ReadyMade, the hipster magazine that teaches you how to make everything from duct-tape wallets to Styrofoam-cup chandeliers, has gone foodie. The April/May issue on food has articles on making your own crème fraîche, keeping your own hens, and foraging your own mushrooms and greens. Not tired yet? You’ve got a dinner party to host with all the fruits of your labors. Then put your feet up and check out the magazine’s new group food blog, Feast.
Chirping eggs, White House seeds, Sam Kass There was big foodie action at the White House this week, from Monday’s 2010 Easter Egg Roll to Friday’s Childhood Obesity Forum. The events bookended a period that also included President Obama attending a ceremonial luncheon in Prague, following the signing of the START treaty, and holding a special dinner for European leaders. Herein, a look at some highlights.
When First Lady Michelle Obama turned the South Lawn into one giant playground for the 2010 Easter Egg Roll, there were numerous efforts to make the event accessible to all kinds of kids. Above is Best Foodie Photo #1, one of the “chirping” eggs used during the traditional egg rolling races, which involves pushing hard boiled eggs across a grass course with big wooden spoons. The noisy plastic “eggs” released high-pitched “chirping” noises, so visually impaired kids could participate in the race.
Your intrepid blogger noticed many kids at the Roll with white canes, but no guide dogs. One dog who wasspotted rolling: First Dog Bo. Other accessibility efforts: Seven American Sign Language Interpreters were on duty around the South Lawn for hearing impaired visitors (here’sHarry Potter author J. K. Rowling, reading in the Storytime Garden, with her ASL interpreter in action).
Kids who romped through the Play With Your Food area of the Roll were given packets of green bean seeds to take home to plant, in Best Foodie Photo of the Week #2, above.
At a station sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, kids could learn all about the growing cycle of green beans, including dissecting these and viewing them under microscopes. Kids were then given their own seeds, and a diary booklet, to monitor home growth. The Play With Your Food area was equal parts cooking school and food science education station; it also featured White House Beekeeper Charlie Brandtsdiscussing bees and pollination.
In Best Foodie Photo #3, above, White House assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass(L), who oversees all angles of Mrs. Obama’s food agenda, chats with chef Timothy Cipriano of New Haven Public Schools, during Friday’s Childhood Obesity Forum at the White House. Cipriano masterminds a pathbreaking school food program in his hometown, and was among the many citizen participants invited to the White House to brainstorm ideas for an upcoming report from the Child Obesity Task force.
Hmm, yes, none of these photos is actually food, but that’s in keeping with unintentional White House “policy” of leaving photos of plated dishes out of the historic record. The President’s official photographer, Pete Souza, rarely gets plated food shots either, wink wink wink. Souza has better subjects to capture….
*More on the 2010 Easter Egg Roll: The President and First Lady welcome the guests. The First Family Egg Rolls and then hops into the crowd to say hi. The full foodie recap; more on the White House Chefs rolling is here. Reese Witherspoon rolls here. New Social Secretary Julianna Smootrolls into action. Pastry Chef Bill Yosses’ Chocolate Farm is here. The Roll started early and went late this year.
*Photos by Obama Foodorama.With thanks to the hand models; top is a Roll volunteer, bottom is a fun journo who’d flown in from California to cover the event…
Oscar winner* Mo’Nique stars in a Let’s Move! PSA; Food, Inc.; Julie & Julia; and Precious; Avatar; Beyonce, Jay Z, Dreamgirls… The 82nd annual Academy Awards will be handed out in Hollywood tonight. As many people know, there’s a mini movie theater at the White House, where President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama–and the Obama girls, and even Bo–can watch the latest Tinseltown offerings, even before the films have been released.
Food, film, and the Oscars often intersect at the White House, whether it’s in the movies that are screened, or thanks to the actors who visit, or thanks to the new focus on making raw and arty in-house movies. For instance, just this week, the White House released an Oscar-worthy documentary short about President Obama having lunch with real folks in Georgia, but somehow it didn’t get a nod from the Academy. (Above: Time magazine awarded President Obama a fake Oscar when he won the Nobel Peace Prize)
Mo’Nique, the actress whom many critics believe will win tonight’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the film Precious, recently made a PSA for Mrs. Obama’s child obesity campaign, Let’s Move!. The video encourages fitness (the video is above; if it’s not visible, click headline at top). Update: Mo’Nique won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
In Precious, Mo’Nique gives a harrowing performance as the psychologically and sexually abusive mother of the title character, who is an obese teenager who is also raped and impregnated by her father. Mo’Nique’s career has previously been built on her being a ravingly funny fat rights activist; she spent many years proclaiming herself “Fat and Fabulous,” and even had a reality TV show on Oygen network, Fat Chance, that celebrated plus-sized women. But after losing about 40 pounds last year, Mo’Nique has turned over a new leaf. Let’s Move! has a specific focus on non-white populations, which Mrs. Obama has started to discuss publicly, because blacks and Hispanics have a higher prevalence of obesity than whites. Mo’Nique is highly relatable.
