A display table setting in the State Dining Room prior to last night's State Dinner (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
It wasn't too long ago Michelle Obama brought D.C.-area schoolkids into the garden to help with the harvest, and in just a few weeks she'll appear on an episode of Iron Chef America with the garden's loot as the secret ingredient.
Here in Los Angeles we are lucky enough to have access to fresh produce year-round, and can grown our own on balconies, in yards, and at community garden plots all across the city. We can also shop from the many celebrated farmers' markets that run week to week, and sometimes do so without a second thought about how fortunate we are.
The Obama's garden- and locally-sourced meal offers some powerful reminders for us:
That a variety of fresh foods can be grown and otherwise obtained from local sources, even in late fall, when the typical growing season has passed; and, that these green food options can come together to create an elegant, thoughtful, tasteful meal that's fit for the President, his family, and his guests of honor. These are the sorts of events that can help transform what we know as the "local food movement" from what's considered by the world at large to be a small, niche-oriented ideal to a real lifestyle that everybody, from the President on down.Hopefully we can continue to work to make growing, buying, and cooking healthy local fare more accessible to all Angelenos and Americans, as well.
Previously on LAist
Alice Waters' 'Edible Schoolyard' Comes to Local Charter School
High End Chefs Support School Gardening, LAUSD's Program at Risk
Westside Gardeners Raise the Stakes in Their Communities
The White House Gets a Garden While LA's White House Place Garden Could Soon Adjoin a LAUSD Parking Lot
Greening Sacramento: Shriver Announces Plans to Get Planting




i wonder if they used Monsanto GMO seeds???
Actually, Tony makes a great point. I wonder if any of the seeds used in the WH garden are patented. Are the kids who help grow the veggies allowed to take any seeds home and plant them elsewhere?
The menu looked delicious. I love the arugala tweak to the Obama haters.
Off topic, I thought Michelle's dress was awesome.