Although foodies everywhere have applauded the First Lady's commitment to healthy eating in the form of a widely-publicized White House organic garden, food writer Amanda Hesser takes issue with Michelle's stated disinterest in that food's preparation.

When The Washington Post asked Mrs. Obama for her favorite recipe, she replied, "You know, cooking isn't one of my huge things." And last month, when a boy who was visiting the White House asked her if she liked to cook, she replied: "I don't miss cooking. I'm just fine with other people cooking." Though delivered lightheartedly, and by someone with a very busy schedule, the message was unmistakable: everyday cooking is a chore...Both times Mrs. Obama missed a great opportunity to get people talking about a crucial yet neglected aspect of the food discussion: cooking. Because terrific local ingredients aren't much use if people are cooking less and less; cooking is to gardening what parenting is to childbirth.

Now, the objections to this statement are obvious: Hesser (herself a busy working mom) acknowledges that the First Lady is a busy woman with a lot of important things on her plate, and it would be disingenuous to pretend that her life, or cooking opportunities, are like that of the average American. While food and cooking, to someone in the food world, is at this point not a gendered issue, to Michelle Obama it's probably not incidental to distance herself from generations of recipe-swapping First Ladies who aligned themselves firmly with the domestic. And because Mrs. Obama does not cook much these days does not imply unilateral scorn - Mrs. Obama has mentioned cooking in the past, they've hired a chef well-versed in organic and sustainable cooking, and this year's Easter Egg Roll incorporated a cooking class for kids. A garden can teach a lot about nutrition and the environment even to those who can't or don't have the opportunity to cook. And Mrs. Obama clearly enjoys and appreciates good, healthy food - perhaps as important as anything. Besides, should a First Lady have to censor her every word? Be an example and a role model at every turn? At the end of the day, probably a lot of people can relate to a First Lady who doesn't always talk from the script - and doesn't cook.

But that would, of course, be Hesser's point - that too many people can relate. And that every word, from someone so admired and imitated, is an opportunity. One could certainly argue that the food issue is one the Obamas have been strong-armed - and Anthony Bourdain and his Waters-hating ilk would likely argue just that. But having taken on an issue, one must see it through. And having acknowledged a crisis in our nation's diet, one can't separate the issue of cooking from it. Cooking is essential to changing the nation's habits - locavore restaurants are great, but it's not Blue Hill that's going to feed the man on the street. The issue here is a tricky one, though, because Mrs. Obama has to tread a fine line: while there's nothing remotely elitist or luxurious about scratch cooking to its champions, the simple truth is that this is far from a universal view, and Mrs. Obama would risk just as much criticism from devoting time to, say, a course of cooking classes, as by her current flippancy. Hesser suggests that watching the First Lady master the preparation of food would be a great example for the country, and it would - but if it's that important, it would be nice if her husband could be in there with her occasionally - and would do quite a bit to un-load the issue.

The Commander In Chef [NY Times]

The premise of the article is that Alice Waters, the Queen of Green and the earth mother of the food revolution, is experiencing an unfair backlash. But, says Namkung, she doesn't deserve it, because the good she's done outweighs any sanctimony.

The hard words comes as a result of Waters' recent appearance on 60 Minutes, in which her passion for organics for all brought tears to her eyes. She's been vocal, lately, too, in her support of an organic garden at the White House - calls which have been heeded. In response, apparently Anthony Bourdain said, in an interview with DCist,

Alice Waters annoys the living s%#* out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits.

In response, NPR (et tu, NPR?!) critic Todd Kliman was emboldened to denounce Waters' movement as somewhat intransigent: "Waters, like a lot of radicals, believes the movement will never end. She simply can't see that the revolution she helped lead has calcified into something doctrinaire and even repressive, not liberating and uplifting." The only other critic I could find (by searching "Alic Waters, smug" and "Alice Waters, annoying"), a food blogger, explained his aversion thusly: "I've been unsympathetic to Alice Waters in the past, if only for her California sanctimony, and the effortless, tendentious ease with which she conflates her own fame with the cause of sustainable food."

While this hardly constitutes a full-scale denunciation - Bourdain's in the business of stirring the pot with iconoclastic fervor, after all - it's also true that such criticism would have been unthinkable a few years ago. To criticize Alice Waters, after all, is tantamount to criticizing puppies; what's not to like about organic food, small farms, good nutrition for children? As Victoria Namkun avers, the food revolution would not have happened without Waters. And the increasing availability of affordable organics can be laid directly at her door. The charge brought against her is generally an oblivious elitism that displays a lack of knowledge of the real priorities and opportunities of everyday people. And it's true both that Waters lives in a mecca of the movement she spawned and that her acolytes are not, as a rule, impoverished: to the extent that "good eating" has acquired the taint of moral superiority, the movement is indeed problematic. But can Waters be blamed for this?

In a sense, Waters seems to be falling prey to the pitfalls of any radical who is around long enough. She's damned for a single-minded commitment that now seems simplistic; at the same time she's criticized for an elitist complacency. On the one hand, some of the criticism is surely contrarian, pure and simple: Waters is one of the few sacred cows we have left to us (an organic one, to be sure), and as one with a particularly earnest and rabid fan base, probably an irresistible target for troublemakers. There are those amongst us who can't tolerate the existence of bedroom saints, and maybe they're right. I'd regard Waters' recent challenging not as problematic but as necessary and important; even a sign of her importance. She created a movement, and like a culinary Dorothy Day, she's stayed true to its principles. This is, perhaps, as it should be, and what she should be revered for; it's also what needs to be challenged, discussed, analyzed, evolved, rethought if necessary. What's the point of founding a philosophy if it doesn't spawn new ideas? So where Namkung says "give Waters a break"; I say she can take it.

