Red Carpet Report: Mario Batali cooks for Obama’s final White House state dinner
Las Vegas chef Mario Batali “raided” first lady Michelle Obama’s herb and vegetable garden at The White House in advance of Tuesday night’s glamorous state dinner for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini. Mario, who has restaurants here at The Venetian and The Palazzo, created a menu that included President Obama’s favorite pasta pillows with beef tenderloin.
This was the 13th and final state dinner of the Obama Administration’s recognition of foreign leaders. It was held under a tent on the South Lawn for 500 guests, including our Caesars Palace headliner comedian Jerry Seinfeld. As guest chef, Mario collaborated with White House chefs Cristeta Comerford and Susan Morrison for the dinner to highlight the fall harvest.
Mario spent two hours at his restaurant Babbo in New York with Michelle several weeks ago to plot the menu with courses featuring traditional Italian dishes. Our orange Croc-clad chef harvested eggplants from Michelle’s garden to go with his Hamachi Agrodolce; herb pesto made from the garden’s cinnamon basil to go with roasted figs; home-grown currant tomatoes for crab cannolis; and freshly picked rosemary for grilled lamb.
His first course was the president’s favorite of paper-thin pasta stuffed with puree of sweet potatoes garnished with a hint of nutmeg, Italian parsley and topped with browned butter and sage leaves. That was followed by a salad course of roasted butternut squash with chicory and shaved New York State ewe’s milk Pecorino cheese drizzled with raw apple cider vinaigrette.
The Obamas selected beef braciole pinwheel sliced atop broccoli rabe garnished with arugula. Michelle’s kitchen garden was lit with lanterns for guests on their way to a tent with chandeliers. Two desserts were served to celebrate autumn: green apple crostata with buttermilk gelato and pumpkin cranberry tart, milk chocolate chestnuts, orange and fig slices and tiramisu.
Mario received applause from the leaders and their wives and was invited to join the Gwen Stefani concert after dinner.
BAD PHOTOS
The group of gorgeous girls who make up The Bang Squad at Machine Guns Vegas shooting gallery came up with a novel way to deal with their overly aggressive fans who have “sexually stalked” them on social media. I use the word “stalked” because how else to describe the awful Anthony Weiner-type photos sent to the gun-toting beauties?
Yep, they actually sent nude photos of themselves with their manhood fully exposed to the range safety officers. So the girls have taken the unattractive photos and swapped them with the target range outline figures for gun practice at the 10,000-square-foot indoor compound with 10 shooting lanes and VIP gun lounge with two other private firing lanes.
The top-notch gun girls now use their fully automatics, pistols, assault rifles and machine guns to blast away at the salacious photos rather than the traditional outline figures. I’m told that their accuracy at destruction has increased tenfold since they started destroying the bad photos. You can see the shootouts on the Facebook video postings by Cami Li of The Bang Squad.
DEBATE GUESTS
At the last town hall-styled debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a rotund man in a red sweater with mustache and glasses became an overnight Internet star. Now Ken Bone has arrived on the Strip and will attend tonight’s third and final debate at The Thomas & Mack Center moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.
Guests on Tuesday’s Neil Cavuto live broadcast on Fox News included Steve Wynn, former Mayor Oscar Goodman, Rudy Ruettiger and yours truly. Today, I’ll do a guest segment with Jesse Watters of Fox News for Bill O’Reilly’s show, then jump over to another studio set at MGM Grand for Liz McDonald’s show on the Fox Business channel.
‘SIN CITY COMEDY & BURLESQUE’
The format changes and expansion of “Sin City Comedy & Burlesque” now in its eighth year on the Strip includes the addition of veteran comedienne Lisa Landry from The Comedy Channel. She’ll co-headline with Greg Vaccariello, who appeared in the “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” films and “King of Queens,” all with Kevin James. A rotating cast of comedians and burlesque dancers will round out the new look of the production at the Planet Hollywood lounge.
Each quarter, the show will add a household-name comedy star for five-show engagements. Producer John Padon fought a tumultuous year for his comedy show, even announcing in September that he would have to close it. But development partner Pete Housley stepped in, negotiated a long-term licensing deal, and the show now continues.