No one but the employees knew about Ben Ali’s death.

The managers of Ben’s Chili Bowl had told their employees this morning that Ben Ali died in his bed last night, but they didn’t want their customers in the restaurant to know yet. So there was nary a clue at the landmark U Street eatery. No signs. No weeping employees. Only a Web notice for those who had somehow checked it before arriving.

The only thing at Ben’s that might have tipped off an attentive diner was the music. It was soul music, the mournful variety. “Never Can Say Goodbye,” by the Jackson 5 was playing softly in the background, the band’s lead singer just a memory now, too.

“The mood is very somber,” said Sonya Ali, wife of Kamal Ali, one of the two surviving brothers who now run Ben’s. “The music is even somber.”

Sonya Ali said the entire family was gathering at Ben and Virginia Ali’s home in North Portal, including Sage, an artist and musician who lives in California.  Sage’s wife, Sonya Ali noted, is a publicist and will help the family plan a public announcement and figure out how to honor the man who founded what has become, courtesy of Bill Cosby and President Barack Obama, D.C.’s most famous restaurant.

The family is “as well as can be expected,” Sonya Ali said, including wife, Virginia, who married Ben in October 1958, just two months after opening Ben’s Chili Bowl. The couple would have celebrated their 51st anniversary on Saturday.

“She believed in him then and to the very end,” Sonya Ali said.

Employees were shocked but supportive when managers broke the news this morning. The family, Sonya Ali said, had no immediate plans to close today or through whatever private and public funeral arrangements are eventually announced. “I don’t think so,” Sonya Ali said. “That’s not what he’d want…He doesn’t want a lot of fanfare.”

Manager Maurice Harcum had known Ben Ali for 10 years, ever since the founder hired him for the night shift at Ben’s. Ben Ali, despite his failing health, showed up at his namesake restaurant at least once a week, Harcum said, but he couldn’t eat the half-smokes and chili that had made him famous.

“Mrs. Ali wouldn’t let him,” Harcum said. “He still loved his milkshakes, though.”

Vanilla was Ben Ali’s flavor, the manager said, and he had to settle on the small size, for his health’s sake.

Employees, managers, and family all said Ben Ali was a great businessman. “He knew how to get things done,” said Sonya Ali, who performs a variety of tasks for the family businesses, including Ben’s Next Door, the full-service restaurant right next to Ben’s.

“I’m not saying that I agreed with him all time,” Sonya Ali added after a beat. “He was a man determined to have his way.”

Nizam Ali agreed. He said his father was “persistent,” “strong willed,” and had a “great business mind.”

“He took control of each moment,” Nizam Ali added. “He lived life the way that he wanted to. No regrets.”

Asked to try to put his father’s legacy in perspective, Nizam Ali understandably struggled for words. Then he said his father’s “story, as an immigrant from Trinidad, is probably the ultimate American dream.”

If the family was holding it together well, at least publicly, one loyal customer was shocked. As he waited in line for his usual hot dog, Keith Turner first heard the news from a reporter.

“Wow,” he said, “I hadn’t heard that…I’m kind of stunned. You kind of caught me off guard.”

Turner, 42, has been frequenting Ben’s since 1985, he said. The window tinter said he was doing a job at nearby Cardozo High School and decided to grab his usual lunch at Ben’s: a simple griddled hot dog. He likes the char on it.

And with that, he turned to the counter and ordered his hot dog.

More photos from the first day at Ben’s Chili Bowl without Ben Ali:

The traffic is outrageous on Vermont Ave. during rush hour!

No one needs to tell you, least of all Y&H, that in this blog-eat-blog, 24-hour news-cycle world everyone is required to have an opinion. But, really, shouldn’t everyone wait until the object under criticism has actually opened?

I’m speaking about the new FreshFarm Market by the White House, which the busy non-profit opens today with guest appearances from First Lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Adrian Fenty, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.  Last month, Mother Jones was first out of the block in predicting dark things about the market:

[I]f this idea becomes reality, the Obamas should be careful to make it a sustainable market for local farmers rather than a kitschy tourist attraction bogged down by pins and t-shirts that say “Yes We Can Farm” and “Change We Can Grow In.” But let’s face it, due to the massive security detail the market would require and the overwhelming draw for Washingtonians and tourists alike, the latter is more likely.

(Just for the record, Capital Spice has an excellent run-down of the vendors, none of which appear to be hawking pins and t-shirts.)

WTOP continued the early hand-wringing with a story about potential rush-hour traffic snarls:

Word has been circulating through local Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in D.C. and has some on edge.

