White House chef, Sam Kass, resigns

Top cook, whose titles included ‘senior policy adviser on nutrition policy,’ leaving to spend more time with his wife

By JTA and AP 10 December 2014, 10:00 am

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The Obama family's long-time chef Sam Kass. (screen capture: YouTube/AOL)

The Obama family’s private White House chef, Sam Kass, has resigned.

Kass, whose titles also include senior policy adviser on nutrition policy and executive director of the first lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative to reduce childhood obesity, will move to New York where his wife, MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner, lives.

In a statement, US President Barack Obama said Kass “has made a real difference for our next generation.” Mrs. Obama said Kass will “continue to be a leader in the vitally important work to build a healthier country.”

Kass, who is Jewish, has been working in the White House since 2009. He has worked for the Obama family since 2005, when Obama was the junior senator from Illinois.

He was the first senior adviser on nutrition at the White House, and assisted first lady Michelle Obama in creating a vegetable garden there that does not use herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizer.