"white house garden" news and stories

First Lady Michelle Obama will soon begin planting the third season of her organic garden on the South Lawn of the White House (yes, spring is coming). But this year, in between tending the kale, carrots, and tomatoes, she'll have to make time for writing. The First Lady has landed a publishing deal to write a book about the garden and her "Let's Move!" campaign to improve children's health with exercise and fresh foods. The garden has taken on a life of itself since she first broke ground -- last year it yielded more than 2,000 pounds of fresh produce.

"We wanted to share the story with the rest of the nation and perhaps with the rest of the world," Mrs. Obama told the Associated Press. "We get so many questions about the garden: How did we do it? Why did we do it? How do I do this in my own home or community?" The book will also contain recipes, she says.

This fall, a tour of the White House is, once again, going to get a little earthy, according to Obama Foodarama. First Lady Michelle Obama's 1,500-foot Kitchen Garden was such a hit as part of the spring Grounds and Gardens Tour that fall's rapini, sweet potatoes, and other crops are being featured in this season's walkabout, to be held October 16 and 17. (Does it trump the Rose Garden? You decide.) Tickets are free, and being distributed now by the National Parks Service, but reservations are required.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• This sugary legume is smarter than you.
• Is hopping chocolate your thing?
• Hold the mint jelly on this navarin of lamb.
• An Easter menu including mustard ham, asparagus and creme fraiche is one that we can get behind.
• Manage the in-laws with pink torpedoes or one of these cocktails.
• After a harsh winter, the White House garden rises again and is expanding.
• You've been visiting wineries all wrong.

Michelle Obama will make a cameo appearance on an episode of "Iron Chef America" filmed at the White House, the Food Network announced Wednesday.

The first lady introduces the secret ingredient for the challenge, which pits White House Chef Cristeta Comerford and Iron Chef Bobby Flay against Iron Chef Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse.

The White House approached the Food Network about filming "Iron Chef America" at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as a way to reach those people who haven't heard yet about the first lady's efforts to curb childhood obesity through healthy eating and exercise, the New York Times reports.

During their trip to New York this weekend, the Obamas dined at Blue Hill. To gastronomes in the New York metropolitan area, Blue Hill has long been synonymous with all things local, organic, humane, refined and good in the dining world.

So it was little surprise that bloggers and commentators jumped all over the Obama's choice of venue, analyzing the meaning and the message of their meal. Frank Bruni opined on the New York Times' Diner's Journal blog that Blue Hill was "the proper ethical call, the proper message to send, the proper restaurant segue from the planting of the White House garden."

But Blue Hill, as Bruni also pointed out, happens to be one of New York's most critically lauded restaurants, so it's not as if the Obamas were exactly sacrificing pleasure for politics.

Still, out of the many, many high-end restaurants that the Obamas could have chosen to patronize, there are relatively few that are so closely associated with the kind of sustainable and progressive eating that the First Lady championed with the planting of the White House garden.

The pick appears to be further evidence of the research that the Obamas have seemingly put into their food choices -- and further evidence of the food world's willingness to analyze the President's every bite, be it of hamburger, chili, or, yes, an impeccably fresh and impeccably local carrot.