We mentioned this in our New York Times roundup today, but it deserves an extra little shout-out. First Lady Michelle Obama will make a guest appearance on Food Network when she challenges Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse, and White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford to a special Iron Chef battle. The secret ingredients? Produce grown in the White House garden. The episode will air on Sunday, January 3 at 8 p.m. EST....
Continue reading »
First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass give us a tour of the first White House garden since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden during World War II (which technically was only the size of a bed, and didn't qualify as a feeding-lots-of-people garden like this one). Planted in March with the help of Bancroft Elementary School students, the White House vegetable garden has already yielded hundreds of pounds of food. Fun fact: the seeds came from Monticello's head gardener, originally passed down from Thomas Jefferson himself. Watch the video after the jump....
Continue reading »
The New York Times' Amanda Hesser made an interesting, thoughtful, and insidiously provocative suggestion over the weekend; that Michelle Obama, who has already adopted local, healthy food as one of her signature issues (how was dinner at Blue Hill the other night?), should also encourage families to sit down to meals they have actually cooked instead of ordered or reheated. So here's the question: Should our First Lady also be our nation's chef de cuisine? Hesser was actually having an Alice Waters moment (Alice has been advocating this for years), but somehow coming from Hesser, this bit of advocacy sounded downright soothing. There's no doubt that both Hesser and Waters are right: Cooking and eating meals together are good for...
Continue reading »
According to the New York Times, Michelle Obama has taken on healthy, delicious, and local food as one of her main issues. The serious eaters at world headquarters here certainly second that emotion and support her efforts, and how can we not love and cherish a first lady who eats (and talks up) local and still takes her staff to Five Guys for a burger and fries? In fact, she says the White House kitchen can rustle up "a mean batch of french fries" (fresh, we're sure) when called upon. Oh, yeah. She and our president also indulge their craving for their favorite Chicago pizzeria. So Michelle Obama likes healthy and delicious local food, burgers, and pizza. Here are some...
Continue reading »
First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Cristeta Comerford give D.C.-area culinary students a tour of the White House kitchen before the White House dinner for governors. Comerford: "It takes only two days. But the planning stage is the longest stage. And of course connecting with the growers, with our purveyors, and with our farmers. Because for any menu to be successful, those are the key relationships you have to build." [via Eat Me Daily]...
Continue reading »
Honestly, I don't know what's going on in this video. Fake Barack Obama makes bacon, some of the kids behind Sizzology rap about it, and then—how did we ever miss this tidbit of news?—they cut in a Michelle Obama breakdown in which she says, "I do my protein as bacon. We're bacon people." I'd imagine that was clipped from some appearance on a morning talk show where she either made a recipe or talked about breakfast. The video, after the jump....
Continue reading »
Michelle Obama will appear on Paula Deen's Paula's Party show on the Food Network on September 20 at 7 p.m. ET. The episode will be called "Grease Is the Word," and Ms. Deen will teach Ms. Obama how to fry, fry, fry. [via The Village Voice]...
Continue reading »
Michelle Obama's shortbread cookies versus Cindy McCain's oatmeal-butterscotch cookies. Who knew cookies had so much power? Readers of Family Circle have successfully predicted America's next first lady during the past four elections just by judging the presidential spouses' cookie recipes in the magazine's competition. Chocolate tends to win Family Circle readers over, but this year neither Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain contributed recipes for cookies including chocolate; Obama went with shortbread and McCain, oatmeal-butterscotch. Readers' favorite cookie will be revealed in mid-October. To bake your own Presidential cookies, check out the collection of recipes at the appropriately named blog, Presidential Cookies. Related Jones Soda Launches Campaign Cola...
Continue reading »
