As many of you know, I am a huge fan of much of the Food Network’s programming. I love to watch people cook. I love to listen to people talk about food. It relaxes me. Cooking shows are my therapy. Paula Deen, Ina Garten, and Giada DeLaurentiis are the goddesses I worship. Since I love the normal, standard cooking show fare, I began branching out and started watching the Iron Chef series. Iron Chef is not relaxing. Iron Chef is a bloodbath, in a good way. It can be epic, nerve-racking and intense. I love it.
Anyway, First Lady Michelle Obama is going to participate in a new episode of Iron Chef. Unfortunately, she’s not going to cook (I would pay to see that). And it doesn’t look like she’s going to be one of the judges, either. Instead, she’s going to present the challenge, which will be taped at the White House. The battle? The chefs have to use food from the White House garden!
Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden is about to become a culinary battlefield.
The Food Network announced Wednesday that an episode of “Iron Chef America” will be taped at the White House featuring Mario Batali, Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse.
The three chefs, joined by White House chef Cristeta Comerford, will be welcomed by the first lady and allowed to use anything found in the garden to help create their meals.
The competition will then move back to the network’s Kitchen Stadium in New York, where Flay and Comerford will face-off against Batali and Lagasse to produce five dishes showcasing the ingredients.
The judges will include chef Nigella Lawson, Olympic gold medalist Natalie Coughlin, and actress Jane Seymour.
The episode airs Jan. 3.
[From Fox News]
I’d like it better if Michelle was one of the judges. Or if White House staff got to taste the stuff. That being said, I’m looking forward to seeing Nigella Lawson at the White House. I love her too.
The first lady is probably participating in the show to do some kind of edu-tainment about eating healthy, since, obviously, Twinkies don’t grow in the White House garden. It should be an interesting battle – with all of those veggies, I’m thinking Batali and Lagasse will probably come out ahead. Flay isn’t so great when he doesn’t have a bunch of meat to grill.
Here’s Michelle Obama hosting a fall harvest of the White House vegetable garden with help of students from Washington D.C. elementary schools last Thursday. Images thanks to WENN.com .
If I invented my own country, Twinkies WOULD grow in the White House garden.
LOL@JayBird! I had a Twinkie this morning!
JayBird will you plant some Suzie Q’s for me?
This would be sooo much cooler if she was going to be on the original Japanese Iron Chef as a judge. Shame it’s not on anymore, I still watch reruns. I’m gonna go way old school here and say that Michiba could cook up some serious dishes with her veggies. ^-^
@flourpot: I like the original show better too. It would be great if she could be a judge..
On the Biggest Loser they were in the White House garden. They said it was the first food garden planted at the White House since Elanor Roosevelt. I find it appalling that no one else has grown food. (especially since the have staff to do the dreaded weeding) and I find it inspiring that the Obama’s are saying look America, grow your own food. It’s easy and it’s healthy and literally everyone can grow food, if only in containers.
I’ve just gotten a late start on tucking the beds for the winter. I will miss them but come spring I’ll be ready to eat from the yard again!
I so hate the thought of Bobby Flay running around with the first family.
I saw the Biggest Loser too. I never saw pictures so I didn’t realize the garden was so big. I guess I was thinking in terms of a regular house garden. I think the episode would be better if it took place at The White House instead of flying back to NYC and/or have the cooking staff be the judges.
why are the president and his wife acting like celebrities?
Why can’t the First Lady do a special televised program instead of lowering herself to reality tv? The White House is above this.
I don’t think they will be cooking with just veggies!!! They will be able to use anything in the Iron Chef pantry so Bobby Flay won’t be too out of his league. I expect he will do a lot of his usual tex-mex inspired dishes while Emeril will take care of the cajun stuff!! I’m looking forward to this episode.
By the love of…….
Doesn’t she have something better to do in this crapped out economy?
GRRRRRR. Damn, I just snapped my pen in half.
lem – there are fall and winter veggie to grow you know….i only have some arugula, carrots and parsley right now but i think i;m going to plant more brocolli and some spinach
Ah, I love Michelle. But for god’s sake woman, lose those awful belts. They’re up to her boobs and make her look like she’s got a huge gut.
Uh, what’s she supposed to do about the economy? When Obama was elected (if not before), she said her focus as First Lady was going to be education and kids, families of military and healthy eating and exercising.
She’s not Hillary, sticking her nose in her husband’s job.
Everyone should garden! Every building in every city should have a rooftop community garden!
And, Jaybird, your avatar is very very cute!
snowball: Hillary didn’t “stick her nose in her husband’s job”, every first lady picks a pet cause (Lady Bird Johnson’s was flowers on the nation’s highways, Hillary’s was healthcare) and pursues that.
