pk will -- thank you all for coming. [applause] >> every year, booktv asks members of congress what they are reading the summer. here is a look at some of the books house speaker paul ryan has on his summer list. he is reading washington:a life by best-selling biographer ron chernow. it is an in-depth look at the first president of the united states. also on this list is strong fathers, strong daughters by pediatrician he and doctor meg meeker who highlights the importance of the father/daughter relationship. >> booktv wants to know what you are reading, send your summer reading list via twitter at booktv or instagram at book/tv or posted to our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. booktv on c-span2, television

for serious readers. [laughter] >> good morning. my name is kirsten carter, senior archivist at the presidential library. on behalf of the library i would like to welcome you to the roosevelt reading festival. fdr planned for the library to become the premier research institution for studying the entire roosevelt era. the library research room is consistently one of the busiest of all the presidential libraries and is europe's group of authors reflect the wide variety of research done here. if you love the roosevelt

reading festival and want to support this and other programs we do here, i encourage you to become a roosevelt library member. you can join today at the membership table in the hall or online at fdrlibrary.org. if you haven't already, please do go see our new special temporary museum exhibition, images of internment, the incarceration of japanese americans during world war ii. let me quickly go over the format for the festival session today. at the top of each hour a session begins with a 30 minute author talk followed by a 10 minute question-and-answer period. the authors and moves to the lobby to sign books and talk with you more if you have more questions. during the question and answer period, this session will be taped for c-span. we would appreciate it if you could approach the microphone over here at the edge of the room for any questions.

now it is my pleasure to introduce the next speaker, adrian miller who lives in denver colorado. he is currently the executive director of the colorado council of churches and the first african-american and layperson to hold that position. miller served as special assistant to president bill clinton and senior policy analyst for bill ritter junior. he has been a board member of the southern speedway alliance. miller's first book soul food, the surprising story of an american cuisine one plate at a time, when the james beard foundation award for scholarship and reference in 2014. his second book, the president's kitchen cabinet -- "the president's kitchen cabinet: the

story of the african americans who have fed our first families" was published on president's day 2017. let's welcome our office. [applause] >> he is a friend of mine. good morning. it is great to be here at the roosevelt presidential library to talk about this subject was i want to tell you about my background, how i came to write this book on african american presidential shifts. instead of my typical presentation where i would go through different cooks i will focus on those who cooked for president roosevelt. there are some great stories there. i was born and raised in denver, colorado and as you heard i wrote a history of soul food and given where i grew up, immediately on that subject, right? yes. i have two southern parents, my mom from chattanooga, tennessee, my mom from arkansas but this is the food i grew up reading and when i was researching that book on the history of soul food african-americans started

popping up in my research who cooked for the president. once i finish that book if i can find enough stories to put together a story about these presidential shifts i will do it. i was able to do that and write this book "the president's kitchen cabinet: the story of the african americans who have fed our first families". i am a lawyer by training and i didn't like practicing law blues not to disparage any attorneys in the audience, it just wasn't for me. i was going to open a soul food restaurant in denver in a law school classmate called me up out of the blue and said i am working on this initiative in the white house. do you have any friends who may be interested? i am sitting in my office in denver and she is back in dc. tell me about the initiative? the initiative for one america, and outgrowth of president clinton at initiative on race which had a wild and crazy idea. if we just talk to one another and listen to we might realize we have more in common than what supposedly divides us. after she told me this i did the same thing dick cheney did when

george w. bush asked for the vice president, i was head of the search committee but my name went on the list which i got the job in dc and worked in the clinton white house. it the end of the second term and after that started this interest in food writing and that led to the publication of soul food and this book. what i love about the roosevelt presidency is it encapsulates so many themes in my book. one is the idea that we have these african-americans who are celebrated culinary artists doing their best to make their president happy through food and the first family and keep them healthy. we have this interplay where presidents tend to want to play hooky from their diet and usually it is the first lady and presidential physician who are saving the president from cells. and african american cooks cost in the middle. interesting personality. and i want to focus on three personalities from the roosevelt administration. what is alonzo fields.

