And it starts on the day of the transition. In one afternoon, “I went from the Clintons who I served for seven years to the Bushes who I

never met,” Scheib said. “All the pots, pans, knives are still the same. But nothing you know has any value.”

He said your goal is to learn all about the family as quickly as possible in consultation with their aides and the White House domestic staff. But pastry chef Roland Mesnier, who has served the previous five presidents, cautioned: Beware the hangers-on.

“They want to pull rank and tell you they know everything about the new family, but really, they don’t know anything,” said Mesnier. “For

me, I never trusted anybody and I was the longest-serving chef the White House ever had.”

Even the family, he added, often doesn’t know what they’re going to eat and what they’re going to serve. They’re just as strange to the

situation as the chefs are.”

Scheib identified three components to success in the job: First, “understand how the house works.” Second, “you gotta shut up. You

can’t talk to the press.” And, third, is the cooking.

And, by those criteria, he expects that current chef, Cristeta Comerford, will stick around. “Cris knows deeply how the house works;

she’s been there for 11 years,” he said. “You never hear from her; she’s discrete. And she can really cook.”

Former White House executive sous chef Frank Ruta, now the chef at Palena Restaurant, echoed those sentiments in comments to the City Paper recently, saying, “My feeling is that if the person there is doing the job, and I have a feeling she is, no change will be made.”

The first lady’s press office is not making Comerford available for interviews during the transition.