Obama Food Blogger Chronicles Presidential Palate, ‘From Policy to Pie’
Turkey Day seemed like a great day to check in with Eddie Gehman Kohan, the face (and sunglasses) behind obamafoodorama.com – surely the first Website in American history to dedicate itself solely to the presidential appetite, with all its accoutrements.
On ABC’s “Top Line,” Kohan – a credentialed White House reporter on the food beat – told us that hers is a rich beat, in every sense of the word.
“The president and the first lady are causing a paradigm shift in America’s approach to food, and they are also the biggest and most public eaters in America so,” she told us. “I thought that it really needed daily chronicling and my readers agree. It’s food, it’s recipes, it’s menus, it’s policy — it’s a lot of policy, especially the first lady’s huge ‘Let’s Move’ initiative. And so it’s everything from policy to pie.”
Kohan has recently reported on First Lady Michele Obama’s apparent softening on her anti-beet stance, which she picked up on when a luncheon she recently hosted at a summit included beets.
“Beets are now off embargo from the White House,” she said. “This is a pretty major thing — people were very interested when the president announced that he didn’t like beets and that the first lady reinforced it.”
As for two items not on a menu anytime soon – the turkeys pardoned by President Obama today – Kohan had nothing but praise.
“They looked tasty, but more importantly, they were incredibly well behaved,” she said. “It was pouring rain — it didn’t faze the turkeys whatsoever.”
Their demeanor may have had something to do with the glamorous evening they spent last night in the W Hotel near the White House.
“The general manager at the W told me that the turkeys were having specially prepared food for them from the chef of the W — and, yeah, they stayed at the W with their Future Farmers of America teen handlers and their chaperones,” she said. “I visited the turkeys yesterday afternoon, and they were having a great time.”