another woman is lizzie mc duffy who was a made in the roosevelt administration but did a lot for food service and daisy, a cook who would cook for fdr when he stayed for long times in georgia. i am dealing with so many people i eventually found 150 people who cooked for our president from george washington to the current administration. there are holdovers in the trump white house and found 150 people and decided the best way to tell the story was to create different categories of these cooks and tell those stories. i start with the ingredients, all the things that create interplay and started out with they used to be called the presidential steward, they were in charge of all the method operations, they are the chief

usher but the earliest day they were the steward, they would do the shopping and plan menus and oversee operations, then i move to the enslaved people who cook in the white house because a lot of our presidents have been placeholders and i talk about free cooks from the beginning all the way to the present who were part of the white house culture and the cook when the president is traveling. what happens when the president is on a train or boat or air force one or stale period of time and entire chapter on drinks. one of the longest cat and mouse games is whether or not our president drinks which if i was a press secretary this is the strategy, deny that you drink, then when someone proves that you drink say you don't drink that much and the 9 there is even a white house wine cellar and when someone proves that, there is not much in it and i would say fdr was our bartender

in chief throughout presidential history and i end by talking about the future of african-american cooks. nothing is stopping in every an american from being named white house chief executive chef so it is just a matter of presidential taste so i go into that. first, let me begin with this cat and mouse game between the first lady and white house physician. a little roosevelt was fundamentally uninterested in food. she was a brainy type. on sunday night she would have scrambled egg dinners, scrambled eggs with brains. she would invite intellectuals over and they would talk about everything. there is controversy whether eleanor roosevelt cooked the scrambled eggs or just stirred them at the last minute before they were served but there were scrambled eggs a lot. the housekeeper henrietta was in

charge of the food. president roosevelt went on a diet and he would like to stray from that diet, the white house physician and relevant or roosevelt would make sure he stays on the dallas, so memorialized in exchange between eleanor roosevelt and the doctor and i will read that. he was a navy vice admiral doctor mcintyre. call on me if you need help. that is what eleanor called it when the president would get upset. he cooperated to get the appetite back to normal. he sent to new york for specialists and brought doctors from the navy hospital. a dietitian arrived in uniform for a time, the president ate everything he was told to leave because it was ordered by the navy. the president reducing diet came from the navy and the surplus on record, cut out all fried foods. that was one directive from the

doctor. typically the president is going to get what they want to get any african american staff is caught in the middle. they have to help the president out. i love this exchange dealing with lizzie mc duffy and -- the wife of oj mcduffie who was president roosevelt's long time -- he eventually comes to the white house and worked as a maid. and would often he company roosevelt on long trips but the interesting thing is she had an outsized personality. she would entertain the president by doing puppet shows. she had an early iteration of the muppets. it was called suicide, the other was jezebel. she would have puppet shows at the president loved them. she was a favorite of the president and she would campaign for the president.

in 1936 in an election that was not a gimme for president roosevelt she was off to stump in major cities across the united states. i want to give you an example of the campaigning she was doing. this is from the baltimore afro-american. and african-american newspaper. no man is a hero to the ballet. over 350 years later the world has debated on both sides. last week, this is elizabeth mcduffie, white house cook and president roosevelt's valet, 700 in st. louis, clash roosevelt with lincoln, who love with the fellowman is something akin to the divine. a valet's wife whose employer is a hero, that is news. the bigger news is the spectacle of the white house cook doing a campaign speaker job. mrs. mcduffie was cheered in gary, indiana. she went to make one speech, could have made 24 more before

returning to washington to cook the president's neil. she went to a lot of cities with a large african-american voting constituency and campaigns, the federal hatch act was in place and for whatever reason no one tried to prosecute her on that. she made -- roosevelt called her into the oval office and her personally for what she did. it is the kind of relationship they had. another thing about elizabeth mcduffie but one of the dinners, dining at the white house and took one look at her. anyone want to guess what the movie is? gone with the wind. he was in consideration for the role, the oscar-winning role. roosevelt wrote a letter on her

behalf. there were newspaper reports getting the part, walter winchell leaked that without verifying sources. there was a story out there that she got the part. she would often accompany roosevelt to warm springs, georgia where he would stay for long times to get treatment for his polio. he started going to georgia when he was governor of new york. he met someone named daisy bonner, one of my favorite characters in this book. and she would go for long time to ingratiate themselves with the president, the apps family lend daisy bonner to her, she would stay in a cottage, a little white house in warm spring, introduced to all kinds of specialty. this is a dish that is very

popular in georgia but as a chicken curry dish. she and president roosevelt would joke about it, there were 45 ingredients. that was there private joke. also cooked a lot of southern delicacies but the one the are loved was pigs feet. he loved pigs feet. the way daisy bonner would put these, she would boil them, and take them out of the pot and broil them and butter them and that is how he liked them. stay with me. it is going to get worse for a second. one of the other interesting stories was fdr served pigs feet in the white house to winston churchill. what he served -- alonso fields, a long time butler in the white

