The Lasagna League
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 07:57AM *Just a few days ago, New York inaugurated a new governor: Andrew Cuomo. In a speech, Gov. Cuomo outlined his political priorities, but he neglected to mention his culinary priorities. Cuomo’s favorite meal is lasagna, and he proved what a politician he is by declining to tell the New York Times whose lasagna is better — his mother’s or his girlfriend’s.
*While in Mexico to film a movie in 1977, Jack Nicholson’s most frequent meal was no secret. A British journalist who visited Nicholson’s guest quarters reported, “Ruth Etting is usually on the record player and lasagna on the menu.”
*In March 2002, President George W. Bush concluded an impromptu press conference in North Carolina by informing reporters: “Now I’m going to eat my lasagna. If it gets cold, you have to eat the lasagna.”
*Scott Thorson, the bodyguard, limo driver and alleged live-in companion of Liberace, said that “fixing lasagna” with the entertainer-pianist was one of his happiest memories of the time he spent with Liberace.
*The novelist and iconoclast Hunter S. Thompson used to dine at a restaurant across the street from the small-town newspaper where he worked. One day, he repeatedly sent back the lasagna that he'd ordered, blasting the entree as “rotten.” The editor of Thompson’s newspaper heard of the lasagna incident and threatened to fire Thompson unless the writer apologized to the restaurant owner. Thompson apologized.