“How to Build Your Own Country,” a nonfiction children’s book by Karen Fredericks, an illustrator who lives in Northwest, East Hampton, and Valerie Wyatt, has won a 2010 Silver Birch Award from the Ontario Library Association, it was announced last week.

    Published by Kids Can Press, the book, which also won a Canadian Children’s Literature Roundtable information award, is part of a series designed to teach children about world events and inspire them to be better global citizens, according to the publisher’s Web site. The interactive book offers kids the “expertise and advice they’ll need to plant their flag in the backyard, in the bedroom, or online,” in topics ranging from history to government to geography.

    The award was the result of votes cast by thousands of young readers in grades three through six, a release said. Ms. Fredericks illustrated the book under the name Fred Rix.

    On Saturday and Sunday, Book­Hampton is celebrating spring with Mayhem, a weekend festival of mysteries and mystery writers, ranging from old childhood favorites to the newest — dare we say it? — cutting-edge whodunits, featuring well-known authors reading from, or talking about, their works.

    On Saturday at 10 a.m in the East Hampton store, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, a personality on “The Real Housewives of New York City” and the author of “In the Spirit of the Hamptons,” will host a marathon reading of Carolyn Keene’s timeless Nancy Drew mystery “The Secret of the Old Clock.” Any and all readers under the age of 16 will be invited to step up and join in to read for a few paragraphs. The event will be taped for future broadcast.

    At 2 p.m. Saturday, also in East Hampton, Linda Fairstein, a former assistant district attorney and chief of New York City’s sex crimes unit, will be BookHampton’s guest author in the “Conversations With” series. Ms. Fair­stein has written several best-selling novels featuring Alexandra Cooper, an intrepid prosecutor, that are set at New York City landmarks. Her talk will focus on “The City as Character.” Her latest book, “Silent Mercy,” features churches around Manhattan, including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights.

    In the Southampton store at 2 p.m., junior detectives are again asked to join Ms. Killoren Bensimon as she explores and tapes some classic young-reader favorites: “Nate the Great,” “Cam Jansen,” and “Encylopedia Brown.” Everyone under 10 years old is invited to read a chapter, even if a little help from an older sibling or parent is needed.

    For those who can handle a little more gore between the covers, BookHampton in Sag Harbor will offer a table of tough guys at 3 p.m. Saturday: Lorenzo Carcaterra (“Sleepers”), Kenneth Wishnia (“The Fifth Servant”), Justin Evans (“The White Devil”), Wallace Stroby (“Cold Shot to the Heart”), Reed Farrel Coleman (“Innocent Monster”), and Michael Atkinson, a longtime film critic and author of the “Hemingway” series, will discuss “Talk the Talk and Write the Walk: The How-to of a Thriller.”

    Quick cut back to the East Hampton store at 4 p.m., where Ms. Fairstein will introduce three new mystery writers: Karen Bergreen, the author of “Following Polly,” Hilary Davidson with “The Damage Done,” and Cara Hoffman, whose book is “So Much Pretty.” They will talk about their writing and read some excerpts.

    Saturday’s mayhem comes to a chilling end at Guild Hall at 8 p.m., when Adam Ross, author of “Mr. Peanut,” will introduce a free screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic creeper “Rear Window,” starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. Mr. Ross, whose book proves he is an expert on all things Hitchcockian, will discuss the esteemed director before the screening.

    On Sunday at the Sag Harbor store, Nelson DeMille, a well-known mystery author who frequently sets his novels on Long Island, will be on hand for an interview celebrating the publication of his new book, “The Rich and the Dead.” Mr. DeMille will be available to sign copies of the book and will also answer questions.

    More information about any of these events can be had by calling Book­Hampton at 324-4939.

    “Book Love” by the editors Bill Henderson and James Charlton looks like a sweet gift book, from its title to the baby blue of its cover, from that cover’s image of two pages curving together to form a glowing heart to the volume’s diminutive 5 1/2-by-7 1/2-inch size and 130 whimsically illustrated pages.

