Alex Prud’homme
Captures Our Culinary
Commanders-in-Chief
‘Dinner with the President’ Author,
and Julia Child’s Nephew,
Comes to Taste of Santa Barbara
By George Yatchisin | May 11, 2023
Read all of our Taste of Santa Barbara 2023 stories here.
Despite looking somewhat like a fuzzy hard-boiled egg himself, Dwight Eisenhower oversaw one of the most interesting culinary programs in White House history and was probably the best president-cook. That’s the kind of tidbit you’ll learn by attending a May 18 soiree showcasing journalist Alex Prud’homme, author of the recently published Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. While you’re sipping on reverse martinis and noshing on Field + Fort nibbles inspired by his book, Prud’homme will regale the crowd with, as he puts it, “gastronomic political history.”
The event, hosted by Taste of Santa Barbara, sports local hooks too, even if the 478-page book only touches down at Ronald Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo — a k a the Western White House — for a mere two pages. That’s because Prud’homme’s great-aunt is Julia Child, and he co-wrote her memoir My Life in France.
While doing that work, he spent part of eight months with Child at Casa Dorinda in Montecito, interviewing her and her friends. “She was 91 years old and would run out of steam after a couple of hours and take a nap, so I would go on trail runs in the Santa Ynez hills,” said Prud’homme, who praised our region’s “otherworldly beauty, which I love.”
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