“I take this road every day, and imagine this will worsen gridlock since 15th Street just north of this block is a major northbound artery out of town,” writes a concerned resident to WTOP. “There are so many roads already closed for security, it will only make the H street corridor even worse.”

WTOP followed that story with another worrying piece today. But leave it to Obama Foodorama, the take-no-statement-on-its-face blog, to put those traffic fears to rest. The picture above comes from ObFo, which snapped it at 4:55 p.m. yesterday, presumably a rush-hour period.

ObFo also smacks down a lot of the media frenzy over who exactly conceived the idea for the White House market and whether the First Lady had a hand in it. Frankly, Y&H thinks this last issue is a tempest in a teapot. If the White House did have a hand in the market’s creation, perhaps even helping to push it along, then good on the Obamas. It’s an abuse of presidential power that I can live with.

Photo via Obama Foodorama

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack explains the USDA’s local farm program.

UPDATE, 5:52 p.m. Weds.: The Los Angeles Times has more details on the market here.

As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food campaign, the White House will launch a farmers market tomorrow in the 800 block of Vermont Avenue NW. It’ll run every Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m. until Oct. 29.

The Chicago Tribune quoted USDA Undersecretary Ann Wright as saying that the market and other programs to support local farming are “very much a part of the president’s initiatives to bring more healthy food to underserved communities and children.”

According to Y&H fave Obama Foodorama, the opening of the White House market will also coincide with another KYF2 initiative: Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan “will announce farmers market promotions program grants for markets in the northeast corridor…”

The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food campaign, according to a USDA press release, is designed to break down policy barriers and “help develop local and regional food systems and spur economic opportunity.”

Author and organic-food expert Samuel Fromartz interviewed Merrigan about the new program. In addition, here are some of the elements of KYF2, according to the press release:

In the months to come, cross-cutting efforts at USDA will seek to use existing USDA programs to break down structural barriers that have inhibited local food systems from thriving. Today, USDA announced a small initial group of moves that seek to connect local production and consumption and promote local-scale sustainable operations:

* USDA’s Risk Management Agency announced $3.4 million in funding for collaborative outreach and assistance programs to socially disadvantaged and underserved farmers. These programs will support ‘Know You Farmer’ goals by helping producers adopt new and direct marketing practices. For example, nearly $10,000 in funding for the University of Minnesota will bring together experts on food safety and regulations for a discussion of marketing to institutions like K-12 schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and other health care facilities.

* USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service proposed regulations to implement a new voluntary cooperative program under which select state-inspected establishments will be eligible to ship meat and poultry products in interstate commerce. The new program was created in the 2008 Farm Bill and will provide new economic opportunities for small meat and poultry establishments, whose markets are currently limited.

* USDA’s Rural Development announced $4.4 million in grants to help 23 local business cooperatives in 19 states. The member-driven and member-owned cooperative business model has been successful for rural enterprises, and bring rural communities closer to the process of moving from production-to-consumption as they work to improve their products and expand their appeal in the marketplace.

* USDA’s Rural Development will also announce a Rural Business Opportunity Grant in the amount of $150,000 to the Northwest Food Processors Association. The grant will strengthen the relationship between local food processors and customers in parts of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, and will also help the group reduce energy consumption, a major cost for food processors.

As the ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative evolves, USDA will continue to build on the momentum and ideas from the 2008 Farm Bill and target its existing programs and develop new ones to pursue sustainable agriculture and support for local and regional food systems.

The Obama beer meeting was last night, and by all accounts nothing happened. (Although WaPo’s Dana Milbank did totally hijack the Lagerheads’ titular pun for his own use.)

But my favorite post-summit coverage so far comes from Canada’s CBC, which came up with not one but two entertaining animated graphics: “Beer Diplomacy” (in the intro) and the even-better “The Suds That Soothed.”

Pictured above, the graphic matches each diplomat with their beer of choice: Obama, Bud Light; Gates, Sam Adams Light; and Crowley, Blue Moon. And, in a display of either pride or shame, MillerCoors’ Blue Moon gets a fat red stamp: “Made in Canada.”

D.C.’s Brickskeller and owner Dave Alexander also make cameos at the 3:25 mark. I apologize, but you do have to sit through a truly nauseating U2/Blackberry ad first.