    Don’t be fooled. From his bunker in Springs Mr. Henderson has enthusiastically loaded his introduction with mortar shells targeting the encroachment of the digital book, which he likens to an unwanted weed or a voracious carp. Among the salvos: In digital distraction we’re losing our ability to read at length and with true comprehension; thought itself may be on its way out. In thrall to technological innovation, we are unwittingly unraveling the mind-advances made since the Renaissance (he cites Nicholas Carr in this passage).

    One round zeroes in on the supposed environmental benefits of the proliferation of e-readers like the Kindle: the saving of trees. But what about recycled paper? And as the Western states bumper sticker says, “If it can’t be grown, it’s gotta be mined.” In the case of the digital reader, that would be metals, often from Africa, with all the problems of politics and exploitation that implies.

    But then “Book Love” moves on to its more than 600 quotations, in a trinity of groupings: Books, Readers, Writers. Sticking to the theme of Mr. Henderson’s introduction, here’s Nicholson Baker — the author of “Double Fold,” which famously excoriated libraries for dumping old newspapers in the name of nothing more than freeing up some storage space — on the book as object: “It is rectangular and thick, heavy enough to stop a bullet or press a leaf flat. It will, you think, never let you through. And then you begin to lean into it . . . and you’re in. You’re in the book.”

    This one’s published by, who else, Mr. Henderson’s own Pushcart Press and sells for $15.50.    

    Asked to describe the impossible, one might suggest that an expert fairly describe the historic, legal, and practical processes that define his or her field in just over 100 pages. Harder still if the result must be readable to the uninitiated while offering a point of view and advice to fellow practitioners.

    Peter M. Wolf — a New Orleans native with long connections to both East Hampton and Manhattan — has taken his run at the impossible and come as close as anyone to bridging the divide. That he has done so while covering land use planning says more than a little bit about his crisp writing and his ability to convey the importance of his practice.

    “Land Use and Abuse in America: A Call to Action” is more guidebook than textbook. And like a good guide, it offers value and insight for those who may never engage the subject as well as for old hands. Surely, in order to embrace Mr. Wolf’s work, a reader must have some interest in how our communities have come to be as they are. And while “What the Dog Saw” is more likely to be spotted on Main Beach, the apres-sun cocktail conversation, at least in some circles, may have more in common with Mr. Wolf’s text than Nelson DeMille’s latest paperback. At least, let’s hope so.

    So how can a 7-Eleven open in Montauk (or Des Moines)? By what authority can a planning board deny a second-story apartment (or 27 condos on a dairy farm)? How can farmland be saved in Amagansett (or Humboldt County)? And what the heck is an E.I.S.?

    The context and the calculus for most scenarios and the attendant nomenclature are here. And, accordingly, Mr. Wolf’s work should be required reading for aspiring professionals (land planners, architects, developers, and preservationists), as well as elected officials and appointed planning and zoning board members. Similarly, any neighbor of a development project in need of solid facts and a map through the seemingly arcane process of land use decision-making will benefit.

    Mr. Wolf delivers the perfect dose of relevant research: eminent domain in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Kelo v. City of New London decision, six billion gallons of municipal drinking water leaking from U.S. pipes each day, China’s soon-to-be 8,000 miles of true high-speed rail compared to a projected 84 miles set to come online in Florida in 2014. The reader is never buried in statistics or leery of how the numbers are represented. In each case, the data buoy the chapter in which they are wrapped.

“Land Use and Abuse

in America”

Peter M. Wolf

Xlibris, $19.99

    Still, I sense there is more passion to Mr. Wolf’s view of our landscape than is shared on the page. His work walks us to the edge of the title’s “call to action” just as the reader runs out of pages. There are glimpses of his deeply held opinions, as when he writes fleetingly about the false notion that preserving land cripples a community’s tax base. Or when, as a New Orleanian, he points not to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita but to failed land use planning as the cause of so much suffering and extraordinary expense.

