Michelle Obama made a jaunt up to Politics & Prose yesterday to sign copies of her 2012 book about the White House’s vegetable and herb garden. The first lady’s book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, takes a look inside the cultivation of the garden behind the White House, and features content about the importance of eating freshly grown foods.

Tickets for the event were tightly controlled, and people lucky enough to get the requisite wristbands stood outside the Chevy Chase bookstore in the rain for hours.

“The garden was really a way to begin this conversation about how do we educate our children about the food they eat and how it impacts their body and how all of that affects their health,” Obama told the crowd that made it inside. The book, Obama’s first, is an extension of her gardening efforts and her “Let’s Move” childhood fitness and nutrition initiative.