Former White House chef cooks for locals at fundraiser

CATAWBA ISLAND – White House chef John Moeller was at home on his day off when the phone rang on Feb. 1, 2003.

"All I hear is, 'The president is coming back at 11 a.m., and there will be six for lunch. Click," said Moeller, who served as chef for three presidents.

President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush had planned to be at Camp David in Maryland all weekend but rushed back to Washington, D.C., after the space shuttle Columbia exploded on its decent to earth that morning.

This meant Moeller needed to get to work — fast. He jumped in his car and drove from his home in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, to grocery stores around the area.

The White House does not take deliveries, so Secret Service agents usually accompany staff to buy food. By lunchtime, Moeller — who was working by himself — had bought the ingredients and prepared a lunch of chicken tortilla soup and quesadillas.

Afterward, Laura Bush came to the kitchen to thank him for coming in, expressed her sadness at the Columbia tragedy and told him 18 people would be at the White House for dinner.

Normally, the White House pastry department works Monday through Friday and prepares desserts for the weekend. Because the president had been expected to be away at Camp David all weekend, no desserts were ready.

That left Moeller to come up with the dinner menu and make the food, including dessert on his own. He made a warm, flour-less chocolate tart.

After dinner, the butler asked him to come into the dining room, where he was greeted with applause and lots of questions about how he made the excellent dessert. The guests liked it so much, they asked him to come back to the dining room again later to discuss how he made the tart.

The tart is the cover photo for Moeller's book, "Dining at the White House: From the President's Table to Yours," which is a cookbook, memoir and autobiography.

On Friday and Saturday, Moeller prepared some of the dishes he made for presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for two special events at the Catawba Island Club.

Money raised through a luncheon and dinner will benefit the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, which turns 100 next year. The Hayes Center partnered with the CIC to put on the events.

Money raised — the amount has not yet been calculated — will go into the Hayes Center's general fund and help pay for things like upcoming programs, including its centennial celebration over Memorial Day weekend 2016, said Christie Weininger, the center's executive director.

"Events like this are critically important to raising those dollars that we need to do programs like the centennial," she said. "This is the first time we've done something like this. It was hugely successful."

Moeller worked as a chef in France before returning to the United States and eventually working in a French restaurant in Washington, D.C. One of his chef friends became the White House chef and brought him on as a sous chef, and Moeller was later promoted to chef.

Through the years, he prepared official lunches and state dinners, the largest for 950 people. The menus were hand-written by calligraphers, and Moeller never repeated a menu.

He enjoyed working with all of the presidents. George H.W. and Barbara Bush became close with their staff, and saying good-bye to them was very heartfelt, Moeller said.

When Bill Clinton took office, he brought his then 12-year-old daughter, Chelsea to the White House. Moeller and the staff watched her grow up and enjoyed interacting with her.

She sometimes came to the kitchen to watch how the staff prepared food.

Each president had an affinity for well-prepared comfort food. Favorites were chicken enchiladas and chicken pot pie.

When Moeller made the pot pie, both Clinton and George W. Bush said the same thing: "John, this is the kind of food I like."

"It was just extraordinary getting to know them all," Moeller said.

Moeller left the White House in 2005. He moved to his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to be closer to family and started a successful catering company, State of Affairs Catering.

mksmith@gannett.com

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Twitter: @kristinasmithNM