California might show up in a big way at President Joe Biden’s state dinner with the prime minister from Japan on Wednesday. Aside from a fancy California roll, several Silicon Valley business leaders and Bay Area locals are on the guest list.
The president and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, will be meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and his wife, Yuko Kishida. This is the fifth state dinner of Biden’s term, and a number of people with connections to the Bay Area are expected to be in attendance.
Biden and Kishida have been in diplomatic talks regarding increasing U.S.-Japan military cooperation, the wars in Ukraine and Israel and the growing security threats in the Pacific by China and North Korea.
Per Jill Biden’s guidance, the theme of the dinner is “bounty of spring,” featuring decorations of cherry blossoms and peonies. Kishida announced that Japan will be gifting 250 cherry trees to the nation in celebration of the U.S.’s upcoming 250th birthday in 2026.
Guests will be served an upgraded version of a California roll made with house-cured salmon with shiso leaf tempura, dry-aged beef with morel mushrooms from Oregon with shishito pepper butter, and salted caramel pistachio cake and cherry ice cream.
The dinner will be capped with a performance by pop and rock singer-songwriter Paul Simon.
Among the Bay Area names on the White House invite list:
- Apple CEO Tim Cook and vice president Lisa Jackson
- Steve Westly, a former California state controller and venture capitalist, and his wife, Anita Yu Westly
- Former Olympic gold medalist and Hayward native Kristi Yamaguchi
- San Francisco native and Israel activist/adviser Susie Gelman and husband Michael Gelman
- Rene Haas, the Silicon Valley-based CEO of U.K. semiconductor and software design firm Arm Holdings.
- Stanford University alumnus William T. Freeman, now a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT
- Kent Walker, the president of global affairs of Google and Alphabet, who is accompanied by his wife, former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Diana Walsh
- Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, longtime business professor, now professor emerita, at UC Berkeley
- And of course, Oakland native Vice President Kamala Harris will be in attendance.