Kitchen-in-chief

Is it me or is the White House Kitchen garden all over the news these days? First, the white house kitchen garden was featured this week on NBC's popular reality show The Biggest Loser. The overweight contestants traveled to D.C. in mid-July and harvested vegetables with the help of assistant White House Chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass. They then joined White House Chef Cristeta Comerford in the White House kitchen to made a big salad using the veggies they had just picked and fresh honey from the White House beehives.

Photo from NBC - for more pictures, go to www.nbc.com

The New York Times cooked up two great articles on the first honey (A Bountiful Buzz) and the newest White House Chef Sam Krass (A White House Chef who Wears Two Hats). As the blog Obama Foodorama reflects on the one-year anniversary of the president's election (and the blog's creation) Michelle Obama's nutrition and health agenda has kept the White House Garden kitchen (and its easy on the eyes ambassador Sam Kass) a constant presence in the media.

Picture taken by Jim Lo Scalzo for The New York Times

Now comes news that the Food Network's Iron Chef was in town this week to film a special episode of the televised cook-off. Michelle Obama will not only lend vegetables from her garden to be the episode's "special ingredient," she is also sending her Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford to Kitchen Stadium. She will pair up with Bobby Flay (who famously grilled with the president on the White House lawn for father's day) to compete against celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali to see whose cuisine reigns supreme. The episode will air on January 3rd, 2010. Lindsey Graham once joked on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama has appeared everywhere except the Food Network. Well, we all know that is no longer true but it seems that the White House kitchen is trying to get its fifteen minutes of fame as well. I wonder in how many other shows can creatively feature the Kitchen-in-Chief... HGTV's spice up my kitchen perharps?