"You should have known better," the former First Lady scolded.
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In March 1968, Weight Watchers magazine ran an article titled “Jackie Kennedy’s Gourmet Chef Presents Her Weight Watchers Recipes.” In it, Annemarie Huste, the private chef to the always thin former First Lady, shared recipes for lemon broiled chicken, Spanish melon, raspberries à l’orange, baked tomatoes, and a Bibb salad with just lettuce, parsley, chives, tarragon, and some fresh lemon juice squeezed on top.
Annemarie Huste worked as Jackie Kennedy’s private chef in the 1960s, but found herself on the outs with the former First Lady when she shared some of her recipes with Weight Watchers magazine. “You should have known better," Kennedy told the chef, who lost her job over the kerfuffle.
An editor at Weight Watchers magazine had met the young, attractive German chef on a ski weekend and suggested the magazine would like to publish some of her Continental-inspired recipes for cold lobster or maybe quiche Lorraine. Huste agreed, with the stipulation that no mention would be made of her employer Jacqueline—Huste had signed an agreement when she had been hired two years before, saying she wouldn’t write about the family. Mattie Simmons, the magazine’s editor, said she didn’t know Huste had such an agreement but also that “Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t even mentioned in the article,” which was technically true, since her name was only in the title and on the cover. Kennedy was furious—she felt like it was a Jackie diet that she hadn’t endorsed and didn’t want to. She summoned her lawyers to try to get the piece stopped but they had learned of it when the issue was already in print.
Kennedy was furious with Huste for speaking to the press. When the story was picked up by a New York tabloid, the chef lost her job.
Annemarie Huste worked as Jackie Kennedy’s private chef and shared some of her recipes withWeight Watchersmagazine.
Huste retained powerful legal counsel of her own, Roy M.Cohn, the famous lawyer who had represented Senator Joseph McCarthy. “I was so humiliated and furious. I called my lawyer and he told me to just apologize to Mrs. Kennedy,” she told a reporter. Kennedy’s response was “You should have known better.” But she dropped it and didn’t actually fire her. At least until a week or so later. Huste passed a newsstand and saw a copy of the New York Post proclaiming her cooking was responsible for Kennedy dropping two dress sizes. “It was all made up and I was scared to death,” she said to the press, denying her participation in the tabloid story. She called Nancy Tuckerman, Kennedy’s secretary, who told Huste, “Under the circ*mstances Mrs. Kennedy felt you had better not come back to work.”
Little, Brown and Company This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me
Little, Brown and Company This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World -- and Me
Huste hadn’t been protective enough of the Kennedy mystique and was perhaps too ambitious. Kennedy had once chided her for being too impressed by money and power. “Isn’t everybody?” was Huste’s response. Publishers came calling for a tell-all, which Huste refused to give, comparing her job to being a doctor or a lawyer in terms of discretion. But she did want to write a recipe book. Annemarie’s Personal Cookbook came out in the fall of 1968 with detailed instruc- tions on how to make loin lamb chops seasoned with salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon and how she’d worked for a certain little boy—strongly hinting at John F. Kennedy Jr.— who loved artichokes.
Excerpted from the
This Is Big by Marisa Meltzer. Copyright © 2020 by Marisa Meltzer. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.
Marisa Meltzer
Marisa Meltzer is a writer in New York who has contributed to The New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle, and many other publications.
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