Chicago chef tweets about state dinner

WASHINGTON -- Chicago chef Rick Bayless fired off a few final tweets Wednesday morning before scooting over to the White House to prep for the evening's big state dinner for Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, and first lady, Margarita Zavala.

"Heading into the WH for another full day of creation," Bayless reported. "Got my fingers crossed there are no hitches!"

The same could be said for the entire White House staff -- anxious to pull off a flawless event, especially after the first state dinner of the Obama administration was overshadowed by a couple of party-crashers who somehow slipped through security.

About 200 guests have coveted invitations for dinner in the East Room, and an expanded group of guests will take in the after-dinner entertainment in a big white tent on the White House South Lawn.

Guest chef Bayless has been in Washington for two days getting ready for the big night. He's got a black mole sauce that takes days to make and includes more than 20 ingredients.

Full details of the menu, though, were kept secret in the leadup to the dinner.

"GR8 cooking w WH staff yesterday," Bayless tweeted early Wednesday. "Remarkable their organization, knowledge of protocol."

That protocol, by the way, includes no tweets from the White House kitchen.

That resulted in a twitter kerfluffle.

When a Chicago Sun Times reporter tweeted that Bayless wouldn't be allowed to tweet from the kitchen, Bayless twittered back: "I NEVER Tweet from WH, which I KNOW is not permitted. Apology?"

In advance of the dinner, Bayless said in an interview with the AP that chief White House chef Cristeta Comerford runs a tight kitchen.

"When it comes to execution of the menu, she knows how to keep the schedules," Bayless said.

As for Bayless' own role, he said: "It's a huge deal because it's completely outside of the normal things that I do, the normal places I'd be asked to cook."