>> From The Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> To quote our featured author
chef John Moeller, how cool is this,
and how cool was his job?
John Moeller is a member of an elite
core of chefs, those who've served
in the White House, preparing
meals, and special dinners
for First families and their guests,
including visiting heads of State.
Chef John is unique
in that he worked
across three consecutive
administrations,
President George Herbert
Walker Bush,
President William Jefferson Clinton,
and President George W Bush.
He shares his most memorable moments
at the executive mansion plus scores
of recipes in this new book,
Dining at The White House
from The Presidents Table
to Yours, it is my pleasure
to introduce someone I've
had the opportunity to meet
at Channel Nine, Chef John Moeller.
>> Thank you, thank you,
[inaudible] I appreciate that.
>> Your welcome.
>> Good to see you again.
It's a great honor to
be here, and especially,
for this is the first year
that they have had these type
of cooking demos.
And I'd also like to thank my former
boss, former First Lady, Laura Bush,
for getting all these book
festivals started here,
in Washington D.C. What I
had the opportunity to do
in my book here is I took
all the official recipes,
that we used to use for official
functions at the White House,
and every time we did a dinner,
we would never really,
ever repeat it again.
So my biggest challenge
as a chef there was coming
up with new menu items
on a regular basis.
So what I came up for this
recipe, that's in the book also,
and is from a, it's from a state
luncheon with the President
of Indonesia, it's an
herb crusted chicken.
And what the herbs are, it's
called fines herbs, or fine herbs,
I spent about two and half years in
France working during the mid 80s,
and I came to love these
mixture of herbs there.
They are chives, tarragon,
Italian parsley, and chervil,
unfortunately I didn't have
any chervil with me today here,
but the combination
of those four herbs,
gives what's referred
to as fine herbs.
You couldn't put rosemary, you
can't put thyme, and those type
of stronger herbs in something like
this, to give its unique flavor.
So what I do is, I'm
going to take the chives,
and chives are really easy, to cut,
because they're nice and straight,
and you can go right through.
The most important thing is
to have a nice sharp knife,
what I do is I kind of
cut, and chop a little bit
of the, the chives here.
Once that's all done, I'm
going to take fresh tarragon,
is everybody familiar
with what tarragon is?
You don't see it that
often out there,
but I really enjoy the flavor,
it has a nice astringent,
background to it, and it
adds a nice definition
to what I want to do here.
So we take the stem here and
just pull back on the leaves,
and just get those nice tender
leaves, the stem, you do not want
to chop that and eat that part of
it, it's a little bit too tough.
After we get a couple of these guys,
pulled apart, then there again to,
we chop this up, and what I'll
do is I'll chop all these,
in the same equal amounts, and
then we'll mix them all together.
I like to chop them separately,
because each one chops differently
when you chop them by
themselves, and then afterwards,
mix and give them a little
chopping, once they're all done.
And it's always good to try and
chop your herbs just before you go
to use them, because the
aromatics, the parfum,
the perfume that's inside the herb,
it just explodes the
flavor, as your chopping it.
I wouldn't want to chop this
in the morning and then use it
in the evening, because some
of the aromatics going to leave
and its not going to
be quite as strong.
So we got the, and then the
other part is Italian parsley,
there again to, we just pick
the tender leaves off away
from the stem, and there
again to, what I like do with,
especially parsley, I take, bunch it
up into a ball, in your finger here,
and then I push it up
against the knife there,
and then put nice thin
slices through it.
By starting off this way,
you're going to be able
to get a nicer chopped parsley, if
you just lay it across the board,
and just start chopping at it,
it's going to take you a lot longer
to get it nicely chopped up.
[Inaudible] So we got, so we got
the four herbs, alright, parsley,
Italian parsley, I prefer,
there is also curly parsley,
curly parsley is good for
decorations and some other things,
but I really don't care for the
flavor, for chopping up and adding
into foods like what we're
going to do today here.
So I like Italian parsley
has a little cleaner flavor
to it, alright.
So what we're going to do is we're
going to take a little pile of the,
parsley, we have the
tarragon, and the chives,
except the only one
that's missing is chervil.
The recipe is in the book as
chervil, but also do realize
that it's very, very hard to find
that out in the super markets,
in the [inaudible], oh it's
Whole Foods, it's very difficult
to find any of the
chevril in the marketplace.
I can buy it professionally
through my produce guys,
but that's about it, and one of the
main reasons is because it's very,
a little bit unknown,
but it's very perishable,
it collapses on it,
and wilts very quickly.
