America’s Table is a love letter.   This patchwork of a blog is meant to offer the best recipes, invitations, flowers and party ideas collected over my forty years as a family cook, event planner, White House Social Secretary, and Washington hostess.   I struggled a bit with this name – America’s Table – because at first it seemed pretentious.  But it’s a big country out there, and American food is a pure reflection of the striving and diverse place we call home.  The most important occasions in many of our lives are marked with meals full of love and the joyful memories that accompany them.

There is no place where all these elements come together more beautifully than at the White House.  The food is cutting-edge without leaving behind traditional favorites (like the Christmas eggnog), the flowers are seasonal and lush, the invitations are works of painstaking artistry, and the gracious hospitality of the White House is passed down through generations of Residence staff and the First Families they serve.  I want to share some of that remarkable White House experience, but I also want to highlight the innovative cooking, floristry, calligraphy and entertaining trends that are going on all over America.   There’s so much here to love!

Let’s not let the sharing be a one-way street – there’s room for everybody at America’s Table.  I hope you’ll send along your favorite recipes as we search out the greatest pulled pork recipe ever known, or consider the merits of an acai breakfast bowl.  But more about that later…