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 Search teams in New Mexico recovered the body late Sunday of a missing former White House chef who was last seen setting off for a solo hike in the mountains near Taos last weekend, New Mexico State Police said. 
 
 Walter Scheib, 61, went hiking in the area on June 13 and never returned home. He was reported missing the next day. 
 
 His body was found late Sunday off of a trail about 1.7 miles from the base of the Yerba Canyon Trail, police said. Rescue workers were still gathering information and no other details were immediately available, police said in a statement. 
 
 Scheib set off on the trail, which reaches altitudes above 12,000 feet, Taos Search and Rescue said. Scheib's vehicle was found at the Yerba Canyon Trailhead on Tuesday, the department of public safety said. 
 
 The search has included ground teams, aircraft, teams from the National Guard and search dogs, Armijo said. The air search was expanded Friday, but the mountainous terrain and dense vegetation made the air effort difficult, the department said. 
 
 Scheib served as White House executive chef under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from 1994 until 2005. 
 
 He was initially hired by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, who was said to have been impressed by Scheib's highlighting of American cuisine. 
 
 He is listed as co-author of "White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen," published in 2007. ||||| The search is continuing for former White House head chef Walter Scheib, who was reported missing in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains last week. 
 
 Scheib, 61, set out on a four-mile hiking trail near Taos on June 13 and hasn’t been heard from since, according to news reports. Authorities conducting the search and rescue mission found Scheib’s vehicle near the trailhead. 
 
 Scheib, who has two sons, served as the executive chef in the executive mansion for 11 years. He was hired in 1994 by former first lady Hillary Clinton to infuse a distinctly modern American flair into 1600 Penn. menus. In 2005, after more than a decade and two administrations, Scheib was asked to resign. 
 
 According to the book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” Scheib taught a teenage Chelsea Clinton to cook. After leaving the White House, Scheib started his own private chef business and co-authored a book, “White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen.” 
 
 “The search has been a little slow-going because of the terrain, but it is ongoing,” said New Mexico state police spokeswoman Sgt. Elizabeth Armijo, according to NBC News. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 The former White House chef whose body was found late Sunday, after a week-long search in the New Mexico mountains, died from drowning, state police said Tuesday. 
 
 Medical examiners ruled 61-year-old Walter Scheib's death as accidental after police saw no signs of foul play, according to a news release. The circumstances surrounding how he died were not immediately known. 
 
 Related: Body of Former White House Chef Missing in New Mexico Mountains Found 
 
 Scheib's body was found off of the Yerba Canyon hiking trail near Taos in northern New Mexico, where he set off on a solo hiking trip June 13, state police said. After an extensive search, rescue crews found him submerged in a mountain drainage that was flowing with runoff. He was wearing a windbreaker jacket, running pants and tennis shoes. 
 
 Scheib served as a White House executive chef under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush after he first caught the attention of Hillary Clinton at a West Virginia resort. He also appeared on Food Network's "Iron Chef America" in 2006.
– The body of former top White House chef Walter Scheib has been found more than a week after he disappeared in rough terrain near Taos, NM. State officials say the body of the 61-year-old, who had recently moved to the state from Florida, was found near a hiking trail, the AP reports. Scheib went for a solo hike in the mountains last weekend and never returned, sparking a huge search effort involving aircraft, dogs, and National Guard teams, NBC News reports. Police say rescue teams are still gathering information on his death. Scheib, author of White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen, was hired by Hillary Clinton in 1994 to give daily meals and state dinners a distinctive American twist, and was asked to resign in 2005, during the George W. Bush administration, the Washington Post reports. In an interview with Munchies earlier this year, the chef said he would be "hard-pressed to say no" if a victorious Hillary Clinton asked him to return to the White House kitchen in 2016. "If she wants me, she knows my phone number and I'll be of service. I don't care if it was a Republican or Democrat, if I knew them or didn't know them—if the president asked me to serve, I would do it."