Let's Give Alice Waters a Break [Huffington Post]
Alice Waters Was a Foodie Hero. Now She's the Food Police. [NPR]
Alice Waters Finds Someone Even More Annoying in Lesley Stahl [The Feedbag]
Chewing the Fat: No Reservations' Anthony Bourdain [DCist]

We can't imagine the newly-minted President had a tremendous appetite at the traditional Capital Hill luncheon, served post-inauguration — and we're not even talking about the fact that several senators tragically collapsed mid-meal; the man's got to have been exhausted, and running on adrenaline. But tradition must be honored, even if it's an enormous stress for everyone involved. First of all, putting said luncheon together sounds like a major hassle: beyond the evident stresses of serving a multi-course meal to some of the most powerful people in the country, caterers and servers had to contend with multiple security checkpoints, a makeshift temporary kitchen, and such a congested city that several of the caterers opted to camp out in the capital building so as to be on hand early enough to supervise.
Tables:

were covered with blue damask cloths, the chairs covered with matching blue velvet pillows. On each table were centerpieces of white and lavender hydrangeas and two kinds of red roses, a larger display at the head table. The place plates are copies of the Lincoln china, with the purple border that looked red at the lunch; the silver was gold-plated. Four glasses stood at each plate – two wine, a water glass and a champagne flute.

The menu was also, allegedly, Lincoln-inflected: seafood stew with puff pastry to take off the chill; "platters of perfectly cooked duck and pheasant served on a beautiful bed of carrots, asparagus, wax beans, beets and spinach," pureed sweet potatoes, and "miniature corn muffins, into which a small piece of corn husk had been baked" (and presumably removed by any guest who didn't feel like eating dry leaf.) The dessert was "a cinnamon apple cake with vanilla bean ice cream, sautéed apple cubes and sauce," served, oddly, with Korbel.

As to the kids' menu, served to Malia, Sasha and the numerous grandkids Biden, it was straight-up greatest hits:

Hot dogs
Cheeseburgers
Macaroni and cheese
French fries
Grilled cheese sandwiches
Cheese pizza
Chocolate chip cookies
Apple and orange juices and soft drinks

Not bad! But what of the days to come? White House cookery is a hot button issue right now, as Berkeley slow-food doyenne Alice Waters presses for more emphasis on sustainable foods at 1600. In the process, she's been critical of White House chef Cristeta Comerford, which has angered some of Comerford's friends. While Waters is pushing for a new chef whose focus is sustainability, defenders say the White House is already pretty progressive in this regard: at Waters' urging, the Clinton White House installed a small organic roof garden and quietly began sourcing food from co-ops and local farmers. The trend continued under Bush 2: says one former chef, “To her credit, Mrs. Bush was adamant about organic foods...It goes counter to her perceived personality, but it was never important to her that the information be released.” We're sure the Obamas won't be resistant to anything that promotes healthy eating, especially given their power as role models. But one thing is for sure: If Waters has her way, the sort of kids' menus listed above will be a dim memory.
A Mission to Serve Lunch in the Capitol [NYT]
What’s Cooking at the White House? Who’s Asking? [NYT]

While a lot of people are eating organic, Greene's stunt it noteworthy for its length and thoroughness, eating only organic food — defined as that produced without pesticides, antibiotics or hormones — both at home and in restaurants. "He chose three years as a goal because that was the amount of time it took to have a breeding animal certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. While food growers comply with organic regulations every day, Dr. Greene wondered whether a person could meet the same standards." Obviously, this was pricey — organic food can cost up to twice as much as what Whole Foods parlance terms "conventional," no laughing matter in these straitened times. (He found that cutting down on meat helped equalize the costs.) Then too, even in Dr. Greene's relatively health-conscious neck of the woods (where he was able to join a CSA and shop numerous farmers markets), organic chow could be hard to come by at, say, truck stops. Quoth the good doctor, “It was much more challenging than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic.” He'd call ahead to make sure restaurants could ensure that no non-organic morsel passed his lips; his family was into it.

Greene's rationale was that "his findings offer new insight into the challenges facing the organic food industry and those of us who want to patronize it." He also hoped it would improve his own health which, anecdotally it has (the scientific verdict is still out on whether organic foods are healthier, with arguments for both sides.)

Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.

While the experiment is a laudable one — and, in fairness, predates a lot of the food-related stunt journalism that's glutted the marketplace in recent years, and certainly the recent economic downturn — the rigid and stunt-like nature of it feels slightly arbitrary. It's certainly Dr. Greene's prerogative, and since he has the time and means to do so, more power to him: it's doubtless good to know the practical limitations of theory. It is always encouraging, too, to see a doctor practicing what he preaches. That said, the application is beyond the reach of most everyone, and as such, experiments such as these are feeling increasingly academic.

For Three Years, Every Bite Organic [New York Times]