mahi on the grill, which Walt ended up cooking. He watched me open up a new digital thermometer, and said “you don’t need that” and proceeded to show me how to test for doneness by testing the flesh on my hand. Well, even Jean said she couldn’t check the fish that way, so Walt helped out. Back to dinner, tomatoes from our organic garden topped with blue cheese and olive oil and boiled red potatoes. For dessert, an organic lemon tart from Trader Joe’s with some raspberry and lemon sorbet.
I really wanted to get their perspective on organic foods. According to both Walt and Jean, they buy organic food if they find the taste is better. Walt said, “while non-organic food may be a health issue, it is a long term issue that doesn’t become a problem for many years. The biggest health concern of a chef is food safety and preventing food borne illnesses like salmonella and e-coli. The way meat is slaughtered, handled, and processed is the biggest problem that we have to deal with in the short term.”
Walt suggested I give his close friend, Alice Waters (the owner of Chez Panisse, who is a huge supporter of organic and local foods) a call, to tell her about my blog and get her perspective. He also suggested I call Cris Comerford, the current While House Executive Chef, for her comments.
Walt recently visited the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture for one of his clients and suggested I go visit. Their website is
www.stonebarnscenter.org. They have an incredible learning site and functioning organic farm for anyone to visit just outside of New York City in Tarrytown. I plan to visit next week.