Going visiting among heroes

James Barron and Colin Moynihan have an article in The New York Times about the president's visit to Engine Company 54 in New York:

For Firefighter Joseph Ceravolo, President Obama turned up the heat, so to speak, even before he sat down to an early lunch on Thursday. “The main reason I came here is because I heard the food is pretty good,” Mr. Obama said at the firehouse on Eighth Avenue at 48th Street, home to Engine Company 54, Ladder Company 4 and Battalion 9.
Firefighter Ceravolo, known as Chef around the station, cooked the president’s lunch with Firefighter John Fila. Would the meal measure up? Would the president ask for seconds, the firehouse equivalent of a four-star review? Would the president return to Washington and ask the White House kitchen to serve what he had had there? From what Firefighter Ceravolo and Firefighter Fila said after they had cleared away the dishes, the answer was maybe. “He looked like he liked everything,” Firefighter Ceravolo said after the president’s departure, though Firefighter Fila said Mr. Obama had loved the eggplant parmigiana, but had left the shrimp and the scallops untouched.
Firefighter Ceravolo, 48, arrived before dawn to prepare what may be his most famous menu ever. The Fire Department said he was a 21-year veteran who had spent his whole career at Engine Company 54, Ladder Company 4, where a wall of plaques commemorates fifteen firefighters who died on 9/11.
The president, accompanied by Salvatore J. Cassano, the fire commissioner, and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, examined the plaques as he walked through the firehouse. Mr. Obama also described to the firefighters the tension that he and others at the White House felt on Sunday night as they monitored the mission in which Osama bin Laden was killed.
The firefighters said they appreciated the symbolism of the visit and were grateful that the president had kept his promise to capture or kill Bin Laden. “A lot of us didn’t know if that time would ever come, but it did,” Firefighter Fila said. “It’s good to see a politician follow through on something.”
Edward S. Kilduff, the chief of department, said the president was “a wonderful guest. He put everybody at ease right away,” Chief Kilduff said, adding that Mr. Obama thanked the firefighters for their service before taking off his jacket and settling in for a long conversation. At one point it turned to baseball and the relative merits of the Mets, the Yankees, the White Sox and the Cubs.
“He was a really down-to-earth guy,” said Firefighter Ceravolo, who called the president’s visit “a really spectacular thing. The whole thing was great, just great.” He also deadpanned that “we are all invited to the White House for lunch. Just kidding,” he said a moment later.
But Firefighter Ceravolo declined, through a Fire Department spokesman, to provide any recipes. Maybe, the spokesman suggested, Firefighter Ceravolo did not want to reveal any secret ingredients.