Thursday, January 14, 2010

Everything’s staged: Michelle Obama’s garden food was fake

By Michelle Malkin • January 14, 2010 09:52 AM

They stage their health care town halls.

They hand out lab coats to make their doctor donors look authentic.

They treat soldiers as “pretty good photo ops.”

So, this Iron Chef revelation about Michelle Obama’s produce is entirely in keeping with Obama Theater:

For months, the Food Network ran ads about a forthcoming episode of “Iron Chef America,” its flagship chefs plus secret ingredient versus time competition. The show would take place at the White House garden, with Michelle Obama making a cameo and plugging her responsible-eating initiative. The network promised it would be its biggest episode ever.

The buildup matched the reality: The Jan. 3 “Iron Chef America” drew 7.6 million viewers, the highest-rated show in network history. In it, superstar chef Mario Batali teamed with Emeril Lagasse, and Bobby Flay with White House chef Cristeta Comerford to cook five dishes using the secret ingredient: produce from the White House garden.

Except for one thing: As first reported on AOL’s Politics Daily blog, the fruits and vegetables used on the show weren’t from the White House. They were stunt produce. Ringers.

At the beginning of the two-hour special, the chefs were shown picking sweet potatoes, broccoli, fennel and tomatillos from the White House garden. Then the chefs were seen walking into Kitchen Stadium, produce in hand. One problem: The show is filmed in New York City.

No doubt they’ll argue it was “Fake but accurate.”

2 comments:

p90me said...

The show must go on.

Anonymous said...

No, Michelle's garden food is very real. She has a very real, very productive garden that can serve as an inspiration and model to those wanting healthier and safer and less expensive food. Yes, the TELEVISON show faked that it was using actual White House food, but what that has to to with the integrity of Michelle escapes me. TV works this way. All the time. Big deal. All those cooking shows have many versions of the thing they are making, one in the oven already and they show you the steps and pretend the one they pull out of the oven is that one. Just how it is done to make a teaching show. Get over it. You can't trust everything you see on TV to be literal. The recipes and the concept were about cooking iwth home grown food and that is a valid concept. Stop poo pooing everything. Post something postive and happy - try to do that for 5 posts in a row. Can you?