Cooking at the White House wasn’t always the glam job it is today. Thomas Jefferson’s French chef Honoré Julien – who’d cooked for George Washington, too – wanted to quit upon seeing the kitchen at the White House. And George Washington placed a want ad for a cook: ”A cook is wanted for the family of…
Tag: Abraham Lincoln
Inaugural Luncheon 2009: Menu and Details
According to an e-mail from the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, the 2009 Inaugural Luncheon looks like this. Note that recipes are also included; click for a .pdf file of the recipes. Around 200 guests will attend this exclusive luncheon in Statuary Hall. Design Cuisine, a top-flight caterer in Washington, designed the menu, which…
“A New Birth of Freedom”: Senator Feinstein Announces 2009 Inaugural Theme
If the presidential campaign and election of President-elect Barack Obama revered a patron saint, Abraham Lincoln would be the man. The great American poet and Lincoln biographer, Carl Sandburg, tells a story about Lincoln and gingerbread in his Prairie Years II, a story that Abe told in his fourth debate with Stephen A. Douglas –…
All the Presidents’ Tables: Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Menus
In the throes of the 2008 election campaign, I decided to do a little looking into what the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, eat when no one’s watching. (Chili for Obama and ribs for McCain – hmmm, wonder if there’s any Freudian, Jungian undertones there?) Such musings lead, naturally, to a perusal of…
