Barack Obama’s transition team has just announced that it will retain current White House chef, Cristeta Comerford, a naturalized U.S. citizen from the Philippines. Hate to tell you, but Palena chef and owner Frank Ruta, a former White House cook himself, virtually predicted such a thing back in November when Young & Hungry contacted him.

Here’s the money quote from Ruta back then:

Typically, that position does not change with administrations, however, each administration can make a change if they want to. Usually, and it was my understanding that for continuities sake, The Executive Chef stays the same.

So all those stories trying to predict who’d be the next White House chef, from Art Smith to Rick Bayless and beyond (Anthony Bourdain? Really?), turned out to be nothing but parlor games that ignored the history of the position. Think we’ll remember that the next time around? Doubtful.