Elizabeth City Chefs Cook Up Presidential Cuisine
bill clinton, food, george w. bush, pope benedict xvi, presidents, the pineapple cafe,
Not many people can say they’ve prepared food for a president. But two chefs in Elizabeth City can truthfully make that claim.
When Bill Clinton stopped in Elizabeth City in May 2008 for a speaking engagement, he and his entourage ordered breakfast takeout from The Pineapple Café.
“I still have the receipt,” says Jomie Cartwright, owner of The Pineapple Café. “They ordered veggie omelets with Swiss cheese and no mushrooms, four turkey sausages, four sweet potato biscuits and four sweet potato cinnamon rolls.”
The Pineapple Café technically isn’t even open for breakfast – it’s lunch only – and they don’t serve turkey sausages. But cooking breakfast for Clinton was an opportunity they didn’t want to miss.
“The only thing we didn’t have was the turkey sausages, so we ran to Food Lion and got some,” Cartwright recalls.
Open since June 2007, The Pineapple Café includes a bakery and is locally famous for its made-from-scratch sweet potato cinnamon rolls, which are baked by Cartwright’s father. The café also serves a popular Pineapple Barbecue Wrap, broccoli salad and several creative burgers.
“The night before Bill Clinton came to town, my dad got a call at 11 p.m. from the Secret Service asking if we could provide breakfast the next morning. We don’t even know how they got his phone number,” Cartwright says. “The next morning a lady called at 8 a.m. with their order, and later, three Secret Service men pulled up in a black car to pick it up. They were all dressed in black, and they came and poked their heads in the kitchen to say hi. They were really nice. We gave them sweet potato cinnamon rolls, and they loved them.”
Soon after, Cartwright saw Clinton’s vehicle pull up. She presumes he ate breakfast inside the car, because he later emerged and walked toward the university.
“Two weeks later, I got his book, Giving, in the mail, and he had signed it,” Cartwright says.
Brian Marshall, another Elizabeth City chef, has cooked for President George W. Bush – multiple times, in fact. Marshall, the owner of his own catering company and an active-duty U.S. Coast Guard member, travels to Washington, D.C., about a dozen times a year to help prepare buffets for White House events.
“I work big parties like congressional picnics and inaugural balls,” Marshall says. “I cooked in restaurants all through high school, and when I joined the Coast Guard, they sent me to culinary school. The first time I ever cooked at the White House was in June 2007 for a congressional picnic. We worked with Paul Prudhomme, a world-famous chef, and his whole crew. We had fried chicken, blackened red snapper, butter beans, shrimp and other dishes.”
In 2008, Marshall worked the same congressional picnic, this time serving homemade corn dogs, among other things.
“They eat the same picnic food everybody else eats,” he says. “It’s just made from scratch.”
Marshall has also helped with White House dinner parties for guests such as the prime minister of Israel and Pope Benedict XVI.
“I go back for two weeks at Christmas time to help with holiday dinner parties,” he says.
Marshall has lived in Elizabeth City for 17 years and considers it home. He says he feels fortunate to be able to serve in the Coast Guard while living at home with his wife, Nikki, and their children.
“Not many people get to be in the military and be stationed in their hometown,” he says.
Story by Jessica Mozo
Photo by Todd Bennett