Screenshot from CBC

Without further ado…

1. Have We  Stopped Caring About the Obamas’ Restaurant Visits Already?
2. Frank Morales Has Left Rustico Behind, But Not Beer-Friendly Food
3. Y&H Went Whole Hog at Poste’s Pig Roast
4. Homemade Twinkies at Wagshal’s Deli
   
5. Whole Foods Burrata: As Good As the Real Thing?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

So Michelle Obama and the First Family’s defacto White House chef, Sam Kass, dined at Oyamel last week, and you know what? The local media didn’t Tweet their fingers to a pulp to report every last chip slathered with salsa that crossed the First Lady’s lips.

Eddie Gehman Kohan, the indefatigable blogger who covers all things Obama and food at (what else?) Obama Foodorama, thinks she knows why:

Although there was a gaggle of onlookers clustered around the front of the restaurant, it’s interesting to note that the outing didn’t make national news, a la Mrs. Obama’s visit to Good Stuff Eatery, or the President’s visit to Five Guys. Apparently things are normalizing, on that front, somewhat.

I have another theory: The media care more about the President’s eating habits than the First Lady’s. It’s a bigger deal for Barack Obama to take a moment from his schedule to visit a restaurant than it is for Michelle Obama. Hence, each of the President’s restaurant visits takes on a deeper significance.

I mean, if the President puts aside the economy, the environment, and various foreign crises to eat a hamburger, it must be a damn fine burger.

Oh, and I also suspect that fewer reporters follow Michelle Obama than the President.

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: I asked Eddie Gehman Kohan for more of her thoughts on why Michelle Obama’s eating habits don’t get the same media attention as the Prez’s, and if any sexism is involved here. Here’s what she typed back:

I don’t think it’s sexism so much as Mrs. Obama is afforded more of a private life than POTUS. Everything he does gets much more scrutiny and is taken as a Symbol or a Clue or a Prediction of what he’s going to do or might do in terms of policy. Also regarding coverage:  He’s not allowed out without the pool and the motorcade. FLOTUS can “sneak” around with a smaller motorcade. As well… If the First Lady’s press office thought it was a good idea for coverage they would have alerted the usual suspects…

Photo by La Citta Vita via Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License

Shortly before the holiday weekend, a small shitstorm started brewing over the the elevated levels of lead discovered earlier this year on the White House lawn, site of the vegetable garden heard ’round the world. In a column for Huffington Post, Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, wrote that National Park Service tests found “highly elevated levels of lead — 93 parts per million.”

“It’s enough lead for anyone planning to have children pick vegetables in that garden or eat produce from it to reconsider their plans: lead is highly toxic to children’s developing organs and brain functions — however, it’s below the 400 ppm the EPA suggests is a threat to human health,” Kimbrell added.

As leader of the Center for Food Safety, a non-profit dedicated to fighting Big Ag and its anti-environmental and sustainable ways, Kimbrell figured he had cornered the devil living in the White House dirt: a commercial fertilizer called ComPRO, made from a wastewater plant’s sewage sludge, which the Clinton Administration apparently had agreed to spread on the lawn during its temporary stay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a theory that Kimbrell borrowed from Mother Jones, which first reported on the possible ComPRO connection.

Kimbrell took this rare gift horse — a highly visible White House vegetable garden and a major commercial fertilizer with potentially harmful effects — and rode that sumbitch as far as he could go. He rode her hard:

So what is sludge, really? A stinking, sticky, dark-grey to black paste, it’s everything homeowners, hospitals and industries put down their toilets and drains. Every material-turned-waste that our society produces (including prescription drugs and the sweepings of slaughterhouses), and that wastewater treatment plants are capable of removing from sewage, becomes sludge. The end product is a concentrated mass of heavy metals and carcinogenic, teratogenic, and hormone-disrupting chemicals, replete with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. There are some 80,000 to 90,000 industrial chemicals, including a host of dioxin-like deadly substances, which are allowed to be present in sludge under current EPA rules. What’s worse, there’s no way of knowing which toxic chemicals and heavy metals are entering the wastewater stream at any given time or in what concentrations. Sludge is always an unknown quantity, and therefore, assessing whether sludge is safe to use for growing food, is — in practice — impossible.

Farmers who care about what they grow know this, and — despite the best efforts of government and the sludge industry — growing food in sewage sludge is prohibited under the federal organic regulations. Still, sludge is still widely used as a cheap alternative to fertilizer, and unless you’re buying organic produce, it’s impossible to know if the food you eat was grown in it.