Alright so now, we have all the
herbs, and if you can smell this,
it just has a such nice
aromatic, smell to it right now.
Alright. So what I did, when
I got the idea to do this was,
when I was going to do
this chicken recipe, and I,
and you always hear the old saying
that, you know a thousand ways
to cook a chicken, well I
found a thousand and two ways
to cook a chicken, because
chicken was a very popular protein
at the White House, and we
were always constantly trying
to figure out what to do with it.
So I thought one day that
I would take an ideal
of taking the chicken breasts,
this is a skinless, boneless,
lobe of chicken breast, the
white meat, I lightly pounded it
out already, so that the thick
end is topped down a little bit,
so it equals with the thin end.
So now it will cook a little more
evenly, if you don't do that,
this side is a little fatter, and
this becomes overcooked on this side
and down here, is, you can see
its pretty even on how you looking
at it, this way here, that it's, it
will cook a lot more evenly for you.
So what we're going to do is,
I like cooking with sea salt,
we put a little bit of
sea salt and black pepper,
and so all purpose flour.
We're going to take this and mix
it together just seasoned flour,
and then we're going to take our
chicken breast here, and just put it
on what is referred to as
the skin side of the chicken.
I'm only putting, the
flour on the one side,
and I'm going to shake off all the
excess, I don't want it all clumped
up there, all I want
is enough flour on here
to make the next part happen,
which is the egg white.
So we'll take both of these pieces,
and always remember when working
with chicken you have to worry about
food safety, you know don't want
to intermix, [inaudible]
on a cutting board
that you were just cutting the
herbs on, without properly cutting,
and washing and sanitizing it.
Now in this bowl here,
I have egg whites,
so I just cracked one egg
white, whipped it up lightly,
and I'm going to take
the chicken breast,
put it through the egg white, and
then that'll, that's what's going
to give me the opportunity to
have the herbs stick to that.
So, and like I said, remember this
side here doesn't have the flour,
this side does, so we're going
to put this through like this,
and now it will get all the
excess, egg white off of it.
I don't want it running and being
to gooey with it, here again,
and I don't want to
saturate the herbs either,
I want just enough flour,
to make the egg white stick,
I want just enough egg white,
to make the herbs stick.
And it, and like I said its only on
the one side, so, put that in there,
that's why it's nice working
with tongs and stuff like that,
where here at least the stuff
is not getting all bunched
up on your fingers.
Alright, ok, so now we have
our chicken breasts here,
this is the skin side, underneath
is like where the tenderloin is,
we didn't do anything
with that side yet.
Now we take our herbs, the
fines herbs, and we're going
to sprinkle it across,
the chicken breast.
Let's see how hot my plate,
[inaudible] pretty hot there,
I'm just going to turn
it up just a little bit.
And I don't like to pat it
down, I just like to kind
of sprinkle it across,
a nice even amount,
and it takes a little bit
of the, the herbs here.
But more of the herbs the better.
What I, everybody is always looking
for some healthy eating to do here,
and just cooking this by itself
is, is fine just on its own here.
I'm going to be serving something
called a beurre blanc with it,
that's what we did at the
White House, and it's a very,
very classically known, sauce,
called white butter sauce,
or beurre blanc, as
they refer to in France.
What I will do is I took, you
can take almost any kind of oil,
canola possibly, the
olive oil maybe not so,
because it has a lower
burn temperature,
but what I do have here today
is some clarified butter.
Clarified butter is when you, melt
the butter, the impurities fall
to the bottom, the white liquidly
part, the wade, and then the clear,
yellow oil, which is
clarified butter.
We're going to put this into
the pan, and the pan has
to be decently hot, you want a
nice medium high temperature,
so when this herb, the herb side
is the one I put in the pan first,
when that comes in contact with that
oil, it has to immediately start
to cook the proteins, of the
egg white and create that crust.
If the temperature is not hot
enough, it's not going to do that,
it's going to stick to the pan.
But on the other hand to, you
don't want it smoking hot, when,
and it's going to overcook
it, you don't want
to brown it too much either.
So you got to get a nice
medium, medium high temperature,
there we go, that looks good.
And you don't want to crowd the
pan to much, this is pretty good,
just let it sit, this size
pan, with these two breasts.
You can see it's frying nicely.
Yep, it's releasing,
I use a nonstick pan
for something like this here.
Let it create its crust
on the one side now,
and then on the other side,
we'll just put a little bit
of salt and pepper, like that.
If you're salt sensitive, you
don't have to put the salt on,
but a little bit is good.
The two types of salts I like
to work with is sea salt,
and kosher salt, they kind
of give the best flavor.
