Super Chef Battle at White House
by Spence Cooper on 12/14/09 at 10:55 am
First Lady Michelle Obama has challenged Iron chefs Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse to a Super Chef Battle at the White House. The Iron Chef stars will be pitted against White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford, and Bobby Flay. The two-hour special will premier Sunday January 3rd, 2010 at 8pm. In true Farm-to-Table style, the challenge will involve creating a meal for America with the White House Kitchen’s local produce.
We at FriendsEat are particularly impressed with White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford. Not only is she the first female executive chef at the White House, but also the first Filipina executive chef at the White House. Chef Comerford is as pleasingly simple and unassuming as the fresh vegetable meals she prepares from the White House Garden.
This Iron Chef Battle should be interesting to watch considering chef Comerford’s refreshing view on simple cooking. “Trends come and go,” says Comerford. “A few years back, you had this all-molecular gastronomy. I think it’s really just simplicity and freshness. It’s so simple that whatever’s seasonal, whatever’s out there. Food should taste as good as the raw ingredient. You should be able to get spinach and not put anything on it because if it’s a good product, you cannot mess it up unless you’re really a bad chef….Preparation is secondary.”
CNN’s Emily Sherman says in a preview of the special, the competing chefs were in “awe” of everything they saw at the White House.
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