    Mr. Wolf clearly knows how our systems work across many levels of government and that each town and village, wetland, zoning board, and developer is distinct.

    Through his writing, one senses that Mr. Wolf is an optimist. The two — clear vision and optimism — form a compelling platform for a call to action. Because this book is so well written and informative in a field where so many are not, my hope is that Mr. Wolf is already at work on a companion piece in which there will be no doubt as to whether he has held back a bit in describing the abuse of our natural systems.

—

    Peter M. Wolf, the founder and chairman of the Thomas Moran Trust, runs Peter Wolf Associates, an investment management firm. He was an adjunct professor in the School of Architecture at Cooper Union for 16 years and a chairman of the board of fellows of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York.

    Jeremy D. Samuelson of East Hampton is an environmental advocate with the Group for the East End, a nonprofit land use and conservation organization founded in 1972. He is a former land planner and planning and zoning reporter for The Star, and has written about environmental issues for The New York Times.

By Dan Giancola

    Two recently published poetry books by East Hampton Town residents merit the attention of serious poets and casual readers alike. Naomi Lazard’s “Ordinances,” winner of the 2010 ReBound Prize (Seven Kitchens Press, $7), and Fran Castan’s “Venice: City That Paints Itself” (Canio’s Editions, $30, with paintings by her husband, Lewis Zacks) should find their way into the collection of any poetry lover.

    Ms. Lazard’s chapbook is of interest primarily because of her rendering of voice. The persona of these poems appears to be an anonymous author on a government or institutional payroll. The employee’s voice is rigidly depersonalized and never questions the commands articulated for readers. The voice brims with certainty and confidence; it is the voice arising from the arrogance of power that denies responsibility for its orders and actions, the voice that can acknowledge no wrong on its own part.

    You might recognize it. It seems a conflation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Hal, Jose Saramago’s canned government instructions in “Blindness,” and W.H. Auden’s epitaph author in “The Unknown Citizen.” This public relations voice is intelligent but devoid of humanity. The carefully crafted tone of the poems, therefore, is one of sinister banality, of malevolent benevolence:

It is not our responsibility

that you don’t like your co-workers

and they don’t like you.

Nobody is here to be liked.

You must do the best you can

under the circumstances.

We try to make them better for you.

(“Ordinance on Employment”)

    Or:

Instead of the item you ordered

we are sending you something else.

It is not the same thing,

nor is it a reasonable facsimile.

It is what we have in stock,

the very best we can offer.

(“In Answer to Your Query”)

    In both examples the patriarchal voice attempts to console, but this consolation is chilling rather than cheering. The voice insists it knows better than you what is good for you. It is a voice, unfortunately, too often heard today in those institutions that seek to inform and control, that present choices where none really exist, that seem to offer freedom while enslaving us. This is the voice of modern bureaucracy that has infiltrated our daily lives.

    A book of 80 pages of poems written in this voice would have been too much. But in this chapbook of 19 poems in 26 pages, Ms. Lazard provides just enough of it to remind us that an authority’s power can be both surreal and infantilizing.

    These “Ordinances” are too ominous to be beautiful. But they are wise and useful. We need these poems today, perhaps more so than when they were last published, in that Orwellian year of 1984.

    On the other hand, Fran Castan’s lyric poems in “Venice” focus on time’s continuity and circularity reflected in canals, caught in the resounding notes of a gondolier’s song. Light and water infuse these poems and act as a form of imagination, transforming what they touch. These poems discover eternity in Venice, a timelessness that reminds us of our own mortality but salves that knowledge with the promise of immortality flickering in the scintillating light that bathes the water and washes Venetian facades.

