"This is what it's like to be a part of an official state dinner," Michelle Obama told the children and their parents gathered in the East Room. "We mirrored it exactly to what people experience when we host world leaders here."
The kids, ranging in age from 8 to 12, even got to experience an arrival ceremony in which they were officially announced as they made their way through the booksellers' entrance of the White House.
The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge is a recipe contest for kids across the country, launched in 2012 by Epicurious-a website about food-to promote healthy eating for children in the US.