The Campaign-Trail Cookbook
I'm back. Sort of.
My dear readers:
I came back from parental leave in September 2023. What followed was a year-long sprint, followed by a couple additional months of turbo-sprinting as Election Day approached.
Now, Election Day has come and gone, and a new administration is coming in.
As I have been telling people lately, getting past Election Day is like crossing a marathon finish line, putting your hands on your knees, and squinching your eyes shut in relief, only to have a race official approach you:
“Congratulations!” he says. “Your 50-miler starts now.”
And then you cry until you vomit. Or, if you like, vomit until you cry.
At any rate. You may have noticed it’s been a while since I posted. And that is because I’m tired. I’m very tired. But I’ll be back eventually to do whatever it is I do here. Until then, here is a post I wrote during that final two-month crazed sprint and then didn’t publish.
I know a lot of people are feeling very serious right now. This piece is not serious. It is not analysis. Rather, I hope it’s joyful for you. Nothing better embodies the spirit of “This F**king Job,” I think, than a campaign-trail cookbook.
Danielle
Car Dinner a la Queen
INGREDIENTS:
1 RX Bar or other non-crispy bar-formed food
1 well-chilled carbonated water beverage (preferably, a Topo Chico or tallboy Spindrift)
1 warm day
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1. Arrive at campaign event. Place unopened beverage in console of car, which it turns out acts as a serviceable cooler in a pinch.
2. Place RX Bar in glove compartment.
3. Attend campaign event.
4. Return to car. A warm, pliable RX Bar and reasonably cool beverage are, together, a luxurious treat as you and your rental car creeeep along for 60 minutes to get out of the parking lot.
5. Bon appetit, you classy broad.
Desperation Aperitivo
INGREDIENTS:
1 hotel-room decaf coffee pouch
1 hotel-room coffee accessories tray
1 White House press pool trip where you are filling in and have no idea how this usually goes
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1. Arrive at hotel in the seeming middle of nowhere outside a major city, at 9:45 PM, because that is where the press pool put you.
2. Scan Google Maps for restaurants. There are none. There are, it appears, only golf courses on any side of you for 5+ miles.
3. Call room service. They tell you it will be 50 minutes until food is there. Place order.
4. Scan room for immediate calories. Spot in-room coffee-maker tray.
5. Prepare decaf coffee.
6. Empty every sugar and creamer packet into coffee until it is more sludge than beverage.
7. Calories!
Rally Sandwich Bait-n-Switch
INGREDIENTS:
Contents of one pre-rally grocery store sweep
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1. Gather your ingredients – go to local grocery store.
2. Reason to yourself that between line-waiting, opening speakers, speech, and getting out of parking lot, you will be at rally for 7 hours. Plan, therefore, for at least one meal and many hearty snacks.
3. Decide to be adventurous in your choices, because hey, this rally shit gets old.
4. Scan aisles. Weigh healthfulness of options. Weigh how much you want a little treat. Eventually settle for what you always buy: a few apples, a tin of wildly spicy/salty almonds, a box of RX Bars, a bar of chocolate.
5. As you make your way to the register, impulsively grab a sandwich from the deli. A real meal would be nice!
6. A few hours deep into the rally, realize that a four-hours-at-room-temperature turkey sandwich without condiments is not ideal. Trash the sandwich.
7. Sit at press tables, dejected. Look at rest of food. It is not a meal.
8. Hold wrapped RX bar in armpit or between thighs for 2 minutes to soften.
9. Remove from wrapper. Fold in half. This is your taco shell.
10. Place handful of sriracha almonds into taco shell. (OPTIONAL: Garnish with tiny bits of chocolate bar.)
11. Chomp, just as you notice the New York Times reporter staring, mortified.
12. “Sup, Posty?” you say to him through a mouthful of taco.
“I’m from the Times,” he says.
“Oh, and we ALL have to KNOW IT, don’t we?” you respond, flailing your arms dramatically.
13. Consider the tradeoff between making a solid joke and knowing that you are never getting a job at the Times.
Security Surprise (Variation 1)
3 apples
1 massive, $9 bottle of airport water
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1. Place all ingredients in your gear backpack.
2. Arrive at political rally. Go through press security line.
3. Will you get to keep your apples and water?
4. If security officer takes your water, ask if please you can keep it. Watch security officer have a stroke trying not to roll her/his eyes.
5. If they take your apples, say “OK! Well, you guys can eat them!” Watch security officer sigh and throw apples in trash.
6. If they give it all back to you: Surprise! It’s a great day for reporting!
Security Surprise (Variation 2)
1 economy-size box super-plus tampons
1 backpack
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1. Unpack all tampons into front pouch of your backpack.
2. Arrive at rally. Go through security line.
3. Watch officer open the pouch and encounter your bale of tampons. He looks at you.
4. Throughout this process, shuffle in place rapidly (OPTIONAL: flap hands impatiently) while making strained “c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon” noises.1
5) Surprise! You’ve made the officer’s day!
Airplane Post-Workout Sad-Girl Feast
INGREDIENTS:
1 RX Bar
2 Airplane wines
Several Kleenexes
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1. Run to your airplane. You are not late; you are a beautiful gazelle. A beautiful gazelle carrying a backpack full of sensitive audio gear and lithium batteries and bruised apples and RX bars and almond salt.
2. The rally went long. You are definitely late.
3. Consider: You are chasing a candidate across the country, cobbling together flights and rental cars and hotels in an effort to get to all of their rallies. And said rallies are often two hours outside of major cities, making every trip an epic, multi-leg journey featuring obstacles and riddles and, once or twice, hand-to-hand combat. Time gets short on these trips. You have slept 5 hours a night for multiple nights.
4. Consider: is this really necessary for democracy. Is it. Is it?
5. It is. Sure.
6. You make it to your gate. Board plane. Get to your seat. Close eyes. Stalwartly avoid all human interaction. Put on a gratitude meditation and repeat to yourself, “J-school kids would do this for free. J-school kids would do this for free.”
7. 30 minutes later, realize you are ravenous. Dig in backpack for a snack. Pull out an RX Bar. Feel rage. Rage that threatens to burst out of your chest like a glowing lava monster if you eat one more of these godforsaken leathery bars.
8. Look on RX Bar package for company address. Consider going there and taking an aluminum bat to their bar-making equipment.
9. By the time the flight attendant gets to you with their beverage-service cart, you are rage-sobbing.
10. Hold up RX Bar. Ask, through choking sobs: “What wine pairs best with the chocolate sea salt flavor?”
11. Flight attendant blinks. “Cabernet sauvignon.”
12. Tell them you’ll take two.
13. Drink both, in between chomps of RX Bar.
14. By God, they were right. It ain’t bad.
LINKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
What will Trump do on “Day One”? I talked with Mary Louise Kelly about it.
What is DOGE going to do? Unpacking what little we know about Elon and Vivek’s new agency/commission/something.
OK, but did men really give the election to Trump? No. It’s way more complicated.
How Barbie Lost the Presidency Again. I had forgotten until recently that I wrote this in 2020. I figured, hell, let’s share it.
YOUR OLD-INTERNET JOY FOR THE DAY: Pumpers. Pumpers like to pump. Pumpers need to pump.
Other acceptable responses to the officer include: (1) [lock eyes with officer, nod and smile] “I feel goooooood today!” (2) “Trump’s usually an hour or two late, right?” (3) “Bet that bomb-sniffing dog won’t stop THIS explosion.”
I love you, Danielle, 😉!
I really, really do‼️