    The past is omnipresent in these poems. The figures of Il Tintoretto, Puccini and Pavarotti, Chopin and Vivaldi, and the poet’s ancestors are muses for Ms. Castan’s meditations. For example, after seeing a rat on a stairway, the speaker of “Transients” says, “I scale the steps two at a time, / The way ancestors must have leapt over nests of rats / And I laugh to think I am urged on / By instinctive wisdom they bequeathed me / In this body they cradled into being — vibrant body / They made over thousands of years —”

    Here the ages are diminished; time vanishes as past and present are connected in the poem’s persona.

    This happens again in “The Composition of Paint.” The artists of the past, poisoned by the elements comprising their paints, are imagined returning, “Each cell . . . / will rise again as a gem / Painted back into light / Traveling now to the future / Hand of a new master.”

    Many of Ms. Castan’s images are startlingly fresh and limpid. A heel is described as “shaped like the doge’s hat,” a shadow is thrown “like black net stockings,” and breath, entering a chest, “plays the intercostals like an accordion.” This collection brims with effective figures such as these, and Ms. Castan creates a lovely, soothing music to carry them along, particularly in lines such as these that begin “Soliloquy on a Quay of the Zattere”:

Water laps the pilings,

A breeze luffs the umbrella,

An orange butterfly alights

On a cup of steamed milk

Alluring as a peony.

    The music of this collection never jangles or seems other than perfectly pitched.

    “Venice: City That Paints Itself,” it must be noted, is a gorgeous edition, and the paintings by Lewis Zacks are beautifully reproduced. The poems and paintings wonderfully complement one another. Together, they capture the waters of Venice swollen with impressionistic lights and remind us that the past is always here with us now.

—

    Naomi Lazard has had poems published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Paris Review. She is a co-founder of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

    Fran Castan is the author of “The Widow’s Quilt.” Her work has appeared in Poetry and Ms. magazine.

    Dan Giancola’s volumes of poems include “Part Mirth, Part Murder.” A professor of English at Suffolk Community College, he lives in Mastic.

When is the last time you had a vegetable puree? Have you ever made one? And how long has it been since you saw one on a menu? I’m not talking about mashed potatoes; I’m talking about carrots, celery root, beets, and cauliflower.

After mama’s milk and formula, we all begin our lives with pureed foods. When we are on the back nine of life, we may end our lives with pureed foods. That is not what I am talking about! I am talking about velvety, sophisticated, rich, and elegant purees, smooth and full of flavor and color, created to match their accompanying dishes. For instance, a cauliflower, apple, and curry puree paired with a crispy-skinned magret duck breast; beets with jalapenos and mint to go with roast pork tenderloin, or a potato puree with fruity olive oil and chopped black olives alongside a piece of fried fish.

Vegetable purees are the alpaca blanket, the cashmere sweater, of winter foods. They are comforting, classy, and elegant. The French have always adored them, and Southerners seem to like them, too, maybe because most vegetables cooked Southern-style are so overcooked they’re one step away from a puree anyway.

The late, great lifestyle guru and cookbook author Lee Bailey devoted an entire chapter to vegetable purees in his “Good Parties” cookbook, published in 1986. The 1980s were a time when vegetable purees were popular, and also the, ’70s, when nouvelle cuisine was all the rage. This was an era when French chefs such as Roger Vergé, Paul Bocuse, and Jean and Pierre Troisgros began to lighten the traditionally heavy cream, butter, and flour-laden sauces and dishes, and to concentrate and simplify flavors.

A lot of chefs make vegetable purees to use as building blocks for other dishes, or to be the colorful swoosh on the plate under your protein. David Bouley, the New York chef, makes a red wine shallot puree that becomes the secret ingredient in many of his dishes.

