【09.11.24 泰晤士报】Glamour and taste: Obama tent feast to curry favour with India

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Glamour and taste: Obama tent feast to curry favour with India
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6928946.ece

November 24, 2009 Giles Whittell in Washington


The Obama's first state dinner is in honour of an abstemious vegetarian

There will be music from the composer of the Slumdog Millionaire theme, food from an Ethiopian-born Swedish chef and cedar chips sprinkled on the roofs of the portable lavatories. There may also be the faint patter of drizzle on canvas.

The first state dinner of the Obama era, held tonight in a tent village on the South Lawn of the White House, will honour an Indian Prime Minister described by aides as an abstemious vegetarian. At the same time, it will set the tone for formal entertaining by the most glamorous couple to inhabit the White House since the Kennedys.

Michelle Obama has personally supervised the compilation of a guest list 400 names long and the creation of a menu of global cuisine, “possibly including a curry dish”, that will have to avoid seeming too global lest the Obamas’ critics condemn it as a betrayal of apple pie. Invitations to the banquet for Manmohan Singh are the most sought after in town — a town with thousands of powerbrokers but only one superstar.

Hollywood has been enlisted to provide some more: Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the billionaire founders of Dreamworks SKG, are all said to be on the list in recognition of their work as “bundlers” of Hollywood donations to the Obama campaign. Mr Spielberg is also the beneficiary of a $550 million (£330 million) investment in his films by Anil Ambani, the Indian tycoon.

There will be music from the composer of the Slumdog Millionaire theme, food from an Ethiopian-born Swedish chef and cedar chips sprinkled on the roofs of the portable lavatories. There may also be the faint patter of drizzle on canvas.

The first state dinner of the Obama era, held tonight in a tent village on the South Lawn of the White House, will honour an Indian Prime Minister described by aides as an abstemious vegetarian. At the same time, it will set the tone for formal entertaining by the most glamorous couple to inhabit the White House since the Kennedys.

Michelle Obama has personally supervised the compilation of a guest list 400 names long and the creation of a menu of global cuisine, “possibly including a curry dish”, that will have to avoid seeming too global lest the Obamas’ critics condemn it as a betrayal of apple pie. Invitations to the banquet for Manmohan Singh are the most sought after in town — a town with thousands of powerbrokers but only one superstar.

Hollywood has been enlisted to provide some more: Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the billionaire founders of Dreamworks SKG, are all said to be on the list in recognition of their work as “bundlers” of Hollywood donations to the Obama campaign. Mr Spielberg is also the beneficiary of a $550 million (£330 million) investment in his films by Anil Ambani, the Indian tycoon.