Summary

TAPE: EF02/0262 IN_TIME: 23:51:51 DURATION: 1:37 SOURCES: APTN RESTRICTIONS: DATELINE: Washington DC - 28 March 2002 SHOTLIST: 1. Close-up of dyed eggs being taken out of baskets 2. Close-up of eggs 3. Close-up White House chefs taking basket out of vat 4. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Moeller, White House assistant chef: "Ten-thousand eight hundred eggs. We've got 30 cases of eggs, 30 dozen each and we'll be boiling three thousand of them just plain white for the children to decorate outside and seven thousand eight hundred will be coloured just like this for the egg role itself." 5. Close-up view of eggs 6. Mid view of chocolate "Barney" and egg 7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Roland Mesnier, White House pastry chef: "This year for Easter we have done Barney. Barney is under cover - as you can see he is a painter and he decides to paint Spot, which he has just finished. You can see how talented he is. Done a beautiful job on the painting, what do you think? And Barney is 25 pounds of chocolate and the egg is 45 pound of chocolate. And I think it will take about a year to eat that, it took us 24 hours to make it." 8. Close-up detail of egg STORYLINE: Preparations were underway on Good Friday for easter celebrations at the White House. Kitchen staff were hard at work boiling 10,800 eggs for Monday's egg roll and putting the finishing touches to a 25-pound (11 kilogram) chocolate sculpture of President Bush's Scottish terrier, Barney. White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, recognizing that Barney is "a very talented dog," sculpted the pooch holding a paintbrush and wearing a cowboy hat and glasses. It took him 20 hours to create the likeness. The chocolate Barney was displayed beside another of Mesnier's creations, a 45-pound (20.25-kilogram), 4-and-a-half (1.35 metre) tall chocolate Easter egg. White House assistant chef John Moeller and five others toiled away in a kitchen stacked with crates and boxes of eggs - 30 cases of 30 dozen each, to be exact. While workers sorted the colored eggs, Moeller stood watch over a huge pot of boiling water, vinegar and dye. The boiling and dyeing began early Friday and was expected to take most of the day. Besides the traditional egg roll, Monday's celebration will include egg decorating, readings by famous children's authors and a celebrity appearance by Barney the dinosaur. According to the White House, the first Washington egg rolls took place on the grounds of the Capitol in the early 1870s. But after children made a mess of the lawn, lawmakers banned them. The celebration moved to the White House in 1878.