{"id":4260,"date":"2012-09-06T22:25:18","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T04:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=4260"},"modified":"2015-10-25T18:14:09","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T00:14:09","slug":"lucky-girl-goes-to-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=4260","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Girl Goes to the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

Hello everyone, we’ve got a guest blogger today.\u00a0 Finwe, one of my music students and a budding chef, got to have lunch at the White House this summer.\u00a0 Her mother Kristina shares their adventure below.\u00a0 Read on!<\/em><\/p>\n

The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge<\/a> was a contest made possible by a collaboration between Epicurious<\/a>, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (where the MyPlate eating guidelines originated), and the office of The First Lady.\u00a0 Children between the ages of 8 and 12 were invited to create a recipe with the help of an adult and submit it for the chance to win a trip to the White House. My daughter (Finwe Wiedenhoeft, 4th grade) and I retooled one of her favorite recipes, spicy Cajun chickpea burgers, into something she thought would be more widely appreciated:\u00a0 barbecue cheddar chickpea burgers.\u00a0 We submitted her entry, and left for our annual early-summer vacation.<\/p>\n

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Shortly after arriving home, I received an email informing us that we were finalists for Wisconsin.\u00a0 There would be only one winner from each state, so we thought our chances were maybe 1 in 3 that we would win.\u00a0 They said they would contact the winners by July 16th, which came and went without an email, so we figured we didn\u2019t win.\u00a0 A few days later, though, we had an email telling us that they were having a hard time deciding on the winners, so they would announce on July 24th.\u00a0 I was in the school parking lot waiting for my kids to finish up their day at summer school when I got the email that began, \u201cCongratulations!\u00a0 You\u2019re the Healthy Lunchtime winner from Wisconsin.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 19th, Finwe and I flew into Baltimore, took a shuttle to the train station, rode the train to Union Station in Washington DC, and took a taxi to the hotel.\u00a0 The next morning, we boarded a bus for a tour of the capitol which ended at the White House.<\/p>\n

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The mood was serious through the five security checkpoints.\u00a0 We were excited, nervous, and curious while waiting to be introduced to the press line.\u00a0 We were near the end of the line because CBS stopped Finwe for a quick interview on our way in.\u00a0 We were right behind Reed Alexander (Nevel Papperman on iCarly), and a man from the Department of Agriculture who was a judge for the contest and the head of the department that created MyPlate.\u00a0 Finwe says she wasn\u2019t nervous at all talking to the press.<\/p>\n

We were ushered up some stairs, and through a door to what turned out to be a fantastic dream of a party.\u00a0 The Marine Corps band was playing Disney songs, and there was a breathtaking fruit buffet.\u00a0 Children were walking around with 6 foot tall balloon giraffes, and parents were sipping gorgeous little (non-alcoholic) macerated berry drinks. There were uniformed military guards lining the room, butlers with trays, and when I rounded a corner, Sam Kass (The Obamas’ personal chef from Chicago).\u00a0 I gasped when I saw him, and he laughed.\u00a0 We chatted with him for a while, and then moved on to the balloonist and the edible fruit topiaries.<\/p>\n

Right before lunch, we were led to a room where Mrs. Obama was waiting with open arms, to have an official photo taken.\u00a0 She hugged us, and told us that we would be sitting at her table.\u00a0 It was then that my first impression of Mrs. Obama formed, and it endured throughout the day.\u00a0 She is warm, engaged, genuine, energetic, and she smiles a lot.<\/p>\n

We found our seats, which were just an arm\u2019s reach from the First Lady and next to Epicurious editor-in-chief Tanya Steel.\u00a0 Waiters served us each course and took away our plates as we finished.\u00a0 The conversation was lively, and I forgot for a while that I was sitting there having a conversation with Mrs. Obama.<\/p>\n

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Finwe walked around the table to deliver the Mineral Point pen (given to her by the school board) to Mrs. Obama, who used it to sign many menus and place cards for guests.\u00a0 We were really enjoying the party and the company when a man whispered something in Mrs. Obama\u2019s ear and she went to the stage to announce that President Obama was coming in.\u00a0 He stood a dozen feet from us and congratulated the kids.\u00a0 President Obama made his way around the room, shaking every single hand.<\/p>\n

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Big Time Rush performed.\u00a0 Mrs. Obama encouraged the kids to come right up to the stage for a better view.\u00a0Sam Kass led us down to the White House garden for a tour.\u00a0 The event ended when the children were each given a small jar of honey produced right there at the White House. Finwe truly had a great time; it was a perfectly executed celebration.\u00a0 The whole experience was moving and inspiring.\u00a0 I applaud Mrs. Obama for calling attention to health, and working hard to motivate the youngest generation to make healthier choices.\u00a0 Finwe and I are honored to have been part of the first Kids\u2019 State Dinner.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello everyone, we’ve got a guest blogger today.\u00a0 Finwe, one of my music students and a budding chef, got to have lunch at the White House this summer.\u00a0 Her mother Kristina shares their adventure below.\u00a0 Read on! The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge was a contest made possible by a collaboration between Epicurious, the Department of Education, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[457,460,454,461,455,458,459,456],"class_list":["post-4260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-blogger","tag-barack-obama","tag-epicurious","tag-finwe-wiedenhoeft","tag-healthy-lunchtime-challenge","tag-kristina-wiedenhoeft","tag-michelle-obama","tag-sam-kass","tag-white-house","has-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4260"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5854,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions\/5854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}