If you were ever to do a side by
side tasting, of all the salts
and then also put like the iodized
table salt, that you normally have
at home, you really
taste the difference.
The iodized salt really does
not have a very good flavor.
Well that's cooking,
in this pan here,
we're going to start our
beurre blanc, our butter sauce.
We're going to take a
white wine, chardonnay,
you would like a dry white
wine for something like this,
we're going to put
that in the pan here.
I already started to get
it warm and we're going
to make a reduction with it.
Turn that up a little bit,
and the other thing we have
to add to it is some shallots.
So I take the shallots, everybody
is familiar with what a shallot is,
it's in the onion family, it's a
small more intense flavor, onion.
I'm going to just do a quick
[inaudible] on the one side.
Put that in there like that.
We're going to take
some peppercorns,
just a couple whole black
peppercorns in there.
And, a bay leaf or two, depending
on the size, but probably put
like two bay leaves in there,
put another small one in there,
and all we're going to do is
cook and reduce that down.
If you use a sweeter wine, when it
reduces down it doesn't taste good,
it gets too concentrated
with the sweetness, alright,
now going to keep an eye on here.
That's getting, it's
getting a nice crust here,
that's a good temperature,
I actually might even turn
it up just a little bit.
And, so what is cooked down
the dry white wine there,
when it concentrates, it really
gives a nice grape flavor,
on the backend of it.
So after it reduces down, we're
going to put in some heavy cream.
But we have to wait a little
bit before we do that.
So that's, this is pretty much the
whole thing, pretty easy to do,
you think you can do this at home?
Yes? Ok. So we're going to let
that cook for a moment or two,
we're going to let this guy,
reduce down a little bit here,
I'm going to keep a close eye on it.
I like to do, yep, this is ready
to go, ok, we're going to flip
that over, you should
be able to see,
you see how it's nice and green.
If the temperature is too hot, it's
going to brown and we don't want
to do that, it's going to take
away from that nice green color.
So, alright so we got
that on this side here,
give that a moment or two.
Like I said this is one of the
recipes out of my book here,
I have 107 recipes in there.
Sometimes I like to do a little
reading I have a moment or two,
and since everyone else is doing
readings why shouldn't I, you know?
So, so this was a letter
that was sent
to Misses Clinton,
back in 1999 or so.
It says October 26th, 1999, Hilary
Rodman Clinton, The White House,
Washington D.C. Dear Misses
Clinton, how very kind of you
to host a luncheon for all of us,
the other day in your
beautiful White House,
I have been there several times,
starting with the LBJ
administration,
where everything was
beautifully handled.
Still keep an eye on
the pan over here.
During subsequent visits, I was not
as impressed, but when I returned
for the Sarah Lee Front Runners
Award luncheon I was delighted
to fine The White House
sparkling, the service beautiful,
and attentive, and
the food, delicious,
it was a very heartwarming
experience.
Thank you so much, with all
good wishes, Julia Child.
Not too bad of a day
there, I had no idea,
I mean every day we're serving
kings, queens, dignitaries,
and 15 minutes before
our lunch started,
somebody came down to the kitchen,
said that Julia Child is there
for lunch, and I was like, a
little stricken at the moment,
but we are already in
the mode to get ready
to do lunch for 130 people.
Not much, I thought about what I was
doing, and should I change anything.
And I said no, everything is cool,
we're good, we're just going to try
and keep on going here, you know.
So we serve lunch, everything
went off very nicely, afterwards,
Misses Child came down to
the kitchen, and she wanted
to thank us for a nice luncheon.
So one of the chefs
happened to have a camera,
and took a shot of it, with her.
The social secretary enjoyed
the, the meal so much, when the,
she took the plate that the
butler had in her hand there,
dropped it on the table in the Red
Room, and then took a shot of it.
So the White House
photographer gave me a picture
of it the next day or so.
A week or so later, one of the
ushers in the ushers office said,
hey John, didn't you do, that
was your lunch you did last week.
I said yea, and at the time we
would divide up the luncheons,
not one chef would
work all the luncheons,
so we get a really busy period,
and we can be, we can be doing,
you know it's a home, remember
it's a, a pretty good home,
pretty good public housing
for the most part you know?
But you have to serve, breakfast,
lunch, and dinner to the President,
The First Lady, their
family, and their guests.
But also it's a banquet house,
we're serving all types of things
from breakfasts, lunches, dinners,
to the First Family and his family,
and friends on a daily,
on a daily basis also.
So one of the ushers say hey,
that was your menu, I said sure.
