Although many dishes here look like Asian versions of standard American preparations, they yield very different flavors.
The statement said the test had nothing to do with American preparations for possible military action against Syria.
Meanwhile, he churns out almost frighteningly large portions of imaginatively conceived, often brilliantly executed new, American preparations, sometimes with unusual Asian-Caribbean-tropical tilts.
According to Jeffrey Davidow, an experienced diplomat brought in to co-ordinate American preparations for the summit, Mr Obama will "focus on social inclusion and equity".
Articles in this series on American preparations for the war and its aftermath draw on dozens of interviews with current and former military officers and occupation officials, as well as officials at the Pentagon and the White House.
In Washington, one military official said that the United States was "having real problems with access," citing differences with Saudi Arabia and other states, and that the problems were slowing American preparations for military operations in Afghanistan.
"From the military planning standpoint, we have just about reached the critical mass point for a yes or no from Turkey," said a senior United States official who is familiar with American preparations.
An adviser to the government, Avi Pazner, said the Palestinian Authority headed by Yasir Arafat had given "an apparent green light for terrorism," perhaps in hopes of disrupting American preparations for a possible war on Iraq.
In another sign of American preparations for possible war with Iraq, the first of more than 1,000 war planners at the United States Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., have left for a command post in Qatar, a spokesman there said today.
The arrival on May 6 of a small British fleet carrying 200 regulars (the vanguard of a much larger invasion force), accelerated the American preparations to depart.
