Posted on 04/27/2005 4:58:06 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
Hail to the chef: Former White House pastry guru shares his sweet secrets
Imagine spending almost 25 years in the White House pastry kitchen as the executive pastry chef for five presidents and first families, doing your work surrounded by pounds of butter, chocolate, cream, fresh fruits and sugar. While the job may sound like a dessert lover's dream, it's not always as sweet as it seems.
Just ask French-born patissier Roland R. Mesnier, who retired last July. Lately he's been traveling throughout the country promoting his first cookbook, "Dessert University" (Simon & Schuster; $40), which took four years to write with help from Lauren Chattman. The 545 pages are filled with all kinds of show-stopping desserts, many from his White House years.
During his time in the White House (1980-2004) he designed and created some 3,000 different desserts with the help of one full-time assistant.
"It was a great challenge. I didn't have much of a personal life for 25 years," Mesnier says.
He was in charge of ordering all the pastry ingredients and arranging for pickup. "There was no delivery at the White House - and all vendors were checked by the Secret Service."
Starting with Nancy Reagan, Mesnier presented dessert tastings to the first ladies for approval, prior to state dinners. After a lot of research, he always tried to include something in his desserts that reflected the invited leader's country. For instance, blown-sugar giraffes for Kenya, flower leis made of sugar for the Philippines, tiny chocolate replicas of Big Ben for England, and a white tiger out of white chocolate and a lotus flower out of sorbets for India.
"Mesnier never repeated the same dessert in all the state dinners," notes Francois Dionot, owner/founder/president of the culinary school L'Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, Md., who has known the pastry guru for 30 years. "To me, he is the king of sugar work - spun sugar, poured sugar, rock sugar, pulled sugar. Very few people know how to do this anymore. He makes roses that look real."
Mesnier was known for making cakes just so he could put them under a sugar piece. "He's very talented in everything in desserts," says Dionot.
Every first lady put her stamp on the White House - and Mesnier says he's enjoyed them all.
"Mrs. (Rosalynn) Carter spent less time worrying about what was served at a dinner party, but she loved desserts," he says. During Nancy Reagan's time, "the White House became a showcase of grand cuisine. She was determined to have new desserts for every dinner, and she was very demanding."
Mesnier recalled the time, two days before the arrival of the queen of the Netherlands for a state dinner for 150 people, that Nancy Reagan rejected four different desserts. She told him to make 14 sugar baskets decorated with half a dozen sugar tulips and filled with assorted sorbets and fresh fruit. She then said, " 'Don't forget you have two days and two nights,' " Mesnier remembers. The chef pulled it off without any help: "Mrs. Reagan made me a better pastry chef," he says.
With the witty and smart Barbara Bush, "the house took on a different dimension - with children laughing, dogs barking, etc. She didn't make waves with what was served.
"The Clintons, very charismatic people, were very casual - and the only family that ate in the kitchen. Mrs. (Hillary) Clinton was very political - it was like having a second president in the White House." During their eight years, the number of people invited to the White House increased dramatically, as did Mesnier's work load. Mrs. Clinton favored leaner cuisine and plated service for desserts.
"First lady Laura Bush is meticulous - and the house is sparkling," he says. "She has a great knowledge of food and how it should be prepared and (how it should) taste."
Over the years, Mesnier has focused on reducing calories in desserts but without sacrificing flavor. His strategies include reducing sugar, butter, cream and eggs, using low-fat or regular milk instead of cream and sometimes cornstarch to make a thicker base.
"There are at least 50 recipes (out of 300) in the book that would qualify as low-calorie desserts."
His penchant for desserts dates back to the summer fruit tarts of every color and flavor he enjoyed during his childhood. "My mother was a wonderful chef - an unbelievable home cook."
His five golden rules for making great desserts: "Learn the basics and then practice, practice, practice; respect the classics; value economy and simplicity; focus on flavor; and be an artist, develop your talent."
CHEF PROFILE ...
ROLAND R. MESNIER
Age: 60.
Profession: Pastry chef.
Hometown: Bonnay, France.
Food background: Mesnier began a three-year apprenticeship in a pastry shop near his home at age 14. He went on to stints as a pastry cook/assistant in pastry shops and hotels in Paris, Germany (Hannover and Hamburg) and London. Eventually, he became head pastry chef at the Princess Hotel in Bermuda.
After a stint at The Homestead, a resort in Hot Springs, Va., he landed the ultimate pastry job: In December 1979, Rosalynn Carter hired him to be the White House pastry chef - and for almost 25 years his desserts were on view to the world - until he retired in July 2004. Kitchen secret: Work with all of your ingredients at room temperature (including eggs).
Three favorite foods: A good steak, a good apple pie a la mode, honey ice cream.
Favorite junk foods: A good hamburger and a good doughnut.
Foods he hates: Cilantro, dill, onions.
Secret food passion: A good pate.
Favorite kitchen gadget: A homemade cherry pitter (made with a wine cork and a ladies' hairpin).
Pet peeve: Mediocrity in the hotel and pastry industry. Ideal vacation: Alaska.
Favorite restaurant: Jean Marc Raynud in Tain L'Hermitage (near Lyon), France.