And he said yea, you
might want to see this,
so he showed me the letter
I just read, and I said my,
can I take a photocopy of that?
He said sure, here's the other
letter, it was the letter
that Misses Clinton was
wiring back to Miss Child,
thanking her for her comments.
And so, obviously got a picture,
a photocopy of that also,
and we decided to start the
book off with this story.
And, we thought it was a
good prelude into everything
that we wanted to,
present to people,
on my time at the White House.
I grew up in Lancaster
Pennsylvania, just two hours north,
went to culinary school when I was
young, about, actually about 17
when I went off to college.
Ok, this guy is just about ready.
And I always feel the chicken,
when it starts to firm up,
there's always something, you
see if you take your finger
and just kind of, keep your
hand kind of limp, and do this,
it's kind of soft, that's when
the meats are kind of rare.
And as it cooks, make a little
bit of a fist, it tightens up,
because it's more cooked, and you
make a fist and you feel it firm,
that's what meat feels like when
it's cooked all the way through.
So that gives me a little
indication, the smaller one here,
is just about done, this one
over here is a little softer,
he needs a little bit
longer time there.
But we are just about
done there, with that.
So I went to culinary
school, afterwards,
in the mid 80s had a friend of
mine that was living in Paris,
and cooking, he kept bugging me
to come on over and visit him, so,
in July of 84, I bought a one
way ticket to Europe, went over
and met my friend over there.
Gave up my job, just
threw a backpack on,
and I figured let's
see what happens.
Well, everybody thought I was crazy,
they're like what do you got planned
over there, do you
have a job lined up?
You don't speak that very good
French or anything like that.
I said, ah, we'll figure it out,
figure it out, they said ah,
we'll see you back in three weeks.
Well two and a half years
later, I came back to America
and I learned the culture, a way of
life, and it was just a great time
of discovery to see
all these great things.
I mean, you can say what
you want about the French,
but they love their food, and every
region has a very distinct way
of how they treat their food,
and that's where I got
some of these ideals.
These mixed herbs here, one
chef used to use it to make one
of his [inaudible] and I
always like that flavor.
And so when I was coming to
think of making, a chicken dish,
something a little bit
different one time,
I said how about if I take
those herbs, and do something,
and create a crust for it.
And I just made it up, did
it, and it was a big hit,
they absolutely loved it.
I got a comment back later on saying
that was just a nice clean
tasting piece of chicken there,
that was a little bit different
than what's normally out there.
And something else that is very
French is this beurre blanc,
or white butter sauce.
But after spending about two and a
half years in France, I came back,
I found work down The
Virgin Islands,
I worked down Saint
Croix for about a year.
And upon returning back to the
States here, I landed in D.C.,
and that was in 87, and, I
kind of fell in love with it,
I kind of love the international
flavor that the city has to offer.
I found work the very first
day I was looking for it,
it was a restaurant off of Dupont
Circle, right now it's the Church
of Scientology, but it used to be
called The Four Ways Restaurant,
and I was there in 87, 88, and 89.
And the chef there at the
time was French Belgian,
he saw all the places
that I worked in France,
and wanted to bring me on.
So I started working with
them, three weeks later,
after service on a Friday night,
he said what are you doing tonight?
And I said nothing, he said
why don't you come with me,
all the French chefs in Washington
get together once in awhile,
and tonight is the night.
If you want you can come along he
said your French is good enough,
you can with them.
So I went down and met
with all the French chefs
down at The Mayflower Hotel,
afterwards, this one gentleman,
named Pierre [inaudible], he was the
chef at the [inaudible] restaurant,
at the time, and we became friends.
And over the next year or two,
we would talk about different
opportunities in the city.
Then I heard he was
working at the White House.
I said that's pretty cool,
Pierre is at the White House,
about two years later, I get
a call from him saying that,
that he's at the White House, and
he's up for the chef position,
and he's looking for somebody
to take his place, as sous chef.
I said let's talk, you
know I'm interested.
So we went, when we sat down
to talk about the position,
he said that there's five chefs in
the kitchen, of the White House,
full timers, there's two in the
pastry, and three in the kitchen,
I'd be the number two
person in the kitchen.
He says I'm French born, but you
have to be an American citizen
to work full time at
the White House,
he says the pastry chef is French
born, and also American citizen.
He says I can bring
another Frenchman
in that's an American citizen, but
I think it's too many French people,
He says if I could find an
American, that knew something
about French cooking,
is what I'm looking for.
So that little [inaudible]
France is what set me apart
from the other candidates at a
point and time, and got me in.
