The ‘other side' of 5 US presidents and their families, as seen by ex-White House chef

23-05-2025

Cristeta Comerford, a long-time White House executive chef who recently retired after nearly three decades of preparing meals for five presidents and their guests, says first families are 'just regular people' when they are at home in the private living areas of the Executive Mansion.
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'It's not what you see on the news,' she says.
Preparing the first families' meals was among Comerford's many culinary responsibilities. Meals would mostly be prepared in the main kitchen, then finished off in the residence kitchen on the second floor.
'At the end of the day, when you do the family meals upstairs, they're just regular people at home. They just want a good meal. They want to sit down with their family,' she said.
'If they have children, they eat together. And just to see that on a daily basis, it's not what you see on the news.
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'It's the other side of them that we get to see,' she says.