Pastimes: Fishing, gardening, cultivating roses, working on recipes for upcoming cookbooks (a cake volume is in the works).
Family: Wife, Martha, and a 35-year-old son, George. If he couldn't be a pastry chef, what would he be?: An actor.
Worst White House kitchen disaster: The time the eggs for the hot raspberry souffles for a state dinner wouldn't whip (guests were in the dining room). "I was sweating bullets (and could visualize this as my last day at the White House)." But fortunately, he started with new egg whites, adding sugar to them instead of an Italian meringue, to gain time, and the souffles came out beautifully. Worst part of being the White House pastry chef: "The inside politicking among the White House staff."
That's not surprising. It takes time to determine to do this and then to raise the money to make the award sizeable enough to give. The initial money raised is the corpus of the gift and the award is made off the interest generated. Given the struggles of the market over the past several years, it isn't unusual to take this long for the interest to build to a large enough level to generate an award.
Whether it is "first annual" or "inaugural" doesn't seem particularly important to me -- first annual actual makes it clear that it is annual. Inaugural doesn't. I don't know who produced that language.
The "first annual" thing was just something my editors drummed into me. Of course, the more objectionable aspect of the first public service award is that it was given to Bill Clinton.
I don't remember whether Hildebeaste was legal aid atty. I don't think she was, in the usual sense of the term. Perhaps while in law school or shortly thereafter she was more like a lawyer for some sort of leftwing advocacy group. Don't know for sure.
Wasn't Hildebeast a legal aide for Henry Hyde in the Watergate case?
Yes, I got that part.
She worked for some Senate committee in 1974 that was laying the groundwork for Nixon's impeachment. Darn, I wish I had "Hell to Pay" handy, to be able to recite the HRC history accurately.
TOM Cruise just can't stop talking about Scientology. When German magazine Spiegel asked him if he saw it as his "job" to recruit new followers, Cruise answered: "I'm a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It's called Narconon." Spiegel countered: "That's not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo-science." Cruise answered: "It's a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period." Spiegel noted, "With all due respect, we doubt that."
Why we love H'wood celebrities and hang on their every pronouncement:
VAL Kilmer — in London to star onstage in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" — has been trashing Americans, saying they are ignorant and illiterate. Asked how British audiences compared to American ones, Kilmer told London's the Sun, "They're smarter. They read books." Kilmer berates Broadway for becoming too "Vegas-like." (Page Six)
Help, please. I've watched this whole judicial filibuster issue bloom into a nuclear standoff...and I don't understand the filibuster! The media is obviously setting up the GOP to take the public's wrath if they eliminate the Dems' filibuster tactics. But here's what I don't understand.
Why don't the pubbies bring back the historical on-the-floor filibuster? Do it with Janice Rogers Brown, the popularly elected California supreme court justice who happens to be an African-American. Why don't they bring in the cots and force Dems to obstruct her nomination?
I know the rules (or traditions) have changed over the years so that a filibuster can be mounted with little cost to the obstructor. But, if we're going to change the rules, why not change them in a way that forces dems to mount an old-fashioned filibuster? Make them talk 24/7 about why they find Judge Brown unacceptable. Then move on to Priscilla Owens, etc. There would be NO way for the MediaCrats to portray such a move as pubbie dastardliness. Is it that pubbies don't want to sleep on cots?
There must be some reason they don't go for this obvious, winning stategy. Can someone explain this to me?
Good point, and I don't know why, either. Make the Dems pull a Jimmy Stewart, and filibuster till they pass out, for all I care.
Think how they could catch the Dems flatfooted if RIGHT NOW the GOP said "We're going to change the filibuster rule".
Mass hysteria is on the lips of the MSM...the Frist calmly says "We're calling it the 'Jimmy Stewart Option', no more secret filibusters. If the minority wants a filibuster, it's a filibuster they'll get. Meanwhile, we will move Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the floor immediately following the rule change vote".
I could die happy at that very moment.
I'm guessing Tommy really doesn't mind.
Popcorn alert! Runaway Bride's groom says he still wants to marry her tonight on Hannity...
I have never known a runaway bride. I did have a friend who cried the whole week before her wedding, telling her mom she just could not go through with it, etc. Mom said, you have the wedding jitters, it will work out. Well, Mom was wrong, they were divorced within 2 years...lol...it was a nice wedding though, pretty bride, lots of good food and drink...And they didn't have to return the wedding gifts, since it was over a year...
I know I marched down that aisle somewhat fearful that I would be a good wife, but never uncertain enough to run away. Of course, it's been nothing but peaches and cream since then (or, Mr. M being of Serb descent, cabbage rolls and slivovits)!
Update from BigWaveBetty:
Her computer gave up the ghost and her husband is picking one up from Best Buys today.
She should be online by tomorrow.
And I am back from fabulous Atlantic City.
Thanks. Welcome home.
TVgasm.com has live blogged the the 'Hallmark Hall of Shame' Sunday production with Rosie O'Doughtnuts playing a mentally challenged woman, it's a hoot! http://tvgasm.com/archives/miscellaneous_tv/000759.php
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