And so it was, one of, the, day I
actually got the job and I walked
out of the map room, it was
referred to, and I got dumped
out on East Executive
Boulevard, I just pinched myself,
I couldn't believe that I'm
actually going to be walking
through these gates every
single day, coming to work.
And it was a great
honor and privilege,
to be able to walk through,
and go into the White House,
and be catapulted up to the
second floor of the White House,
and being close to the families.
And both like I said the Bushes,
The Clintons, and the Bushes,
we had a great close relationship
with them, between the chefs,
the butlers, and the maids, we were
probably the closest ones to them.
And the best part about it was
that we got a chance to see them
in completely light
then everybody else.
Politics had nothing to do with
what we did, we just wanted
to make their stay as
comfortable as possible,
while they're living
in that fish bowl.
And so, when you're up on that
second floor, you would never, ever,
ever talk about politics, so
you would talk about you know,
how the weathers like, you know,
how great the Redskins are,
and things like that, you know,
but that's about it you know.
So, it was great to have that type
of relationship with them, you know?
It brings, can you imagine
what the most interesting day,
the most unusual day
at the White House is?
Mmm hmm, the day of inauguration.
What it takes to get a President
out and bring another one in,
is just extraordinary, you know?
And at 9:30 in the morning,
on inauguration day,
when George H W Bush is just getting
ready to leave, they called us
up to the state dining room.
And in the White House
there's about 80 sum of us,
80 plus who are resident staff,
you know, plumbers, electricians,
carpenters, florists, [inaudible],
we're all part of the team
that takes care of the White
House, on a daily basis.
So we're all standing in a
circle, in the state dining room,
and all of a sudden the big
mahogany doors open up coming
from the cross hall into
the state dining room,
and then the doors shut.
And the President and The
First Lady, George H W Bush,
Misses Barbara Bush, come on
in, and they looked at us, and,
President Bush head dropped
down, he's staring at the floor
for a moment, he, his head swung
back and forth for a moment,
and he said you know, of all
the goodbyes that we had to say,
this is going to be
the toughest one.
Because all you people have taken
care of us for the last four years,
and we can't say thanks enough.
Boy, there wasn't a dry eye
in the whole place, you know.
They were very gentle, nice,
nice people, and then that's
when it really hit
me, is it like wow,
these people they're leaving
us now here, you know.
And we traded off some fun stories
about the dogs and the pets,
and the horseshoe games
that we'd have
out in the back or what have you.
The President liked playing
horseshoes with the staff
from time to time, you know.
He'd call us up and say hey,
I'm ready to throw some
shoes here, you know.
And so we had some fun times with
that, and then before you know it,
they leave the state dining
room, the doors open, they leave,
you look out the front driveway,
there's moving trucks out there,
getting ready to take
President Bush's belongings away
from the White House, there's
moving trucks behind them,
brining the Clinton stuff in.
And between 10 o'clock in
the morning and 5 o'clock
in the afternoon, it's insane.
The amount of work that
goes on in getting,
the oval office broken
down, getting everything set
up the way he wants it, getting
things in place to a degree,
so they can be ready to walk in
that White House at 5 o'clock.
And that evening we don't
really do a dinner there,
because of all the inaugural
balls that go on around the city.
So we have like a little grazing
buffet up in the third floor,
in the solarium, which
is right above,
this guy is looking pretty good
now, [inaudible] reduced down.
After this reduces down about
90 percent, then we're going
to take heavy cream, not
light cream or half and half,
and definitely not milk, and
we're going to pour that in,
and we're going to, we're
going to reduce that down now.
Alright, we'll turn that up
a little bit, let that boil.
And so I'm up in the third
floor, doing this little buffet,
just having food ready for
anybody who might need a snack
or something before they go out at
7 o'clock to the inaugural balls,
and then all around the corner
comes President Clinton,
and he's charging around,
taking a look at the White House
for the very first time, and he
comes over and introduce myself
to him, and I said wow, this is
pretty extraordinary you know?
I say goodbye to one
President in the morning,
and say hello to the
new one at night.
And the best thing about is that,
not a shot's been fired, you know.
And in the world that we live in
here, it's a peaceful transition
of power, and we can
never forget that.
Ok, we'll let that reduce down
a little bit, how we doing time?
Can we, we can start some
questions and answers,
does anybody have, a question or so?
Yes, m'aam.
And speak up a little
bit though, mm hmm.
[Inaudible].
>> Mmm hmm.
[Inaudible].
>> Come closer to me, I'm
sorry about that, your aunt.
>> My aunt always uses
[inaudible] wondering [inaudible].
