Some personal news: NOTUS, the two year-old online news site devoted to government and politics, is expanding its newsroom and its coverage. Starting this Thursday, I’ll serve as food correspondent for what stands for News of the United States. I hope you join me there for my debut of Talk to Tom, my new weekly dining Q & A, and future dispatches.

An hour after we invited our lovely neighbors over for an informal happy hour, a bottle of albariño was finished and the snacks — dips of hummus, red pepper, and feta cheese and dill served with crisp, cool vegetables and puffy, warm pitas — were pretty much a memory.

“More wine?” I asked, thinking our guests might want to linger.

“We have to go,” they let us know.

Those neighbors will be invited back for at least two reasons. One, my partner and I adore them. Two, they understand that “come over for cocktails at 6” does not necessarily mean “stay for dinner.” 

They left, and we were a little stuck. The fridge was almost bare and Ed and I didn’t feel like going out. Neither of us wanted a full meal. Maybe a sandwich? A bowl of just-picked tomatoes on the counter inspired our joint solution: We would make BLTs.

Ed appointed himself the assembler, with “I make a great BLT.” 

Nineteen years together have taught us a few things, including that we’re a little competitive in the kitchen, and that it’s easier to let one person do his thing while the other one gives him space to do it. So Ed made the sandwiches while I sat and watched. 

For a seemingly simple pleasure, BLTs come with a lot of “purist” rules:

Ed, who brought the sun-kissed tomatoes from a garden at work along with a fragrant bouquet of sweet basil, knew what he was doing. Yet I offered a small suggestion: What about adding some basil? 

“Good idea,” he replied, then tucked in a few of those leaves before cutting each sandwich on the diagonal. It turns out sweet basil adds a fine anise note and definite brightness to a BLT.  

Dinner was served. So was the notion of considered teamwork.

Smart cooks consider the BLT a seasonal sandwich. I tend to agree, because the best ones are made with summer tomatoes.

4 thick-cut bacon slices
1 medium or large garden-fresh tomato
Flaky sea salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
4 slices high-quality white bread, such as rustic sourdough or pullman
2 tablespoons mayonnaise, or as needed
6 large, fresh, sweet basil leaves
4 romaine or iceberg lettuce leaves

Lay the bacon on a microwave-safe plate lined with a few layers of paper towels. Loosely cover with two more layers of paper towels. Microwave on HIGH for about 4 minutes, then at 30-second intervals to render as much fat as possible and/or finish cooking.

Use tongs to transfer the bacon to a cutting board or plate; once it has cooled to a crisp-chewy texture, cut each strip crosswise in half. Discard all the paper towels.

Cut 4 thick slices of tomato and lay them on a fresh paper towel. Season them with the salt and pepper and let them sit while you lightly toast the bread.

To assemble, spread one side of all 4 slices of toasted bread with mayonnaise. Divide the basil and lettuce leaves on 2 of the mayo’ed slices, then add 2 slices of seasoned tomato. Cover with 4 half-strips of crisped bacon (for maximum crunch coverage).

Top with the remaining toasted, mayo’ed bread slices to form the two sandwiches, pressing down ever so slightly. Cut each into quarters — triangles look nice! — and serve.

A monthly feature in which I share a meal with someone I admire.

Philippine native Cristeta “Cris” Comerford was appointed by First Lady Laura Bush to run the executive White House kitchen in 2005 — the first woman and the first person of Asian descent to do so. She studied food technology before immigrating to the U.S., and when she was 23, Comerford joined the White House team during the Clinton Administration in 1995. She is an honorary member of the exclusive Le Club des Chefs des Chefs, limited to the personal chefs of heads of state, and has received prestigious awards from both France and the Philippines for her outstanding contributions to the culinary arts and her homeland, respectively. 

I caught up with Comerford earlier this month at a dinner celebrating Thomas Jefferson at the scenic Montalto, located above Jefferson’s primary neoclassical residence, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Va. As part of the Culinary Diplomacy at Monticello series, the chef created a four-course menu inspired by Jefferson, this country’s early practitioner of gastro-diplomacy, and her long-ago predecessor James Hemings, an enslaved man trained in Paris to cook classical French dishes.

