Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, it can be revealed, is not taking any chances with the sun Down Under. On a visit to Bondi Beach near Sydney, Lawson covered up against the late summer sun from head to toe in a black burka-style outfit that left only her hands, feet and face exposed. The UK Daily Mail described the outfit as resembling “a burkini – a three-piece swimsuit designed to preserve the modesty of Muslim women – with a baseball cap beneath the hood.”

According to the paper, which printed a full gallery of photos, the star is Down Under shooting Master Chef, though her look was a bit uncharacteristic:

Renowned for her flirtatious manner of presenting, Lawson has been called the ‘queen of food porn’.

She is often seen spilling out of her dresses during parties and regularly opts for racy outfits during her cookery shows.

First Lady Obama joined Comerford, host Alton Brown, and the other Iron Chefs on the South Lawn to provide the night’s ‘secret ingredient’. The chefs had their fill of produce from the White House; the television event was intended to promote the benefits of home-grown vegetables and healthy eating habits.

The First Lady is a staunch advocate for ‘going local’ for healthy meals when possible, and the Kitchen Stadium battle featured a number of other DC-area products including locally-raised turkey and pork and a jar of honey from the White House beehive. (Yes, Virginia, there is a White House beehive.)

Chef Comerford — one of many staff holdovers from the Bush Administration – was paired with Iron Chef regular Bobby Flay for the episode, with Mario Batali and ‘Super Chef’ Emeril Lagasse providing the opposition. Chefs Comerford and Flay already had a mutual acquaintance – as twitter user @DukeStJournal noted, Bobby Flay defeated New York chef Marcus Samuelsson in an Iron Chef episode in 2008. Samuelsson joined Comerford in the kitchen for November’s State Dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Though First Lady Michelle Obama’s appearance was brief, a number of other White House chefs – including assistant chef Sam Kass – were in attendance for the event. Kass talked up the success of the garden, saying over a thousand pounds of food had been produced in the garden’s six months. The food, according to Kass, is distributed between lunches and dinners for the First Family, the Navy mess, and a significant amount goes to nearby Miriam’s Kitchen.

Alton Brown was joined by Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin, actress Jane Seymour, and chef Nigella Lawson for the judging. The resulting dishes turned out to be a little less than perfectly healthy — even vegetables from the White House garden lose a little nutrition in the face of lardo, bacon’s creamier cousin — but the two teams managed to turn the White House garden into some pretty impressive dishes, including a tasty-looking sweet potato and egg ravioli from Batali.

Despite some unflattering editing in commercial teases, chefs Comerford and Flay emerged victorious after the frenetic, epic battle. The pair won by a slim margin of five points over Batali and Lagasse with a menu that featured the President’s favorite vegetable in the form of a sweet potato custard tart. As an added bonus, the team also took home an impressive $25000 donation for the charity of their choice – Meals on Wheels – from Food Network and the Chairman.

If you missed the episode, don’t fret – it’s not the garden’s first appearance in reality television, and if the feedback from tonight is good, it probably won’t be the last.

Related:

Liveblogging The ‘Iron Chef America’ White House Episode [Air America]
Interview: WH Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford [Food Network]
Bobby Flay gives President Obama some grilling tips [Food Network]

Rambin bowed out of the personality-driven lifestyle startup earlier this year (consensus from all parties: amicably) to move to L.A. and start her own site, More than Mary, but remains a co-host with Allison and Asha for their web series TMI Weekly.

So: Who is Jordan Reid, and why should you care about her? NonSociety readers are familiar with Reid, who cropped up on Allison’s blog in May when they met at a party, and has remained as a fixture since. Readers know that Reid, 27, is a Harvard-educated former actress who was recently married, has tattoos, also has a shih-tzu puppy and can cook chicken; Google knows that her full name is Jordan Reid Berkow (she has gone by variations thereof), has appeared on Law & Order and was part of the original gang who created It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and played Sweet Dee in the original, shot-for-$500 version of the pilot. (Also, Craigslist knows that she was looking for an intern, which means Reblogging Nonsociety knew she was the new contributor before all of us.)

All of this will come into Reid’s lifecast, which is billed as “Domestic Bliss Done Differently” but which will be personality-driven like the rest of NonSociety. The official press release is light on details of Reid’s qualifications, because they are not, themselves official. Her quote:

“Am I a chef? No. An interior designer? Hardly. I consider myself a somewhat talented amateur in these arenas, and for me this lifecast is an exciting journey and an on-going learning process. I’m hoping my readers will benefit from seeing someone just like them who is unafraid to try…well, just about anything.”

This will probably get the NonSociety haters out in droves – surprise, surprise, another girl who looks pretty in pictures and thinks she’s an “expert” – but a quick survey of her beta-content shows that she won’t be so easily dismissed. She’s an easy writer, with unpretentious tastes, practical advice, recipes and good suggestions, and cheerful about DIY projects. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about cooking, but she does seem to know what she’s doing.)

She’s also incorporating an interesting new area into the home-decor-cooking-lifestyle arena: Marriage. Reid’s blog, which goes back a full month, is filled with her husband, indie musician Kendrick Strauch, and part of her ‘expertise’ will focus on “advice for couples in committed relationships.” (This is an area of expertise that has, shall we say, not been showcased on NonSociety thus far!).

This is how Allison pitches it in the press release: “Jordan is what would happen if a Harvard-educated, twenty-something Martha-Stewart-in-training married a rocker, rode a motorcycle, and refused to wear any skirt that hit below mid-thigh.” And there you have it: The package, ready-made, to fill a gaping hole that exists in the demo below Martha, Rachael Ray, Nigella and Julie & Julia, morning-show and red-carpet ready. And in the meantime, it will be hard to argue that she’s not walking the walk with her content. In fact, it may soon be hard to dismiss NonSociety at all; Reid could be the servicey, down-to-earth ingredient that the site has been missing — while still, of course, posting many pictures of herself looking fabulous.

Speaking of Reblogging Nonsociety, it actually just rightly noted that I am a friend of Allison, the site’s founder; however, I met Reid for the first time two days ago to hear about the project. She spoke in detail about home renovation, her former job as the administrator for a law firm, and wore fishnets. Allison beamed at her newest hire, uncharacteristically letting her do most of the talking, and suggested a good reason to be optimistic about her success: “All the mistakes that I made, we’re not gonna make with her. “

Related:
Introductory Post: Jordan Reid [NonSociety]
The Day I Quit [NonSociety]
Lucy, The One-Eyed Shih-Tzu [NonSociety]
It’s Official: Jordan Berkhow Is The New NonSociety Contributor [Reblogging NonSociety]

Reid’s Law & Order clip: