SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Rene Verdon, a chef who brought fine French cooking to the White House and then to San Francisco, has died at 86.
Verdon spent much of his life in San Francisco, where he owned Le Trianon restaurant for 15 years. He died Wednesday at his home in the city, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
By the time first lady Jacqueline Kennedy arranged to bring him to Washington in 1961, Verdon had worked his way up the ranks in French restaurant kitchens. He began his career in the 1930s, spending five years as an apprentice in Nantes.
"When I was an apprentice, I mixed a fish sauce with a meat sauce, for which I received a kick in the derriere," Verdon wrote in "The Enlightened Cuisine." "The memory of this has stayed with me to the extent that I always taste a sauce first before mixing it into another saucepan."
Verdon remained at the White House until 1966, leaving when President Lyndon Johnson and his wife insisted on cost-saving ingredients like frozen vegetables. Verdon met his wife, Yvette, in San Francisco and opened Le Trianon with her in 1972.
Roland Passot, owner and chef of La Folie in San Francisco, was with Verdon in a group of chefs who used to get together for leisurely monthly dinners. He called Verdon a "spiritual father."