Comerford’s research for the meal revealed that Jefferson “loved his corn;” thought meat should be a “companion” to meals rather than the centerpiece; and was known to shop at farmers’ markets in addition to growing his own produce. Among the highlights of the evening were a chilled sweet corn vichyssoise with corn custard afloat, tender grilled beef calotte accompanied by macaroni pie — the latter a dish said to be introduced by Hemings — and a dessert combining summer berries and frangipane. 

Oyster ice cream was a dish of Jefferson’s era, Andrew Davenport, an academic and historian, told assembled diners. (The president’s “niece” by marriage, Mary Randolph, offered a recipe for the concoction in her 1824 cookbook, “The Virginia House-Wife.”) The audience laughed at the suggestion it wasn’t just a heat wave in the Mid-Atlantic that prevented oyster ice cream from appearing among Comerford’s reimagined dishes.

Guests sat around tables beautifully arranged to suggest a state dinner. The stylist-in-chief was no less than Lauren Bernstein, founder and chief executive of the nonprofit partner in the event, Culinary Diplomacy Project, and a former director of diplomatic culinary partnerships at the Department of State. 

Good food is an important tool in a diplomat’s arsenal. In conversation with Davenport, Comerford spoke about the soft power that chefs have to create the right setting for political and other kinds of business. “A happy meal results in better conversation,” she said.

The next morning, the chef, 62, joined me at nearby Keswick Hall resort for a breakfast of croissants (her), fresh fruit (me), and strong coffee, where she hinted that a combination cookbook and memoir was on her plate. “God willing,” she says she’s targeting a summer 2028 publishing date. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity. 

The president and his family pay for all the food and drink they eat. What else might surprise a taxpayer?

The residence has a separate kitchen, stocked with things the president likes, and a refrigerator that looks like a normal person’s refrigerator. Also, the Secret Service accompanies whoever shops, and groceries are purchased from places the public buys them. We couldn’t use Costco because membership required names.

[One thread through all the first families she served during five administrations, says Comerford, who worked at the White House for almost three decades, retiring in 2024, was something a lot of us can get behind: Pasta was a go-to for them all.]

You’re a veteran of more than 50 state dinners at the White House. Did you have a favorite?

The white-tie dinner hosted by President George Bush for Queen Elizabeth II [and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh] in May 2007. The five-course menu featured Dover sole flown in from England and spring pea soup flavored with lavender. I remember how the Queen commanded the room. It was the only state dinner I ever ran that deferred to the guest of honor rather than the president on the timing between courses. When she stopped eating, everyone else did, too, regardless.

What’s the best advice you got on the job?

‘When working in the kitchen, leave your politics at home,’ Walter Scheib [her predecessor at the White House] said. ‘We are Switzerland.’

What was your worst day at the White House?

9/11. Everyone was in early to prepare for the Congressional Picnic. We had to evacuate the campus and run to Lafayette Park. Later in the day, our purchasing director, who started in the Executive Residence in 1958, used his church’s van to pick up about a dozen of us in the lobby of the nearby Madison Hotel and drive us to our homes or churches. The pandemic was hard, too. We worked with a skeleton crew. Only 13 members of the residence staff were allowed on a given day. 

Image is so important to presidents. I remember Obama always keeping a bowl of apples — a nod to healthful eating — in the Oval Office. Did you stock those?

Actually, the White House florist did that. She arranged them just so. But the kitchen did regularly send fresh, individually wrapped cookies to the Oval Office. Chocolate chip were the most popular.

You relocated to Palm Beach County in Florida after leaving your job two years ago. What do you cook now?

My husband and my daughter, who lives with us, are both chefs. We take turns cooking and try to eat healthy. I like a good salad.

What three ingredients do you always keep on hand?

Eggs, butter, and garlic — fresh, never in a jar!

You’ve seen so much. Did you keep a diary?

My menus are my diary.