house who works in the hoover administration as stays on well into the eisenhower administration wrote about this in his diary. this is the scene he paints. it was this type of pigs feet he requested to be served at a luncheon for the prime minister, winston churchill, and himself. princess martha of norway who lived in maryland during the war had a cook who prepared pigs feet in this style and she had them brought to the president as his dish. this was sweet and sour. he had a twinkle in his eye when he said let's have them for the luncheon for the prime minister. when the luncheon was served and the prime minister started to help himself he inquired what is this? he was told this is pigs feet. pigs feet? i never heard of them. then he hardly helps himself. after tasting them, he said very good but sort of slimy. the president laughed and said they are a bit but i am fond of them. sometime we will have some

fried. whereupon the prime minister replied no thank you. i do not believe i would care for them fried. then they both had a hearty laugh. that is the pigs feet that happens in the white house. an interesting dish daisy bonner made, cheese soufflé. is anyone here a cook? anyone here cook soufflé? what is the big concern about making a soufflé? rising and falling, right? all those assembled i'm about to tell you about a miracle. one that will rattle your soul and your belly. this miraculous cheese soufflé is one daisy bonner made for fdr the last day of his life. the new york times offers this account. at 1:15, mrs. bonner had the cheese soufflé ready and told the valet get the president to the table, the soufflé is ready. the president said never but the soufflé in the oven and ally come out of my room. he was reading the atlanta constitution when the soufflé

was ready. the paper said come late because of the bad weather, mister roosevelt was worried about the mail. he had gone right to reading when he came out. the artist was sketching him. he would never assist for her, just to catch what she said and just as he went in the president said what a terrific headache and slumped over in his chair. he never ate the soufflé, but it never fell until the moment he died which was two hours later. that is the miracle part. the soufflé did not fall for two hours because he had a cerebral hemorrhage at 1:12 even though the soufflé was time to come out a 1:15 and soufflémaking is a strong concern of white house cooks. white house cook for jfk had this strategy because jfk was chronically late. what the cook did is made four soufflés and timed them at 15 minute intervals just hoping jfk

would arrive on time. those are the perils of making soufflé with our president. daisy bonner was moved to the president's death. they had a close relationship and if you ever go to warm springs georgia to the kitchen area where she cooked, she wrote on the wall daisy bonner cooked the first and last meal for president roosevelt and it is encased in plastic so you can see how she moved she was. she wanted to be consider the first lady of presidential cooking and had plans to open a museum dedicated to food and president roosevelt but died before she could pull it together but daisy bonner is an interesting character in my book. i want to talk about drinks. there is a cat and mouse game about drink in the white house but fdr embraced drinking culture and i talk about several alcoholic beverages in my book, i talk about wine, cocktails,

punches and eggnog. this is from lillian rogers park, long time made in the white house who gives us an insight on how eggnog plays out in the roosevelt white house. she observed speaking of liquid i will give once more the recipe of one of the other drinks under my department. cocktail and eyeballs were sold upstairs and i had nothing to do with them but new year's eggnog was traditional and the white house was concerned about its making lose the creaming mixture was prepared the same way of the great punch bowl was carried before the president and each time lifting its cup, president roosevelt gave the same toast, to the united states! lillian rogers park, the white house made, declared after tasting at that president eisenhower made in the upstairs kitchen was very strong but the one roosevelt had was very strong. you see a lot of strong eggnog

not only from the roosevelt administration but to the present day. i don't know about the trump white house but the ones the obamas served and president clinton, would knock you out. that is the tradition. i think president roosevelt is most known for the martini. that is where he gets his identity. lillian rogers park, fdr claimed he didn't know the formula of martini because they were worked out by a family committee. his son jimmy, like a mile martini but not mild bananas and franklin got old enough to speak for stronger martini, johnny demanded to be heard, a martini so dry it could be mistaken for sand. a formula of 7-1. all this time the president was mysteriously mixing vermouth and gin so no one could see what his formula was. when he was finished he would say as chairman of the committee he had the power to decide the

ultimate taste of a martini and to his concoction, at this point some people aghast at this were not sure they wanted martini after all. ms. he would sip and fdr mixed his own martini or sometimes old-fashioned. when they had guests fdr was fixed on mixing martinis for everyone and would brag he was the best rotini mixer in the east. there are references to a rum-based drink fdr would make all the haitian libation. i have tried to find the recipe but can't find it but by all accounts it was awful but it was something fdr really liked to make. one other thing i forgot to mention that plays into white house food history is presidential pets. believe it or not the white house executive chef has often been in charge of feeding the animals at the white house, making special recipes for the dogs and other things but there

was a time the white house messed up plans for the white house cook and this involved a dog named winks. winks was a setter on the scene, according to white house reports on the morning of march 1934, there was a 12 set of fried eggs and ham set out for the resident's staff. the white house cook had made this and stepped away to do something else. when the white house cook returned all of them are gone. they realized this was because winks had helped himself to a nice hearty meal. the press had a lot of fun with this, they staged a photo of winks eating ham and eggs, the white house cook was upset about this, what winks was leaving the white house to spend more time with his family, that paved the way for the more familiar dog.

