Issue 34: Food

Featured Response: Amy Sherman || Writer / Editor, Cooking with Amy

Amy Sherman

When it comes to food, I am optimistic about the upcoming change in command. For starters, Barack Obama spent many years in two of my favorite foodie destinations, Chicago and Oahu and that’s got to be a good thing. He is on record as liking spinach, pizza, steamed broccoli and smoked salt caramel in milk chocolate, so he knows how to balance indulgence and health. In fact, he is passionate enough about food to have appeared on a food TV show, Check Please! and his wife Michelle once shared her thoughts on the importance of limiting processed food and buying organic food for her family.

So to use two buzz words from the presidential campaign I HOPE for CHANGE in our food policies, our understanding and perhaps most of all, our appreciation and attention to food. Yes, food, not just agriculture and commodity but that which we eat. I expect to see more care and concern for how our food is grown, raised and manufactured, and what Americans eat. What’s my idea of an improved food policy? Good food, food for everyone, health, happiness and great conversation over meals. Eat well, Mr. President, and help our country and world to do the same.

Amy Sherman is a San Francisco based food writer, cookbook author, restaurant reviewer and an avid blogger.  She is the author of New Flavors for Appetizers, and a guest contributor at Bay Area Bites - http://blogs.kqed.org and Epicurious - http://www.epicurious.com/

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—AAD, retired from San Jose, CA US

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44 Issues in 44 Days

Explore and respond to the issues that matter to you.

# 35: Diplomacy

Featured Response: Eric Martin || American Footprints

# 17: Religion

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# 16: Education

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# 8: Music Industry

Featured Response: Ryan Lott || Son Lux

# 18: Family

Featured Response: Janice Croze || 5 Minutes for Mom

# 23: Style

Featured Response: Felecia Webb || Polo Ralph Lauren

Inaugural Insight

  • The inauguration for the first U.S. president, George Washington, was held on April 30, 1789 in New York City.
  • Should January 20 be a Sunday, the President is usually administered the oath of office in a private ceremony on that day, followed by a public ceremony the following day.
  • Immediately following the oath, the bands play four ruffles and flourishes and "Hail to the Chief", followed by a 21-gun salute from howitzers of the Presidential Salute Battery.
  • The inaugural celebrations usually last ten days, from five days before the inauguration to five days after.
  • Since Thomas Jefferson's second inaugural on March 4, 1805, it has become tradition for the president to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
  • According to tradition, in the first inaugural, President Washington added the words "so help me God" when reciting the oath, although there is no contemporary evidence of this.
  • In 1977, Jimmy Carter started a new tradition by walking from the Capitol to the White House, although subsequent presidents have only walked part of the way for security reasons.
  • The War of 1812 and World War II forced two swearing-ins to be held at other locations in Washington, D.C.
  • The new President assumes power at noon on January 20th, regardless of whether or not he has actually taken the oath of office.
  • There is no requirement that any book, or in particular a book of sacred text, be used to administer the oath, and none is mentioned in the Constitution.

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