>> Mmm hmm.
>> I was wondering if you
were baking or making a soup,
would you just throw the stems in
and remove them before
you serve the food?
>> Well, I would use the stems
only, if I was making like a stock,
and drawing flavor from it.
In fact, like these
stems and things,
I would hold onto them sometimes,
if I'm making a lobster stock,
I like to use tarragon
stems, what have you.
If I'm making chicken stock
I use like the parsley stems,
and what have you, chives, all
those types of flavor is good
for that for aromatics, there.
But when I'm chopping a fine
this, and see how fine that is?
>> Mmm hmm.
>> And you can see each piece
of that fine leaf there.
If the stems in there
it looks chunkier.
It's not as clean, so it's a matter
of, also taking to the next level,
at my level of cooking
to make it look nice.
Yes, it can work, but at our
level we want to make it just
as clean as possible, mmm hmm.
>> Thank you.
>> Your welcome, mmm hmm.
Anybody else have a
question out there?
Yes m'aam?
Oop, mmm hmm.
>> Can you share a favorite dish
that each family had,
that each President had,
>> Mmm hmm.
>> That you, prepared?
>> Yea, she had asked
about a favorite dish
that the families all enjoyed.
Of course we had two sides of what
I did, we, I cooked personally
for them and also for the state
dinners and what have you.
But when I cooked for them
personally, I felt like I was more
like a dietician more than a chef,
because when they actually ate
on their own, they were very
health conscious, all of them were.
And because when they're out on
the road, they're exposed to a lot
of heavy [inaudible] foods,
when they're in the White
House eating steak dinners,
they're exposed to a
lot of heavy foods.
So when they eat on
their own they were very,
very health conscious you know, so
I come up with a couple recipes,
that would be more clean tasting
you know, and not to heavy.
And actually one that they
all really enjoyed was,
I kept a pretty good recipe for
chicken enchiladas, you know,
and it's good, when it's
done right, it's good,
even when you make your own fresh
tortillas, it was great you know.
One time the, just after
George W Bush came into office,
I thought I'd do some
fajitas, one night for dinner,
and so I was doing lunch and dinner
that day, Misses Bush came back
into the kitchen, and there are just
two kitchens in the White House,
down on the ground floor, of the
White House is our main kitchen,
where we would do our main work,
and do hard prep and cooking there.
Then we take everything up
to the second floor kitchen,
second floor kitchen, if
you look at the White House
from Pennsylvania Avenue, the
first floor is all the green room,
red rooms, state dining rooms.
The second floor, far right window
is the kitchen I'd be working
in while we're serving the family,
and then the butlers would give
us the plates that were needed,
go through a swinging door and the
dining room is right next to them,
so that's the corner of the house
that I would be in most of the time.
So I'm up there after lunch and
Misses Bush came back and thanked me
for a nice lunch, and I said,
just to let you know tonight I
was thinking about doing fajitas.
She goes so what do you
have for ingredients,
so I explained all the
guacamole, and the onions,
and [inaudible] everything I add.
She said everything sounds good,
but, we don't eat flour tortillas,
we're from Texas, we
eat corn tortillas,
and we prefer to have fresh ones.
I said well, I've never made fresh
ones before, but I'll look into it,
she says, she pointed to her
house keeper that she brought
up from Texas, her name
was Maria, Mexican lady,
and she said Maria will
show you how to make it.
She looked like yea, yea, I'll
show you, so she came down with me
to the kitchen, I cleaned
up real quick, we got a van,
drove over to Adams
Morgan, picked up the flour,
[inaudible] got the press and
everything, she came back,
gave me a demo, and within
a week or two I could bang
out some pretty good
amount of tortillas there.
And when you make them fresh, it's
amazing how much flavor they have,
you know, it's like
eating fresh bread.
Because a lot of times on a, just
a basic like, Texmex type meal,
half an hour before I
go up and serve dinner,
I'll make some fresh corn tortillas,
and just kind of keep them
with a cloth on top of
them, and serve it to them,
and it is very, very good.
And they're nice and pliable,
you know, they like making tacos
out of them too, instead of, you
know hard shells, they don't really,
never served a hard shell taco when
I was there, it was always soft,
soft, fresh made tortillas,
you know, mm hmm, mmm hmm.
Anybody else there?
Yes, m'aam?
Mmm hmm.
>> Good morning.
>> Good morning.
>> What was your most
challenging meal
or event, and how did you save it?
>> Challenging, we would get
it from time to time, you know,
when we have foreign dignitaries
come in to the White House,
I would wait for the,
the state department,
would forward us dietary
restrictions
of the visiting head of state.