one thing interesting about these cooks is over time, this plays out in the roosevelt administration, send them to three boxes, they were culinary artists who were celebrated in their time. if you know anything about the food reputation of the fdr white house it was not great, people had second thoughts whether to come to a state dinner, so i was engaging race pride. all these african-american cooks on staff, how could the food be that nasty. a lot of the blame rests on henrietta nesbitt as it often does and lillian parks rogers in her diary really shed light on this. the african-americans who cooked for roosevelt would often be doing their thing and henrietta nesbitt would come behind them and adjust the seasoning. whatever they were making she messed it up so the food never worked out.

i want to point out what i did find room i research. i did a lot of research looking for resident staff and the main boon for my research was old newspapers. a lot of companies are digitizing old newspapers and they are word searchable. if you can figure out the terms that were used, you can find out a lot about the cooks. i found ida allen, the chief cook. let me back up and say the term white house executive chef did not come to a distance, jacqueline kennedy created that term. before that, they were first cook, head cook, and started as a pantry man, worked for a long time and leave during the johnson administration and was a well-known caterer in the washington dc area. elizabeth blake, and assistance

cook, daisy bonner, james carter, there was a jimmy carter in the white house before president carter. loretta dean, assistant co. lizzie mcduffie who i mentioned, elizabeth more and catherine smith. in her diary henrietta nesmith has a lot of praise, she said even though she was temperamental she could work magic if anything needed to happen so you get an idea of the interplay in the white house staff. the interesting thing happens when the roosevelts come to the white house is in a way they end a segregated practice. back in the time of president taft he hired a woman named mrs. jeffrey who was a segregationist. even though there was a multiracial cooking staff she created segregating eating spaces. before, all the servants a together but she had a separate table for whites and a separate

table for blacks. by the time a little roosevelt gets the white house she rectifies the situation by firing all the white people. i will let you decide if that is progress or not but no longer segregation because you have one race working in the kitchen. overall we see we have these cooks who are culinary artists and many times family confidants, presidents go to their funeral, their wedding, send notes and gifts when significant family events happen, presidents terribly moves when they have to leave at the change of administration, there is always a tradition where the staff lined up and the president goes down the line and thanks them for their service. we see there are often civil rights advocates pressing for african-americans to have their humanity accepted in broader society. we saw lizzie mcduffie for fdr while campaigning but another example is ever right, longtime

private cook for lyndon johnson. lyndon johnson when pressing for the 1964 civil rights act uses her jim crow experiences to persuade congress and members of congress to support that bill because the family would drive back and forth from texas to washington dc. he suffered so many indignities, she actually says i am not going to make the ride anymore. he would tell people it is a shame the president's cook has to suffer these indignities. when the civil rights act is passed, after he signs the bills he gives her one of the pens and says you deserve this as much as anyone. one of the big take aways from this book is these african americans because of their relationship with the president and the first family and their professional excellence gave our president a window on black lives they may not have had otherwise. a lot of presidents chose not to open that window but for the ones that did our nation has been much better.

thank you so much. [applause] >> we have time for questions. have to go to the mike. >> a question about how the fdr administration differed from the administration before it, president hoover. we know from the anecdote that hired help was out of the way when they came back. what happened with african-american cooks? >> under the roosevelt administration there was more openness and a lot more camaraderie and openness between staff and the first family. it did not have that rigidity you saw not only in hoover but the coolidge administration. coolidge would come in the kitchen and critique what they were eating, seems like you are eating a lot of food here, he

was very nosy which was not his persona. >> what about the wilson administration? he segregated the civil servants. >> during the wilson administration they still had segregation but wilson was a southerner. there are a lot of reports of him celebrating the southern food cooked by white house staff. i don't know about interaction between wilson and those others. there was more during the harding administration. >> the harding administration did what? >> there seemed to be a feeling of camaraderie and harding was really big on waffles. he loved waffles. the cook that would make these waffles was celebrated in newspaper articles. her name was alice howard.

