White House chef may attend Manila fundraiser

MANILA – A group of marine conservationists has invited Filipino-American Cristeta Pasia-Comerford, the executive chef at the White House, to host a sunset cruise and dinner to raise funds for the mangrove reforestation of Manila Bay.
Comerford is likely to come, according to her eldest brother, Dan Pasia, who heads the Philippine Aquatic and Marine Life Conservationists Association (Pamarcon). The group has launched an ambitious campaign to reforest 60,000 hectares of the bay. Pasia said he had written his sister two weeks ago to inform her of the group’s fundraising plan to reforest portions of the 17,000-sq-km bay. The group is expecting a favorable response soon.
“She’s always open to good causes ... and she usually takes her annual vacation around March or April so she might agree to it and be here,” Pasia told reporters during the monthly Kamayan para sa Kalikasan at the Kamayan restaurant on Edsa.
Showing off his cap with a White House label, a souvenir item from Comerford, Pasia announced Pamarcon’s plan to sponsor an affair aboard the floating restaurant. His sister would cook and prepare a full-course meal set at dusk, a perfect time to watch the poetic sunset at Manila Bay. Comerford, 42, was chosen from hundreds of applicants to head the executive kitchen of the White House in August last year. The naturalized US citizen was assistant chef at the White House for 10 years and worked under former executive chef Walter Scheib III.
She was the 10th of 11 children of Honesto, an assistant principal, and Erlinda, a homemaker. She finished more than 84 units in food technology at the University of the Philippines before migrating to the United States and working in different hotels. “She has always expressed her desire to come back to the Philippines soon. I think she can do this. She has social concern,” Pasia said of his sister who knows of his 15-year-old advocacy to save Manila Bay. The Pamarcon wants to revive its Balik Bakawanan project, which was first launched in 1996. The project seeks to recover the bay’s original mangrove forest covering 60,000 hectares in the 1920s. The mangrove forest is now down to about 3,000 hectares.