What’s cooking in the Obama kitchen?

Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Michelle Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.

Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot, in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. Students from the school, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs.

Virtually the entire Obama family, including the President, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Obama said.

Eating out three times a week, ordering a pizza, having a sandwich for dinner all took their toll in added weight on the Obama girls, whose pediatrician told the First Lady that she needed to be thinking about nutrition. “I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits,” Obama said.  She said they were also going to have a beehive — an idea that did not thrill the daughters. “But we’re going to try to make our own honey here.”   

Dan Barber, an owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, an organic restaurant in New York, that grows many of its own ingredients, said: “The power of Michelle Obama and the garden can create a powerful message about eating healthy food. It could translate into real change.”

While the Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the White House roof, the Obamas’ garden will far transcend that, with 55 varieties of vegetables — from a wish list of the kitchen staff — grown from organic seedlings started at the Executive Mansion’s greenhouses.
The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil.

The total cost of seeds, mulch and so forth is 200 dollars, said Sam Kass, an assistant White House chef.  The garden was hailed as a victory by Kitchen Gardeners International, an organisation of gardeners who promote home-grown food, which attracted some 100,000 people to sign its online petition asking the Obamas to plant a vegetable garden at the White House.