The foodiest Oscar-nominated movie screened at the White House in 2009 was Food, Inc. (nomm’d for Best Documentary Feature), directed by Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein, which takes a hard, frightening look at America’s industrial food system and food safety. The much happier dramedy, Julie & Julia, about legendary American chef Julia Child and the industrious blogger who tried to recreate all her recipes in a single year, was reportedly a White House fave. Meryl Streep is nomm’d as Best Actress for playing Child, and she’s competing against Gabourey Sidibe of Precious. (Above: President and Mrs. Obama in the White House movie miniplex, wearing 3-D glasses)
One Oscar nominated movie the Obamas didn’t watch at the White House: The multiply-nomm’d Avatar, directed by James Cameron. The First Family attended a private screening on New Year’s Eve while on winter vacation in Hawaii, when a local movie theater was shut down to accommodate them.
Oscar winners and nominees at the White House Neither President Obama nor Mrs. Obama have actually gone on the record with their popcorn picks for Oscar-nominated actors, movies, or songs. Last Friday’s regular afternoon White House press briefing–the most likely time when an industrious reporter could pose an Obama Oscar question to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs–was cancelled at the last minute. Gibbs will no doubt fill America in on if the Obamas watched the award presentation, and for whom they were rooting on Monday.
The Obamas know most of the people who will be at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood this evening for the award ceremony, because there was big Hollywood support for Candidate Obama during campaign season. Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson (Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls) has lately replaced Earth,Wind & Fire as the (White) House Band, and this week, Beyonce, Hudson’s co-star in Dreamgirls (which garnered the most Oscar noms of any film in 2007), caused something of a scandal here in DC when a photo of her sitting in the Situation Room at the White House (with Jay Z) surfaced on the Internet (above).
And of course Mrs. Obama is the honorary chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The Academy Award associated actors on the committee include:
*Sarah Jessica Parker: The actress best known for Sex and The City is a presenter this evening at the Academy Awards, but Parker has never received a nod from the Academy. She was at the White House on Feb. 25, however, for the reception for the Presidential Medal of the Arts, which took place in an East Room ceremony. Multiple Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood was an honoree, but he wasn’t at the ceremony, as was Bob Dylan, a 1999 Oscar winner for his song Things Have Changed, but he wasn’t at the ceremony either. But he’d just been at the White House on Feb. 9, for at the latest installment of the White House Music Series, In Performance At the White House, which was devoted to songs from the Civil Rights era. (Above: Parker at the White House; large photo is Dylan after his performance, shaking hands with the President as the First Lady looks on)
*Forest Whitaker: Oscar winner, Best Actor 2006, for The Last King of Scotland. Whitaker visited the President at the White House in April of 2009, on World Malaria Day, to discuss global response to the disease. This year, Whitaker was also the voice of one of the Wild Things in Where The Wild Things Are, which was screened at the White House, and which President Obama chatted about to a gang of kids during a lunchtime school visit to Vier Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland.
*Kerry Washington: Never nomm’d for an Oscar, Washington starred alongside Whitaker in his Oscar-winning role. She’ll be at the White House on Monday, to emcee a reception hosted by President and Mrs. Obama for International Womens’ Day.
*Alfre Woodard: Best Actress nominee, for Cross Creek in 1983. Woodard was a guest at the State Dinner for India, along with multiple Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg. David Geffen, a movie exec and music mogul who has had many Oscar-winners in his various projects, was also at the dinner, and sat at Mrs. Obama’s table. (Above: Woodard and Spielberg, with actor Blair Underwood at the State Dinner)
*Edward Norton: Two-time Oscar nominee for Primal Fear (Best supporting Actor) and American History X (Best Actor nominee). Norton is also a producer of and the narrator for the documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams (which did not get nomm’d for any Oscars). Norton was last at the White House for the White House Music Series, during the classical music concert in November.
Read about Hollywood money and politics here, at OpenSecrets.org, which just handed out its Money-in-Politics Oscars. The Academy Awards air on ABC tonight, starting at 8:00 PM ET, 5:00 PM PT. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin host.
*Photos: President Obama Oscar photo was created by Time magazine; White House theatre and Bob Dylan photos by Pete Souza/White House; other photos via Reuters.
We don’t need to wait for some new invention or discovery to make this happen. This doesn’t require fancy tools or technologies. We have everything thing we need right now – we have the information; we have the ideas; and we have the desire to start solving America’s childhood obesity problem. The only question is whether we have the will.
–First Lady Michelle Obama, speaking to the US Conference of Mayors on her upcoming campaign against child obesity
A bowl of chili, I can afford.
–President Obama, during a visit to Smitty’s restaurant in Elyria, Ohio, on the White House to Main Street Tour
Related fun: The Obama Family Chili recipe is here.
Kids who romped through the 
In Best Foodie Photo #3, 
The foodiest Oscar-nominated movie screened at the White House in 2009 was 
Neither President Obama nor Mrs. Obama have actually gone on the record with their popcorn picks for Oscar-nominated actors, movies, or songs. Last Friday’s regular afternoon White House press briefing–the most likely time when an industrious reporter could pose an Obama Oscar question to 
And of course Mrs. Obama is the honorary chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The Academy Award associated actors on the committee include:
