we gotta rule in the kitchen don't touch my knife don't touch my johnson since 1973
you can't have any facial hair except for a mustache if you play for the new york yankees
and while we aren't aware of the facial hair rules for chefs who work at the white house
we do know of at least 10 weird rules white house chefs are forced to follow
yes i know what the rule is what the president wants the president gets
we have pizzas we have 300 hamburgers many many french fries try walking into a restaurant and
telling the chef what foods they are allowed to serve and not serve in their own restaurant
we all know that request will probably not turn out well however try being the president of the
united states and doing the exact same thing to the person in charge of creating all of the meals
prepared for you and your home the result will amazingly always turn out in your favor that's
right the president has full authority to ban any food they don't like from the chef's repertoire
i don't want this president george h.w bush put his foot down when it came to broccoli after being
served the dreaded vegetable once he decreed that it should never be served to him again however
unlike some other presidents with other food items he did not ban it from the white house kitchen
entirely mrs bush sometimes asked for broccoli and that was okay george was happy to just never see
it on his plate again what kid would not love to have this kind of power over what their guardian
put in front of them to be able to raise your hand and tell your mother that you never want to see
brussels sprouts on your plate again and to have her respond with a yes of course wanting to grow
up to become president just took on a whole new meaning if you were president what would you do
for everybody take care of the whole united states of america cook thousands of hard-boiled eggs you
can't have more than two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast dr wells we're pretty sure white house
chefs are very happy that easter only comes around once a year even those of us whose abilities in
the kitchen extend to only being able to make toast have probably boiled an egg or two in our
lives but how about 7 000 of them well if you work in the white house kitchen on easter that is a
very real possibility every easter the white house holds its annual easter egg roll which entails
kids pushing hard-boiled eggs along the white house lawn using spoons then there is usually
an easter egg hunt and some other festivities as well hey hey hey the easter bunny is here
happy easter it sure is fun for the kids but maybe not as much for the white house kitchen crew who
are responsible for hard-boiling and hand-dyeing most if not all of the eggs themselves which in
some years have totaled up to fourteen thousand so next time you're sitting at the kitchen table
dying eggs with your kids or your nieces and nephews thinking about how tedious a process it
is to do one carton of eggs think about a thousand more cartons and be thankful you aren't working in
the kitchen at the white house on easter oh i hate my job the pay is less at the white house
now we do more and more work for less and less pay there may not be many more prestigious positions
for a chef than being the executive chef at the white house but there are definitely plenty
of better paying ones an article published in 2005 stated that the salary for a white house
executive chef comes in somewhere between eighty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars per year
now that amount of money is definitely nothing to sneeze at and many of us would be more than
happy to have a similar salary however in the high-end executive chef world that is actually
somewhat on the lower end of the spectrum as far as income goes could you pay me in advance
and add insult to injury they don't get paid overtime typically if your boss expects you
to be on call at all hours of the day and calls on you at all times there is no way you aren't
getting overtime pay for all those extra hours that is unless you are an executive chef at the
white house the people who serve in that position are never paid overtime never never never if your
kid has dreams of being a famous chef one day this is maybe another reason to encourage them to work
at getting their own show on the food network rather than making breakfast lunch and dinner
for the most powerful person in the country look i feel bad for him too but he'll get another job
if the president wants you to brew beer you will brew beer who can brew your own beer sure
we haven't been to culinary school so we can't be sure but we're pretty sure that one thing
they don't teach you at chef's school is how to brew beer however if you were a chef at the
white house you do what the president wants and if the president wants you to brew beer from scratch
then that is what you will have to do we know this because it happened back in 2012 president
barack obama aware of the growing trend across the country of people brewing their own beers at home
thought that the white house should get in on the trend and told the kitchen staff to get brewing
the white house even released a video explaining why they did it and how it turned out turned out
great and for those wondering if this homemade brew was liquid consumed at the now famous beer
summit the answer would appear to be no no no given that said summit took place in 2009
three years before the white house make our own beer video was released and while brewing
beer was probably not something the head chef was familiar with prior to obama's request it did give
them something new to add to their resume just in case worked as executive chef at the white house
wasn't enough to help their linkedin profile stand out i have fired up my resume as i
suggested all of you do as well they are on call 24 7. call me anytime day or night not tuesday
evenings before nine for some jobs you expect to be on call at all times doctors cops firemen
can all be woken up at any hour of the day with an emergency they need to respond to right away
but what food emergency could there possibly be that requires the white house chef to be available
at every moment of every day well the simple answer is the president is hungry we all know that
feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and feeling a little peckish but at 2 am most
of us are also in no mood to cook so we just stuff our hands into a bag of chips and head back to bed
back to sleep well if you're the president you could technically summon the white house kitchen
staff and ask the chef to whip you up something delicious in the middle of the night while this
sounds like just another reason not to become the white house chef the truth is that this happens
very rarely in fact multiple chefs who have worked at the white house have stated in interviews that
