The Federal Virtual Cookbook

By Dawn Lim

Happy Friday! Recipes from top chefs at the "Feds Get Fit Cook-off" -- including one for the winning roasted tomato curry coconut soup - have now been posted online.

Last month, the Office of Personnel Management hosted its first cooking competition for federal employees as part of the agency's initiative to promote healthy living among the federal workforce.

Melissa Knoll of the Social Security Administration, wowed judges with her aromatic, textured blend of tomatoes, shrimp and peas.

OPM Deputy Director Christine M. Griffin highlighted the range of choices that federal employees have to stay healthy. "If you go to any federal cafeteria now you will actually see a much different variety of food than you would have five or six years ago," she said.

"You could actually come here everyday -- I do it -- and I look at the healthy choice, and I look at the not-so-healthy choice," Griffin said, "Nine times out of ten, I'm going to choose the healthy choice because the excuse that there wasn't a healthy choice has been taken away."