One of the reasons I love making vegetable purees is that they can be made way ahead of time for a dinner party and they really are foolproof. They can also be as virtuous or as rich as you wish. Another reason I love making them is to surprise friends who thought they didn’t like them. Every time I serve Daniel Boulud’s cauliflower puree, or Amanda Hesser’s “Mr. Latte’s” pea and watercress puree, people ask for the recipes. I have shared the Boulud recipe here before, so I will give an abbreviated version this time. The Amanda Hesser/Mr. Latte recipe is from an old column she wrote about the first time he cooked for her. It is a menu so safe, so WASPy, so a-cross-between-nursery-and-country-club fare that I serve it often to guests who may not be foodies or may have food issues. Yes, it involves boneless, skinned white-meat chicken and mayonnaise, and no crunch, garlic, or onions. And the guests always rave about the pea-watercress puree.

If you think you are not a puree fan, think again. I’ll bet you like hummus, pesto, refried beans, guacamole, and cream of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich, right? So you should give vegetable purees a chance. (Next I will convert you to aspics, another old-school, almost-obsolete creation that can be wonderful.)

A puree can focus on flavor of one vegetable, like carrots, or enhance and layer them, like celery root with potatoes, pear with kohlrabi, or leeks with butternut squash. Also keep the color wheel in mind. Carrots and broccoli may be tasty side by side, but puree them together and you’ll get an Army green-khaki kaka that will not convert your friends and family to vegetable purees!

As far as cooking methods, I like to steam whenever possible, rather than boil. This goes for carrots, green beans, and cauliflower. You could also roast and peel such vegetables as onions, beets, garlic, and shallots. For pureeing, you can use a blender, food processor, immersion blender, or Vitamix. (Just remember that potatoes should be mashed, not pureed, as this will make them gluey.) Don’t be shy with the salt and pepper. 

Lastly, how rich do you want your puree to be? I do add a few tablespoons of butter to a pea puree and cream to a cauliflower puree but a little bit goes a long way. Potatoes and cooked rice can also serve as thickeners. You can extend the puree into a soup by thinning it with an appropriate stock, milk, or cream. 

My diet is mostly whole grains and vegetables, not a lot of meat. So maybe that’s why I justify making my constant repertoire of vegetables occasionally a little bit naughty, and by that I mean lots of gruyere cheese on a zucchini, tomato, onion tian, or a big bunch of leeks baked with heavy cream. 

Salads are varied, crunchy, and omnipresent at my table, green beans are either al dente or Szechuan-style. Eggplant gets miso. Brussels sprouts get pancetta, garlic, and pecorino. Shredded raw carrots get cumin and lemon juice. In other words, I lean towards aggressively savory additions, international flavors, and variety. But sometimes Yotam Ottolenghi, David Chang, and the allium family don’t belong at the dinner table and Audrey Hepburn does.

Try your hand at some sophisticated yet simple purees. You will be delightfully surprised. And I was kidding about the aspics. . . .

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

This Week at the Eagle

The featured artist at Wednesday’s A Night Out With event, a collaboration between the Golden Eagle Studio and Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton, will be Perry Burns, a painter and photographer. The evening starts with a hands-on workshop at 5:30 at the Golden Eagle on North Main Street and continues later with a two-course dinner at the restaurant next door. The cost is $75 and includes the art presentation and workshop, dinner, tax, and tip. Advance registration is on the store’s website; participants have until noon on Monday to register.

Books and Wine

Park Place Wines and Liquors in East Hampton and BookHampton are teaming up to hold the first in a monthly series of wine tastings and book discussions this evening at 5:30 at the wine store. Laura Donnelly, The Star’s food editor, will discuss her favorite recipes from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook, “Cook Like a Pro.” Discounts will be offered on the book and wines. Reservations are required, and can be had by calling Park Place. 

Dockside Is Back

The Dockside Bar and Grill in Sag Harbor has reopened, and is serving lunch and dinner Thursday through Monday. 

Sold Out

Tickets have sold out for the Peconic Land Trust’s spring Long Island Grown lecture series, the annual event featuring talks by East End farmers and food producers moderated by The Star’s Laura Donnelly.

