Michelle Obama to pen gardening book

US first lady to publish book about healthy eating and the vegetable patch she created at the White House Michelle Obama is hoping to join her husband on the bestseller lists with a book devoted to her experience of creating a vegetable plot on the White House lawn. The book, due in April next year, will detail the US first lady’s pet project, set up as part of a campaign against obesity, and will be padded out with the Obamas’ favourite healthy recipes. Given the success of books by previous first ladies, it is almost certain to become a bestseller. Barack Obama made a small fortune from his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, and a political treatise, Audacity of Hope, but the proceeds of his wife’s book will to go to charity. Michelle Obama dug her first vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2008, two months after Barack Obama became president, and has grown about 55 varieties, most of whichare used by the White House chefs. As well as vegetables, such as lettuce, peppers and spinach, Obama and her team of helpers also grow herbs and berries. She was out on the lawn again on Wednesday for photographers to mark the garden’s third season. In an interview with AP, she said she wanted to share the story of the garden with the rest of the nation and perhaps the rest of the world because she “received so many questions about it: How did we do it? Why did we do it? How do I do this in my own home or community?” Eleanor Roosevelt had a “victory” garden at the White House during the second world war and the Clintons made a modest effort, with a few vegetable pots on the White House roof. Michelle Obama did not have a vegetable plot in her home city, Chicago, but was persuaded by advocates of healthy eating to take it up as project when she moved to Washington. She has said she was partly influenced by a paediatrician who expressed concern about the diet of the Obama children, Malia and Sasha, brought up in Chicago on processed, fast-foods such as pizza, and how they might put on weight. Obama said her book, which will be written with the help of a ghost-writer, will have the president’s input in some capacity. “I will definitely have him be involved and look at it,” the first lady told AP. Michelle Obama United States Barack Obama Gardens Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 17, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.