these requests were very rare and some were never asked to cook at crazy hours of the day
thankfully it would seem like knowing that power exists is enough for most presidents
rather than actually using said power to ruin the chef's sleep because they have a 3am hankering
for bacon and eggs or a pb and j although we assume they could make those things themselves
can i cook or can't i they cook whatever the president wants i want to eat whatever i want
when i want not only do most restaurants not allow you to order something that isn't on the menu
but plenty don't even allow you to customize your order we've all seen the menus with a statement in
big bold letters saying something to the effect of no changes substitutions or customizations allowed
by order of the chef well that sure wouldn't fly at the white house the president is the leader
of the country and of the white house kitchen which means if they request a meal then it is
up to the chef to make it happen and sometimes that could mean making something that they would
never want to eat themselves or even have thought of making as was the case with president nixon's
love of cottage cheese with ketchup ew you see the president felt that he should eat more cottage
cheese for health reasons but in order to cover up the taste he would have it covered with ketchup
as unappealing as that flavor combination sounds at least that's a very easy meal for the chef to
make but at what cost the chefs get top security clearance girls you've been granted level three
security clearance despite rumors pointing to the contrary there actually is no presidential food
taster who sits next to the president and takes a bite of their food to make sure it isn't poisoned
this means that the white house chef has direct access to the president in a way that very
very few people in the world do because of that and because the secret service doesn't want to
have to station agents in the kitchen 24 7 to do nothing but watch the food being made white house
chefs are given the highest level of security clearance called top secret presidential proximity
whoa that is top secret as one former white house chef walter sheeb said obviously this is one of
the most security cleared posts you can get in terms of the few of us that are in the kitchen who
have that clearance if you think about it we're not just around outside and next to the president
we're physically inside of him so while the job of white house chef can definitely be more intense
than cooking at any other location we think that being able to say you have or once had
a top-level security clearance definitely makes you the cool kid at the table whenever you and
your chef friends get together that's one way to beat bobby flay yes i oh my god it's bobby flay
state dinners are filled with crazy rules the rules are there are no rules state dinners at the
white house are some of the fanciest affairs one can ever attend you think martha stewart throws a
fancy dinner party well compared to state dinners a meal at martha's is like eating leftover taco
bell out of a garbage bin behind the restaurant state dinners are white house dinners put on to
honor kings and queens and other world leaders and as if serving all of these dignitaries wasn't
enough pressure on any head chef there is crazy added pressure given the weirdly specific rules
they must follow for the meal service rule number one follow the rule first off the staff is not
allowed to ever offer any guest a second portion the only time a second portion is served is if a
guest asks for it themselves they say the key to telling a good joke is timing well that is also
the key to serving a meal at a white house state dinner from the second the first course touches
the table to the time the last course is served to the guests will all take place in 55 minutes or
less add to that the requirement that each course be ready to serve without any delays and it isn't
hard to imagine how utterly stressful these nights can be for the white house chef and their staff we
are getting stressed out just thinking about it i can't handle this i can't they have to build
a gingerbread house thank you for the lovely gingerbread house lois oh yeah that's perfect
along with the executive chef the white house also employs an executive pastry chef whose job it is
to create all of the desserts for meals events and gatherings in the white house however another task
they have every year is creating a gingerbread house that will be placed in the state dining room
where it will be seen by about 60 000 guests who make their way through the room over the holiday
season and you know those gingerbread house kits you get at the grocery store well that isn't what
these white house gingerbread houses look like at all it's bigger than that these large and
intricate houses take months of salt and planning and can take up to four days to build and decorate
these days it might not sound as intimidating given all of the holiday competition baking
shows we see on the food network and the amazing creations that are produced there but rather than
three experts judging your work for the chance to win ten thousand dollars you have the president
their family and thousands of others walking by and judging your gingerbread construction skills
i order you to throw out that gingerbread house it's from christmas fine but you're
gonna be leaving a lot of ants with no hugs kitchen staff can't comment on hiring process
it would be odd and a little funny if you ever heard a chef when asked about the possibility
of becoming the next white house executive chef say i can neither confirm nor deny those reports
basically pleading the fifth sounds a little extreme given the job is chef not cia director but
if you are part of the white house kitchen staff that is basically what you have to do if asked
about any executive chef possibilities i plead the fifth about 15 years ago christetta cummerford was
the assistant executive chef at the white house and rumor had it that she was ahead in the running
for the top job well when asked about it she kept her mouth shut in an article at the time it stated
the candidates have been asked to keep mum about the selection process and they are aware that the
wrong word may remove them from consideration as a white house employee miss comerford 41 has
refused to provide anything beyond the culinary world's equivalent of name rank and serial number
we cannot you know the rules of this house once comerford got the job she did do interviews and
has since been pretty open about her experiences so it looks like it's just the selection process
that they must stay silent on if you like it stay silent we've got more just tap or click
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