Michelle Obama gave her healthy eating initiative a global showcase on Friday when she welcomed spouses¹ of world leaders to tour a farm north of New York City.

美国第一夫人米歇尔·奥巴马本周五借欢迎多国“第一夫人”参观纽约市北部一家农场之机，向全世界宣传了她的健康饮食倡议。

Michelle Obama and other first ladies get a tour of the chicken coop area during a visit to Stone Barns Center.

Mrs Obama then treated them to a seasonal² lunch featuring bounty³（慷慨，丰富） from the farm and the White House garden.

The spouses included Chantal Biya, First Lady of Cameroon, Haiti's First Lady Elisabeth Preval and their counterparts from countries around the world, such as Mongolia, Swaziland and Latvia.

The group toured the Stone Barns Center, about 25 miles north of New York City, which is both a farm and an educational centre working on sustainable farming – a cause championed by the First Lady.

The farm shares the premises⁴（前提，经营场址） with one of the most renowned⁵ restaurants in the New York area, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, where the women lunched on tomatoes from the White House kitchen garden, eggs harvested minutes earlier from the farm's chickens, and chicken with ratatouille（蹩脚的炖菜） – also from the White House garden.

Addressing the spouses, Mrs Obama, wearing an appropriately floral（花的，植物的） print dress, emphasised the importance of children learning directly about the food they eat.

Also participating in the day's events were children from two local schools, who helped prepare the lunch by harvesting the eggs and collecting herbs（药草，草本植物） .

"Many kids may never learn that ketchup⁶（番茄酱） comes from a tomato and French fries from a potato, because they're disconnected from the food they eat," Mrs Obama said.

The First Lady told a story about how daughter, Sasha, would not eat tomatoes until she made her own tomato, mozzarella（马苏里拉奶酪） and pesto（香蒜沙司） sandwich in a cooking class at school.

The day's meal was prepared by the restaurant's top chef and co-owner, Dan Barber, as well as three White House chefs who flew up for the occasion – Cristeta Comerford, Bill Yosses and Sam Kass, who is active in the First Lady's anti-obesity initiative.

The spouses were serenaded（小夜曲） by a string quartet from the Juilliard School in New York as they ate.

To end, there was an appropriately healthy pudding: Red jacket apricots（杏子） , accompanied by White House honey sorbet.