I would always wait
to read that before,
I would start writing a menu.
Anytime I got ahead of myself,
and started writing a menu,
they would like something
different, you know?
I think one of the most unusual ones
I ever saw was, about ten years ago
or so, had the Prime
Minister of Italy, come in,
and I was reading the
dietaries, and it said,
does not eat onions,
garlic, and tomatoes.
I read it five times to make
sure it didn't say put extra in,
I was like you got to be
kidding me, he's an imposter.
So I check him out there, you know,
I came to the realization maybe
afterward just my guess, that,
that I think everywhere he goes,
probably people load onions, garlic,
and tomatoes into his food, and he's
like hey, I'm tired of that stuff,
you know I want to go ahead
and eat something else.
So, I think he probably, I think
that might make sense to a degree,
because, they wouldn't let him
in Italy if he didn't eat that,
you know, I mean that's,
anybody else?
This side of the room
maybe you know?
Mmm hmm.
>> What did you make for
the Italian Ambassador?
>> What did you end up making
for the Italian Ambassador?
>> Fried chicken.
[ Laughter ]
>> Yea, but I'll tell you what it
didn't have, was onions, garlic,
and tomatoes in it, you know.
I read that thing like five times,
I was like cannot be reading,
are my eyes telling me what
I'm seeing here, you know.
But, actually we do like some
fried chicken from time to time,
but they like the oven fried,
marinated up a little bit and put it
on a roasting rack, and I
bake it off in the oven,
and things like that are
good from time to time.
I remember one time, late 90s,
Clinton's were already in there
for a couple years, and it was
a cold winter night in February,
and I was trying to think of,
there again to, what else can I do
with a piece of chicken there?
And I thought about a,
chicken pot pie recipe,
that comes from Lancaster
Pennsylvania,
and it doesn't have the crust on
it, you make a dumpling dough,
you roll it out, you cut it up, and
then you cook it into the stock,
and so it's more of
a stew type thing.
So I made the chicken pot pie
recipe, I put it up there,
and I was standing up in that second
floor kitchen, just served a dish,
I'm waiting for the
next course to go out.
And then the door opened
up into the dining room,
and I see President Clinton there,
leaning over the bowl like this,
with a fork, and he looks
up to me and he goes John,
this is the kind of food I like.
I said alright, and then Misses
Clinton, actually was standing next
to him, and she looked
down, she goes,
let's make a few biscuits
with that next time.
I said absolutely, so that became
one of the rotation things,
you know, we probably, we
went up on the second floor,
serving personally,
probably, every three weeks
or so we're probably bring
back a favorite, you know.
I mean you can't come up with
something new every single day, but,
there again to, you try
things from time to time.
So of course, President Clinton
left, and George W Bush is
up there one day, and he was
having dinner by himself.
And there again to, I said let me
try the chicken pot pie recipe,
and I kid you not,
same thing happened.
The door opened up, I was
standing there, he was there,
he's leaning over the bowl eating
it like this, and he looked up
and he said John, this is
the kind of food I like.
So, doesn't matter what side of
the aisle your own, you know, it's,
comfort food is still comfort
food, and if it's well prepared,
and you're using fresh ingredients,
that's what important to, you know.
Known of those things really
had a lot of fat in it,
I mean I'm not pouring cream in it,
and lots of butter what have you,
but it's, when it's well prepared,
just like the chicken enchiladas,
with the tomato cause there, there's
nothing bad about that, you know.
Mmm hmm, yes?
>> [Inaudible] for a while.
>> Uh huh.
[Inaudible].
>> Well, I, I'm not allowed
to have anybody taste it,
but since you did say about the
resting part is important though.
When I pick something
out of the pan like this,
I don't like to just take
it up, put it on the plate,
and then serve it to you.
You want to let it rest a little
bit, even, if a small piece
of chicken like this, maybe
five plus minutes or so,
that lets the juices calm
down, because they're all kind
of actively moving around inside
the meat there, let it relax.
Sometimes you see liquid
come out down below,
let that do that on its
own, if you slice into it,
and you see juices moving,
that's not a good thing.
That's when the juices are
really going to exit the meat,
and it becomes more drier, so it's
very good to do that that way.
I'm going to take the smaller
one here though, what I was going
to do, and slice it this way.
And just so you know, there's
a right way and a wrong way
to cut a piece of chicken, I mean
it seems pretty tender though.
But, the grain runs towards,
the wing joint, so you can see
where the slice is here, where
the wings went was cut off,
you want to cut against that.