The fact that Mrs. Obama’s boobs and gut are of primary concern to you bears out your ignorance.
Please educate yourself before spouting clueless platitudes.
Kthxbai.
snowball,
How ’bout she look BUSY like the rest of the country? And while she is AT it maybe she can stop patronizing the rest of the unemployeed, jilted-401k’ers, and IGNORED masses by picking veggies out of her cute garden the rest of us don’t have the luxury or TIME to grow?
Her focus needs to be on SERIOUS issues. Survival is FIRST on the plates of Americans…….NOT recipes
Oooh, a rare fashion misstep for the first lady. Lose the belts! I think instead of lowering herself to reality TV or acting like a celebrity, she’s trying to further her healthy eating campaign. Nothing wrong with that. Except the belt.
I wish she wouldn’t. What is it with this couple wanting to crash all the network shows? It seems a bit immature.
Use your status by having the people that help you with the garden and cook the food do a show with you. You could still have celeb judges, but stop jumping on coattails.
Yae, I’d say by your post, you’re not a fan of the first family.
certainly is your right to feel that way, but I have to say that your post is pretty ridiculous. It comes off as if you think she should be as involved in the US’s affairs as much as the POTUS.
“How ’bout she look BUSY like the rest of the country?”
in all honestly, what exactly would you have her do to “look busy”?
I don’t see this as “patronizing” at all. And I don’t see it as any better or worse than Laura Bush’s cookie cook-offs. I see it as Madchen said, a way to further her First-Lady-cause of healthy diet and exercise.
Why doesn’t she have any charities or causes that she advocates for, like all the other first ladies? Instead, she’s an attention seeking media whore
First Lady or Fame Whore?
@Cadiebelle, couldn’t have said better myself. How low does she plan to take her position. A reality show for the First Lady? Disgusting. And how about being a good example for healthy eating instead of trying to hold in that gut with an ugly belt.
Actually Andrea, no the White House isn’t above this. They’re not above anything that makes them look like TV stars. They’re doing whatever they can to get out of the work that needs to be going on. I don’t care for this administration but I think Michelle is working 10 times harder than BO. But that nasty belt and ugly jeans need to go.
What is the fun in hosting Iron Chef if you don’t get to eat the food?
I would LOVE to host a show like Iron Chef, Top Chef, you name it, but I would demand to taste (aka. hoover up like I was starved for a month) all the dishes. Yum, yum, yum, yum…
@ bella mama: I’ve just taken the last of it out. the carrots, greens, garlic, melons and a few strangler cukes. remaining herbs to dry. we’ve had a few hard frosts already. (zone 5/6) I’ve tucked up the artichokes, potatoes, new garlics, and something else I forget for the spring. If there is something I can dig out from under several feet of snow and eat, lmk, I haven’t heard of it. Some herbs move inside and then I rest until Jan when the seeds get started again.
@ yea: if you’re unemployed and hemmoraging the 401K; sounds like a perfect time to learn to plant. it’s cheap. very cheap. doesn’t take all that much time or space really at all. A fresh green might do ya some good!
Lem,
Actually I have a job. I’m in the glorious position of getting hear ALL day long the horror stories of lost lifetime savings, abandoned manufacturing plants, layoffs, small businesses GONE, larger companies that are right NOW swallowing all the little ones.
Some towns in this country have been turned into wastelands. So, this has nothing to do with THIS particular admin. The crap started with the last one. And the real suffering is being inherited with this one.
Solutions need to be offered now. And a direct and immediate seriousness to this has to be addressed pronto. Spots on TV shows touting food many people can’t afford to eat…..OR grow (they lost their land), is callous and almost wicked.
I’d prefer seeing Michelle supporting plans for women to form small businesses. She won’t because this admin., like the last WORKS FOR WALL STREET…..and wall street just farms YOU.
Of course she wants to you eat cheap…they are about to tax us all into oblivion to pay for the last 8 years of war games.
Wish I could be lighthearted about it..sorry for the tone. But it is a very VERY serious matter. And a dangerous direction we are now walking in.
I knew someone would find something negative to say about something positive. One of her pet causes is healthy eating-so she’s taping a segment for a show to showcase how you can cook with food from your own garden.
She’s the First Lady. it’s not like Barack Obama is taking time out of his extremely busy day-to-day schedule (you should look it up sometime, those who say he isn’t doing anything) to film a probably less than 2 minute spot for Iron Chef.
By the way, Iron Chef is not some sleazy reality show. It’s actually a well-respected competition that world class chefs compete in.
Excuse me but did they NOT find LEAD in that garden??? hello ??
What with Michelle insisting on wearing belts? I can see that she’s trying to freshen it up with mixing and matching colors and different shapes, but those belts don’t look good.
I think she should grow some medicinal Mary Jane in that garden.
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