Forget tea with Michelle Obama. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, on her first trip to Washington as France's first lady, visited a school in a poor neighborhood and had lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl. She was meeting Mrs. Obama later for dinner with their husbands, behind firmly closed doors in the Obamas' private residence quarters in the White House, leaving the curious guessing about how the glamorous four would get along. The White House put such a clamp on the dinner details that not even the menu was expected to be released. Kids at Washington's Kipp DC charter school were over the moon at their visitor and her entourage of bodyguards. They greeted her carrying French flags and sang to her, “Ain't No Mountain High Enough.” She read them a Madeline book from the series about a girl living in France. Bruni-Sarkozy took up a singing career after the supermodel quit the catwalk, and she had surprised students at Juilliard Music School with a visit the day before in New York. On Tuesday, after the motorcade bell rang and her school visit ended, she joined her husband and his 12-year-old son, Louis, for lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, a diner that has been a longtime fixture in the black community here and now is a frequent stop for politicians and celebrities. Barack Obama ate his first meal at the local landmark several days before his inauguration last year. Obama, standing alongside the French president at a White House appearance later, noted that the French are famous for their cuisine and remarked with a smile that the lunch choice, apparently a “half smoke” sausage, “shows his discriminating palate”. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's gift to the Obama family was some Asterix comic books for the Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia. The subtext of the family man image that Sarkozy was projecting was clear: Forget about those blog rumors of troubles in his closely watched marriage with Carla, who famously dismissed monogamy as untenable in her younger years.
