The Darina Allen Column

This month Darina focuses on the value of growing your own fresh food – and the huge impact that Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden at the White House has had in a country where the connection between eating habits health is a particularly challenging issue. Following Barack Obama’s re-election, this small but mighty force for good is now set to continue for another four years.

Ever since Michelle Obama planted a vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House in March, 2009 she has been a big hero of mine. This action has sent a really strong message about the importance of fresh food and the joy of growing your own to families across America. It has raised the profile and awareness of local and sustainable food both at the White House and nationally to an unprecedented level.

In a country where 2/3 of the population are either over-weight or obese and 1 in 3 children (1 in 2 if your skin colour happens to be black) have diabetes this message is particularly badly needed. In the US a country of 210 million people, 40 million have no health care so it’s a timely reminder that ‘our food can be our medicine’ but not if it’s mass produced and denatured.

On a recent trip to Washington DC, I had the opportunity to visit the vegetable garden. We had an early start on Monday morning to be at the gates of the White House by 9.30am. First, I forgot my passport so we had to whizz back for that, then when we arrived our names didn't appear to be on the list, and there was NO chatting up the security guys! Frantic texting and phone calls, eventually we discovered the time had been changed to 10.15am.

After several other dramas, we managed to contact Hannah, private assistant to the First lady. Chef Bill Yosses came and rescued us and we were admitted, phew! It would have been such an anti-climax to get that far and then be turned away politely but VERY firmly.

The vegetable garden is great, much smaller than I had imagined, for some reason I thought it was several acres but in fact it's just 980 square ft. Beautiful soil, a very impressive selection of really healthy produce, they even had a sea kale plant and several heirloom varieties of seed from past President Thomas Jefferson's Garden at Monticello including a beautiful purple flowering hyacinth bean that I'd love to grow. No beets though – President Obama doesn’t care for them.

Bill Yosses who is pastry chef and Cris Comerford executive chef of the White House showed us around, I was tagging along with a group of food writers who were having a conference in Washington DC that weekend. No sign of the first family, everyone was at the Democratic conference in Charlotte where Michelle gave a cracker of a speech.

It’s definitely not just a PR exercise. According to Bill, the main raison d'être for the veggie patch was that Michelle really wanted to have fresh nourishing food for the family and it is also used as an educational tool for local school kids, but Michelle herself also gets her hands in the soil from time to time and insists on hands-on assistance from the family - how great is that?

They have an impressive composting system and a bee hive but not a hen in sight, so I was trying to encourage Bill Yosses to get hens, lots of great food scraps from the White House kitchens to feed them, the manure could go on to the compost heap to make the soil more fertile, a brilliant holistic system, kids would love them...plus the President could 'go to work on an egg' every day! He's totally on for it but it’s not that simple at the White House apparently...

Now that Barack Obama is re-elected I am delighted that the garden at the White House will continue for another four years.

Here’s a recipe inspired by the produce in Michelle Obama’s garden.

José Pizzaro’s Roasted Squash with Dried Chilli, Honey, Cinnamon and Pine Nuts

This can be a side dish for any grilled fish or meat. I serve it with Iberico pork cheeks or any game stew. It’s also delicious on its own.

Serves 4 – 6

1.5 kg (3lb 5oz) unprepared squash (butternut, onion or kabocha)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 fat garlic clove, finely chopped
½ teaspoon crushed dried chillies
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
25g (1oz) pine nuts
50ml (2fl oz) clear honey
sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Mark 6. Halve the squash through the stem end, scoop out the seeds, peel and then cut into 2.5 – 3cm (1in to 1¼in) thick wedges.

Put the oil into a roasting tin with the garlic, crushed dried chillies, cinnamon, 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Mix well together.

Add the wedges of squash to the tin and turn them over a few times in the oil mixture until well coated. Sit them on their curved edges and roast them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Spread the pine nuts onto a baking tray and roast them in the oven alongside the squash for 5 – 6 minutes, giving them a stir now and then until they are all golden. Remove and set aside.

Remove the squash from the oven and brush the wedges with some of the honey. Return to the oven and toast for a further 15 minutes, brushing with more of the honey and then the caramelised juices every five minutes until the squash is tender and slightly caramelised.

Brush one last time with the juices from the pan, pile onto a serving plate and scatter over the pine nuts.

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Once again this year, the Ballymaloe Cookery School in East Cork has a great programme of cookery courses for all interests and abilities. Ranging from a relaxing visit to sit in on an afternoon cookery demonstration to a week long ‘Intensive Introductory Course’.

Sitting in the middle of a 100 acre organic farm the Ballymaloe Cookery School provides its students not only with a life skill learnt under the expert tutelage of their very capable teachers but also a place to relax and unwind from the stresses and strains of normal everyday life. The cottage accommodation available onsite consists of a collection of delightful converted outbuildings which have been transformed over the years by the Allens.

www.cookingisfun.ie