don't waffle on waffles. he waffled in a good way as a president. >> a simple question. you know if daisy bonner and mrs. nesbitt ever met? that is one question and 2, i haven't read your book yet. mrs. nesbitt's dismissal was, i believe, by the next administration. expand on that a little. >> i do not know if they met. i haven't found a record of that. i just don't know. for the second when it was over something silly. the first lady, mrs. truman, wanted a stick of butter and mrs. nesbitt refused to give it to her which is really interesting. they had a few totals but that was the final blow. she was gone a short time after that. that is a great question. after that alonzo fields becomes

maître d', there was another guy named charles strickland, fields starts to get prominence in the white house and eventually becomes maître d' later. if the first lady wants something, that doesn't always happen. >> the position of chief cook, chief executive chef, are these tenured appointments or do they carry over from administration to administration? >> great question. like everybody else they serve at the pleasure of the president so typically in the white house kitchen there will >>s, usually the executive chef and maybe the pastry chef but when a president comes in they can decide who staffs the kitchen but most presidents carry over the previous cook but they may bring an additional cook to make meals for the family.

jacqueline kennedy created a second floor kitchen and dining space in the white house, she turned margaret truman's bedroom into a small kitchen and pantry because the family used to eat in the dining room and she felt it was too cavernous and not intimate enough. there is a dining space on the second floor. lyndon johnson before president obama lyndon johnson was the last president to have a second cook cooking for the family. most presidents have a white house chief executive chef do everything, cook for the family and guests and dinners. >> including recommendations for the replacement? >> sometimes they will make a recommendation but typically someone on staff may be elevated or someone the president -- someone the president knows from their prior life they bring into the white house kitchen if they are going to make a change. since 1960 most presidents have

kept a holdover from the previous administration was a guy named henry holler who was a swiss born guy served from johnson all the way to reagan. there was a reagan chef, there was walter scheiber came in with the clintons and served until the end of the first term of george w. bush and an assistant chef who came in under the clinton administration, got elevated white house executive chef and she has been there ever since. >> is very food budget? >> if there is. the interesting thing, before you get to truman, presidents had to pay out of their own pockets. truman eventually gets a budget. if you order food on air force one, the presidential yacht,

they get billed against that account. it is not a free-for-all in terms of food. there is a budget that gets allocated by congress for that. that goes into the food story. to give more history than you ever wanted to know, the creation of the white house mess is a reflection of this because after the white house is renovated in the 1950s there was more need for staff because of the installation of air conditioning and truman was not going to get more money from congress for staff. he called him a do-nothing congress and that kind of sticks. he takes the staff off of the presidential yacht and makes them staff in the white house mess which is a private kitchen and dining space for senior staff in the white house. that is why the navy operation existed for running a white house mess. a lot of the food cooked at the white house mess at camp david is run by navy chefs, not the white house kitchen staff. >> thank you very much for

speaking today. was there a more elaborate meal that stood up that you say it sounds delicious and was there ever a case where someone had an allergic reaction to something among the dignitaries? >> oh yes. the first example, nelson mandela, that was created by an african-american chef named patrick clark who was offered white house executive chef job under president clinton. patrick clark was a well-known african american chef at tavern on the green. he turned it down because it was too much of a pay cut. he was making 6 figures as a cook at the adams hotel across the street from the white house but the white house executive chef's our he was 15 and. a definite drop from the private sector. he had several kids and turned it down but the clintons asked him to create this meal which

was a sesame crusted howlett with red curry and lemongrass vegetables as a cornerstone of the meal. i have this recipe in my book if you want to replicate it at home. i thought it was an amazing meal. clinton asked him to be the guest of honor along with nelson mandela. he did not cook the meal but created it. in terms of the allergies, george herbert walker bush after he had sushi or whatever in japan. that is the only one i know of. people ask me, is there a presidential taster? yes there is. it tends to be the opposition leader in congress. [applause] >> it is actually the white house chef. they are the last ones to taste what goes before the president. >> i have enjoyed your discussion.

can you give us insight to our present president. does he have any -- i know he doesn't drink. >> we don't get a lot of information on what donald trump likes. what i have seen in the press is he loves meatloaf and he loves a well-done steak with jump. that is what i saw on the news. there are a lot of chronicled about the fast food. the fast food label is unfair. when you are on the campaign trail that is what you're getting a lot of times but i do know he loves meatloaf. mother is and that we don't get a lot of information about what is going on in the trump white house. thank you so much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

also on booktv, the road to somewhere, the revolt and the future of politics. >> you see this in the contempt publish people in any e-mail chain after brexit. left-wing professors say why give these people a vote without some kind of iq test? >> thank you for coming, and i want to bring your attention we have c-span with us and they're recording the whole thing so if you have a question, please raise your hand and then they will turn the camera to you. aim correct? okay. so, thank you for companying. i reall r