Scary stuff indeed. Kimbrell continues hitting the spurs:

So when people living or working in the vicinity of sludged fields and when diary cows and other farm animals grazing on sludged land have gotten sick from heavy metal, chemical or pathogen based maladies, the EPA has either ignored, denied or, in some cases, even fraudulently covered it up. However it’s getting harder for the agency to ignore the toll of sludged land as we see increasing reports in adjacent communities of elevated levels of cancer or deaths believed to be related to sludge exposure. In some areas where sludge has been heavily used, whole families are evincing the same symptoms: sores in their nasal passages, chronic staph infections, crippling headaches and sinus troubles. Yet — despite the mounting evidence — EPA wants to continue to promote sludge as a benign alternative to fertilizer.

And then Kimbrell rides his gift horse all the way to the front steps of the White House, where his steed kicks the Obamas square in the mouth:

The Obamas may be the newest sludge victims. Certainly Michelle Obama’s hopes of having a truly organic garden and healthy vegetables for her own children and other children who visit the White House have been dashed. The impact on their lives is symbolic; it’s not just the Obamas under threat, it’s all of us. Municipalities around the country have jumped on the bandwagon to sell their “biosolids” to sludge companies, a convenient solution to profitably rid themselves of hazardous waste. Over the last several years, we have all become unwilling guinea pigs, testing the safety of foods raised on sewage-sludged land. We’re also unknowing guinea pigs, since none of this produce is labeled to show how it was grown.

I have to admit, it’s a pretty effective dismantling of sewage sludge as fertilizer. But then journalist Eddie Gehman Kohan, a food politics dynamo over at Obama Foodorama, wrote a rebuttal piece the following day for Huffington Post. It pointed out two majors flaws to Kimbrell’s argument: that the lead levels are far below the 400 parts per million considered dangerous to childhood health and that the sewage sludge likely didn’t cause the elevated levels of lead.

This, in short, is why real dogged reporting is so much more important than agenda-driven editorializing — even when the agenda is worth fighting for. Once you start exploiting public events and public personas — without checking all the facts first — you lose credibility.

Image by dbking via Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License

It’s a short work week, and we at Young & Hungry Central have just the thing you need: beer and dining recommendations for the Fourth. We also have something for your reading pleasure:

The top blog posts of the week.

1. Obama Ate Here: The Working Map (with apologies and gratitude to BrightestYoungThings)
2. What Did Your $10 Ticket Get You at the Safeway Barbecue Battle?
3. On July 4th Weekend, Buy American Beer
4. Breadline Busted on 19 Health Code Violations, Ten of Them Critical
5. Dairy Godmother’s Owner Doesn’t Want the Obama Bump That Ray’s Hell Burger Got

Photo by cristinabe via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License

Alex Nicholson over at BrightestYoungThings got bored and decided to put together a Google map on where the Obama family has eaten since they moved into the White House. As Nicholson writes, “If you tell your boss you are making an ‘Obama Ate Here’ Google Map, and she says it’s a good idea, it’s okay to do it at work.”

If you haven’t read it yet, the Post’s Reliable Source talked to Amanda McClements, Don Rockwell, and me about the Obamas’ dining habits, which have already generated a major bump for Ray’s Hell Burger and an unwanted bump at the Dairy Godmother.

In my wallet right now is a quartet of familiar faces: one Washington, four Lincolns, a Hamilton, and a wow, how-did-this-get-here Grant.

Although increasingly scarce in these hard times, the four still effortlessly come to mind when conjuring currency: the one-dollar Washington with that iconic wig (or is that really his hair?); the five-dollar Lincoln, with that craggy face and jawbone beard; the ten-dollar Hamilton, less recognizable because he’s less known; and the fifty-buck Grant, all save-the-Union stern with his just-this-side-of-Castro beard.

All four gaze out seriously in shades of faded green.

Also in my wallet is a fifth face, instantly recognizable, to be sure, but less familiar as far as greenbacks go. Everything is different about this guy. First off, unlike the others, he’s smiling. Second, unlike the others, his likeness is in color, his background a pale blue, his shirt white, his suit black. Third, very much unlike the others, he is not white.

Yes, we’re talking President Barack Obama.

And, no, we’re not talking about actual money. This semi-greenback is a sign of the times: an American City Diner “Stimulus Buc.”

Patrons get one of the Obama dollars for every $10 purchase at the eatery on Connecticut Avenue NW. Each stimulus buck is worth a dollar toward a meal at the diner.

Now, if only Citronelle or CityZen or Komi would follow suit. ‘Course, theirs would have to be a Stimulus Benjamin.