Events: Book Signing

Author Nancy Tringali Piho is exploring an interesting subject about children's eating habits, how they develop and what impact having 'foodies' as parents can make.

Studies have shown that children must taste something at least 10 times to be able to know if they 'like it' or not, specifically due to their ever developing palate between the ages of 1-3. This also leads to a battle for the parents, attempting to get their children to try it 10 times!

Nancy Tringali Piho book, My Two Year Old Eats Octopus is taking on this subject and Citronelle is hosting a book party for her (Feb 10th at 6:30pm) with a price-fixed-dinner for the adults ($95/pp) and their children ($37).

To read more about the book, this event and about the author, visit her website: http://www.mytwoyearoldeatsoctopus.com/

Events: DC Coasts Annual Guys Cooking Class

Want to surprise your lovely lady with those culinary skills that she (and perhaps you) didn't even know that you had? Sign up for DC Coasts annual cooking class for guys, which takes place about a week before V-Day, so you have a chance to see the chef in action and learn some new moves!

Stunt Veggies for White House

Several weeks ago I was 'vegging out' in front of the television and caught an advertisement for a food network iron chef episode that would feature Michelle Obamas lovely white house garden as the food for the iron chef participants to use.

I was a little surprised to hear that the white house garden was going to be used in the episode because last I heard, the garden was infiltrated by bugs (a side effect of growing organic) and finding out that the place they made the garden was completely tainted by toxins (just because you plant organic plants there, doesn't make the soil organic) and therefore much of the food items were thought to possibly be inedible.

Was there a secret organic garden somewhere in an undisclosed location guarded by FBI agents?

No....It turns out I was correct.....the food network used different food ingredients from NYC  - rather then the White House - as was claimed on the show (even Michelle Obamas uttered on the show "...your secret ingredient [silent pause] is anything from the white house garden...") and never disclosed that the white house garden has been deemed "polluted" from its toxic lead levels.

Since Michelle Obama (and the white house) claim that they feed food banks, white house events and themselves from this garden, they would have had to replace the dirt with different soil in order to produce anything that could be eaten.

Then there is the contriversy that the garden isn't really a garden at all. Some claim the items in the garden were transplanted from almost-mature plants in a nursey to the 'Victory Garden' (Michelle Obamas name pick, not mine) to grow for a week or two before a harvesting photo op at the white house.
 
Others claim that is silly...why would they do that? But no one can seem to find any pictures of seeds being planted or sprouts being attended too.
 
But there are lots of pictures of Michelle Obama and her shovel-ready organic gardening children (as well as staffers) preparing the garden for the next cycle or harvesting items.

For the children (and food banks)...I hope they changed the dirt.