A White House Chef Who Wears Two Hats

[groovedaddy]

TWICE a month, President Obama’s senior policy advisers gather at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to hash out strategies for improving the health of the country’s children. Among the assistant secretaries, chiefs of staff and senior aides sits an unlikely participant: a bald, intense young man who happens to be the newest White House chef.

His name is Sam Kass. And when he’s not grilling fish for the first family or tending tomatillos in the White House garden, he is pondering the details of child nutrition legislation, funding streams for the school lunch program and the best tactics to fight childhood obesity.

Part chef and part policy wonk, he is reinventing the role of official gastronome in the Executive Mansion. Indeed, Obama administration officials describe him as a vital conduit to the first family. “How do I get to the first lady, how do I try to transmit ideas and messages to her? Sam Kass,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the deputy agriculture secretary. “He’s been a real ally when we talk about farm to school.”

Mr. Kass, 29, forged a close bond with the Obamas while cooking for them and their children for about two years before they moved to Washington and has golfed with the president on Martha’s Vineyard. Behind the scenes, he attends briefings on child nutrition and health, has vetted nonprofits as potential partners for White House food initiatives and regularly peppers senior staff about policy matters. (“Do we have a toxicologist who specializes in colony collapse disorder?” Mr. Kass asked in a recent e-mail message about the Department of Agriculture’s position on honey bees, Ms. Merrigan recalled.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/dining/04kass.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

[Sabriel]

1. He "...peppers senior staff..."

At least the author didn't use any salty language to spice up this story.

[groovedaddy]

2. Ha ha! ;-) n.t

[Ian David]

3. I still think it would have been funny to see Gordon Ramsey fighting with President Obama. n/t

[pansypoo53219]

4. i don't think i EVER

saw a salad in a school lunch meal. thank god my paternal grandma was big on giving us salads. and fresh veggies.

[juno jones]

5. Good.

One thing chefs can do well is tasty and nutritious on a budget. I hope his recomendations are seriously looked at.

But he is keenly aware of the challenges. On a visit to a school that prides itself on its healthy lunches, Mr. Kass watched ruefully as students plucked each vegetable off their pizzas. “It’s got to taste good, you know?” he said. “They’re not going to eat it, no matter how healthy it is, if it doesn’t taste good.”

That's the hurdle, it can be done, healthy food doesn't have to taste like card board, but you have to have someone cooking it who has an affinity to it, rather than a human can opener who cranks it out because that's their job. In fact real cooking intimidates and angers human can openers whose only thought is to get it from can, box or pallet and into the oven and out again.

And this made me LOL.

After Mr. Kass said the White House garden would not use pesticides, the Mid America CropLife Association, an agricultural chemical trade group, urged Mrs. Obama to acknowledge the benefits of conventional agriculture to families who lack the time or means to tend backyard gardens.

I spent 15 minutes a day in my garden and had enough surplus to freeze and store. I used bone meal and compost for fertilizer, sprinkled enviro-safe slug bait when needed and sprayed with neem oil twice. How fucking 'time-consuming' is that? Any less work and you might as well as not garden at all. Oh, and I plucked a few weeds, always checking them for edibility too :evilgrin:.

[groovedaddy]

6. When my kids were young, I wanted them to eat vegetables. Someone told me to

sautee onion, garlic, bell pepper, herbs and spices BEFORE adding water for vegetable soup. It made all the difference and the kids loved the soup. They even helped me make it.