Another Look at Obama's Date Night

Call me sheltered and provincial, but I've never heard of The Blue Hill restaurant before BHO took Lady M. there last night. In order to broaden my horizons I looked it up and found the menu. Part of it is pictured, right. This is from the Blue Hill Stone Barns menu.

The menu listed for May includes Fiddlehead ferns, Ramps, Soft-shell crabs, morels, Baby Swiss Chard, Asparagus, Purple Kohlrabi, Baby lamb (sorry, but isn't that redundant?), Green garlic, Spring parsnips, Easter Egg radish, Dandelion greens, Ice plant, Brook trout, Galisse, Spinach, Stinging nettles, Stone Barns Berkshire pigs, Agretti, Hakurei turnips, Baby mustard, Garlic chives, Alaskan Coho salmon, Honeycap mushroom, Mizuna, D'Avignon radishes, Hudson Valley poussins, and Blue Hill Farm Yogurt.

There's even a nice little video included of sheep running in a field, presumably the same ones you are about to eat.

I'm no gourmand, but I seriously had to look some of this stuff up. I mean, if I'm in a mind to eat dandelion greens, I really don't have to fly off to New York to do that. There are lots of 'em in my backyard. I buy Roundup and it takes care of that for me. No need to eat them.

I went to a foodie blog to learn about Stinging nettles (pictured right). Sorry, it just doesn't sound appetizing. I'd have stayed in DC and gone back to Five Guys for a burger if I knew I was going to have to eat Stinging nettles.

Another foodie blog enlightened me on Fiddlehead ferns. If you'd like to go harvest some in your backyard and make soup, there's a recipe on that blog for one. I'm sure this is some folks cup of tea, but not mine. (Can you make tea with ferns? Just a thought).

Blue Hill Restaurant in New York has a menu that's a little less on the "green" side. It is here, and includes all of the above delicacies but also Wreckfish and Braised Lamb Belly.

After such a dinner if you wanted to go see Joe Turner's Come and Gone, like BHO and Lady M., you can go here for tickets. The cheapest one will cost you about $68, the most expensive about $125. Summary of the story? From Broadway.com, "Set in 1911, Joe Turner's Come and Gone tells the story of Herald Loomis who, after serving seven years hard labor, journeys North with his young daughter and arrives at a Pittsburgh boarding house filled with memorable characters who aid him in his search for his inner freedom."

Sounds like a lovely evening I guess. I'm not sure why anyone would pay that much money to eat weeds and "baby lamb," but like I said, I'm no foodie. I'd have been tickled pink to eat a steak off the grill and have a cold beer. I'm a cheap date.

Update: Aahhh, the NYT never disappoints. Never misses a chance to lift up The Won and blast down George and Laura:

"The Obamas’ choice of it does, though, show taste. And it affirms their interest in participating in the current conversation and in the cultural moment — on the subject of food as on so much else. That wasn’t always the case with their predecessors in the White House. On a date night in Manhattan of their own, George and Laura might as easily have ended up at Smith & Wollensky."

Are they insinuating that George and Laura have no "taste"?! And WHAT, pray tell, would be wrong with a steak from Smith and Wollensky? For my money, their menu looks a lot more appetizing and there's not a single stinging nettle on it.

Update 2: The Daily Mail has done a cost analysis.

(Much more at Memeorandum)