Tonight the long awaited episode of Iron Chef  America featuring the secret ingredient of national importance. Iron Chefs Mario Batali and Bobby Flay were joined by Chef Emeril Lagasse and White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford.

It was nice to see Chef Lagasse on the Food Network again after his departure a year ago. However the highlight for me was getting to see Chef Cristeta Comerford in action. Chef Comerford has been the White House Executive Chef since 2005. She is a Filipina and that has been quite inspiring to me. Chef Comerford has the distinction of being the first woman to hold the post and the first Filipino appointed to this awesome position. However she has been working at the White House since 1995 when she was recruited by the then White House Chef Walter Schieb. When Chef Schieb resigned in 2005, First Lady Laura Bush appointed Chef Comerford to her current position.

The “super battle” followed normal Iron Chef style with the secret ingredient being anything that is in the White House garden. Earlier this year, First Lady Obama helped to place an 1,100 square foot planting area that has over 50 kinds of vegetables and fruits as well as honey. Yes, honey. The White House has it’s own bee farm and they harvest fresh honey from the bees. The bees also help with germination in the garden as well.

Iron Chef Flay was paired with Chef Comerford while Legasse and Batali were teamed up on the other side of Kitchen Stadium. The four chefs hand picked their vegetables from the garden then were “whisked” up to New York to the Kitchen Stadium studios. There the chairman (on a flat screen) said the challenge was to create dishes that will inspire American to cook with fresh vegetables and understand the importance of local farming and sustainability. In addition to the vegetables from the garden, they were also given an array of proteins all from local sources within 1200 miles of the Stadium.

In regular Iron Chef fashion, each team needed to make five courses. I won’t go into each of the dishes here, you can watch the episode on the Food Network. What I will say is that both teams tried their best to highlight the vegetables from the garden. First Lady Obama hinted earlier that she definitely wanted to see Sweet Potatoes used tonight.

The winners of tonight’s battle will win a donation of $25,000 to a charity of their choice. Both teams did a great job in highlighting the garden.

I was really impressed with First Lady Obama’s initiative to place a garden on the grounds of the White House. Many in the past have protested the placement of a garden on the grounds saying it didn’t fit with the formality of the White House. This garden isn’t the first however. For those that remember, a small garden was started on the roof of the White House during the Clinton administration. Prior to that Presidents Adams, Wilson and Roosevelt had some kind of garden on the grounds.

I try my best to purchase locally and try to make it to my local farmers’ markets in the area. The two I attend regularly are the Irvine and Aliso Viejo markets on Saturday and Sunday mornings respectively. I also joined a CSA group. FarmFreshToYou.com will deliver locally grown vegetables and fruits to you on a frequency of your choosing. They have diffent plans and sizes to choose from. I have been VERY happy with the selection of vegetables.

FarmFreshToYou.com is run by Capay Farms which is headquartered in Northern California and has recently opened up farmland just north of Los Angeles with auxillary farms in the Inland Empire. Every two weeks I have a small box of vegetables and fruits delivered to me. But they go further. YOu can log onto their website to see what is on harvest for the upcoming week. They also give you the opportunity to “block” something from your box and subsitutute with something else – a feature that I think makes FarmFreshToYou.com very unique. The prices are reasonable, but most importantly I know my money is going straight to the farmer and I’m supporting local farms.

If tonight’s show does anything beyond its entertainment factor, it’s that we all have the ability and choice to support local farming and sustainability. Fresh ingredients are the best ingredients for any chef, home or professional…