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October 8, 2008 4:47:30 AM CDT

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Michelle Wins Bakeoff, But Who Cares?

Posted Jul 25, 08 6:22 PM CDT in Politics,  Arts & Living,  Glossies 

(Newser) – In an age when pretty much nobody bakes anything, Laura Shapiro wonders in Gourmet, why do Americans still expect would-be First Ladies to whip out cookie recipes for the public’s pleasure? Shapiro looks at the recipes submitted by Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama for a Yankee contest—and gives Obama’s homey apple cobbler the decisive nod.

"It’s so resolutely down-home that you expect to see it emerge from your printer on a splattered index card,” writes Shapiro, who found McCain’s cookie recipe was lifted from Quaker Oats (but turned out fine). But why should we expect candidates’ wives to bake at all? Shapiro suggests it might be "because we’re always hoping that food will tell us the truth about people who are very good at staying hidden.”

Source Gourmet

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"The notion that potential first ladies must demonstrate a close, personal relationship with the kitchen has been strangely hard to shake," Laura Shapiro writes in Gourmet.   (AP Photo)
Cindy McCain's cookie recipe was swiped from Quaker Oats, Laura Shapiro writes in Gourmet, but turned out just fine%u2014"very sweet and very mushy, perfect for toddlers and geriatrics."   (AP Photo)
Cindy McCain reacts as she prepares to introduce her husband, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., during a campaign stop in Hudson, Wis., Friday, July 11, 2008.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Of a recipe from the wife of Democrat Barack Obama, a Gourmet writer finds "Michelle%u2019s cobbler is a honest, homemade version of a commercial original. I%u2019m still pondering the implications."   (AP Photo)
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Obama 2008  • McCain 2008  • Michelle Obama  • Cindy McCain  • first lady  • baking


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