So I always look for where the
wing joint is, and then I take it,
and I slice in this direction here.
The grains are going this way,
you want to cut across the grain.
Also waiting for this
guy here, this,
now when I see the cream reduce
down, this has been boiling,
I mean it hasn't broken, I think
you can get a kind of a view
of this here, it's
starting to get heavy,
the bubbles are getting larger,
that's a good signal to me.
What I'm going to do now is
I'm going to take some butter,
and we're going to take some butter
here, soft butter, room temperature,
unsalted butter, and I'm going to
start, slowly whipping this in here.
And there's no way around this,
yes, there's calories in this,
but you don't eat this every day,
you know, this has a great flavor,
it has, it does really
well like chicken dishes,
and fish dishes and what have you.
But, it's like, what I believe is
eating a balanced diet, you know,
you don't eat this stuff every
day, but once in a while,
you make a nice sauce
for a nice dinner
with some friends what have
you, make a beurre blanc,
enjoy it there, you know.
Don't drink a cup of
it, but you know,
an ounce or so is fine, you know.
So, it's very important that
the butter's been sitting
out all morning, and
then, so when it goes in,
and you're constantly whipping,
it emulsifies, it melts
and emulsifies into the sauce.
And afterwards, it can come
up to just a very gentle boil,
you want to be able to heat up
all the butter that's in there.
We're going to take a fresh lemon,
squeeze a little lemon
juice in there.
It was unsalted butter so I'm going
to put a little bit of sea salt
in there, a little bit of pepper,
mix this all up like this, alright.
So take this, turn that off now,
that's our white wine butter sauce,
so we reduce the white wine with
the shallots and the bay leaves,
you can put a piece of thyme in
there if you want, the peppercorns,
cook that down by 90
percent, reduce it.
Add the heavy cream, boil that
down, probably about over half,
and then whip in the, whip
in the softened butter.
Afterwards, we can take, we can
take some of the sauce here,
put it on the plate, we
take our chicken here,
put it across the sauce
there, just kind of open it
up a little bit, like this here.
And do it like that, so you get the
nice green from the herbs there,
and then you have the white butter
sauce, and of course the white meat
from the chicken there, gives
it a nice appearance there.
I wish you would be able to taste
this, but it has very unique flavor,
those fine herbs really does
accentuate it, and what I do a lot
of times is I make this dish like
this, but I, after I cook it,
I let it cool down and I'll
slice it room temperature,
and put it on salads,
like a couscous salad,
or do like a chilled
luncheon type thing.
And it's just fine by itself
like that, with a nice,
nice flavorful salad next to it.
What do you think there?
You think you can do this at home?
Alright, thank you.
Uh huh.
>> [Inaudible] when your off duty.
>> Well, I mean I love cooking,
and, you know, one thing I love
to do is go to the market and
just, not with anything in mind,
just kind of see what's
there, what looks good,
and kind of create something.
But a lot of times I like
to try and find something
where I can cook it all
in one pan, you know,
slice and dice everything almost
kind of like a stir fry thing,
and enjoy those types of things.
I like all types of foods, you
know, seafood, if it be, or chicken,
or braised meats, I mean, it's
nice having like a piece of fillet,
and I enjoy that from time to time.
But it's something about taking a
sub cut meat and cooking it out,
and braising it, making a sauce
from the braising liquids,
and then putting that back
over top of the meat there,
and I think that's real
cooking to me, you know.
That's one of the reasons like
braised short ribs are so popular
out there, because that,
that's what that is,
it's that good comfort
food, that's very well,
when its very well prepared
it tastes delicious, mmm hmm.
>> John Moeller, please
[inaudible] John Moeller.
>> Mmm hmm, thank you.
>> And we want to let you know,
make sure you have the bookmark,
because there's a wonderful recipe
on there, on your bookmarks,
on the back of the bookmark.
And then if you want the recipe
for the herb crusted chicken,
there are people handing out the
recipes, if you don't have them,
so make sure you hold up your
hands, so you can get that.
And then if you'd like to meet
chef John, get a copy of his book,
you see to your left, book
signings, he will be there
from 12 until 1 p.m., line 14.
So he'll be able to give you maybe
more secrets behind the scenes
of cooking at the White House.
Thank you very much for being
with us, keep your hands up,
so make sure you get the recipe
for the herb crusted chicken,
and chef John, thank you
so much for being here.
>> Thank you, it's a
pleasure, thank you.
>> Pleasure seeing you again.
>> Mmm hmm.
>> Thank you for coming.
>> This has been a
presentation of The Library
of Congress, visit us at loc.gov.