Hawaiian Noodles

The Hamptons Hawaiian Saimin Shop, a pop-up restaurant, is operating out of Dopo la Spiaggia in Sag Harbor on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saimin is a Hawaiian take on Japanese ramen. The menu features saimin bowls such as chicken, vegetable, and spicy pork for $17, and offers a build-your-own option for $15. The latter includes a choice of noodle (wheat egg or gluten-free), broth (chicken, mushroom, shrimp, pork, or vegetable), and up to three toppings (including proteins such as shrimp, egg, and Spam, and vegetables such as seaweed and green onions). An additional topping is $4 for a protein and $2 for a vegetable. Also offered is a vegan burger made with shiitake mushrooms, black beans, lentils, and quinoa for $15.

Rowdy and the Oscars

The annual Oscars contest has begun at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton. Diners will receive a ballot along with their check, and those who want to participate can fill out their Oscar picks and hand the ballot to a restaurant staffer. The person who chooses the most correct winners —  which will be revealed during the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 24 — will receive a $50 gift certificate and two movie vouchers. In the case of a tie, a drawing will be held.

Gluten-Free Soup

The Golden Pear Cafe now has an expanded selection of gluten-free soups. The current menu includes chicken vegetable, Manhattan clam chowder, butternut squash and apple, vegetable and kale, split pea with ham, white bean and kale, and roasted cauliflower. A 12-ounce serving is $7.35, and a 16-ounce one is $8.25. A quart, which costs $12.99, can be ordered in advance by calling the cafes.

Whole Pig Dinner

Almond in Bridgehampton will hold a five-course whole pig dinner with wines from Macari Vineyards on Feb. 22 at 7. The menu features dishes such as pork leg confit and cheese ravioli with a spicy ragout. The cost is $65, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are by calling the restaurant.

Valentine’s Day

The Springs Tavern has a three-course prix fixe dinner special this evening. The menu features entrees such as strip steak and lobster, grilled salmon, and pasta primavera. The cost is $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are recommended.

Smokin’ Wolf Hiatus

Smokin’ Wolf in East Hampton will close for a winter vacation starting on Feb. 23. 

There are so many people running for president in 2020 that since I began writing this, two more people declared their candidacy (Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar) and by the time this is printed, no doubt several more will have stepped into the race. Or out of it. I’m not so much interested in politics as I am in what the candidates’ (and our potential next president) like to eat. Because, after all, you are what you eat.

We are already well aware of what Mr. Trump’s chosen diet consists of: cherry vanilla ice cream, meatloaf, diet Coke, fast food, and well-done steaks.

According to Ballotpedia, as of Feb. 1, 2019, there were 521 candidates who filed with the Federal Elections Commission to run in 2020. Granted, some of these people filed as far back as 1998. There are 175 Democrats, 70 Republicans, 19 Libertarians, and 13 Green Party candidates. I think some of these people have forgotten they filed, like Kanye Deez Nutz West. And I think one fellow, Adrian J. Cox of Alabama, was entered by his mom the day he was born. Some favorite foods of Alabama, by the way, are peaches and peanuts, pecan pie, pulled pork barbecue, and banana pudding. The kind of banana pudding that you make with instant vanilla pudding and Nilla Vanilla Wafers.

Again, there are way too many candidates to name, so we will just touch on a few. These are the states represented by current Democratic candidates: Maryland, Montana, Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Delaware, Vermont, California, Oregon, and Washington. Some candidates are officially running, some have formed “exploratory” committees, some have started raising money, some just pretend they like to visit Iowa and sip bottled beer like regular Joes and Janes, and some are not running yet but people want them to. 

 As far as interesting backgrounds we have Kamala Harris, whose parents are Jamaican and Tamil Indian, so that could make for some delicious and diverse cooking in the White House. Ms. Harris is adept at Indian cooking, loves Alice Waters and Marcella Hazan, and last summer cooked swordfish with cardamom, cumin, garlic, and lemon for her pescatarian daughter. Her day usually begins with a “Raisin Bran-type” cereal with almond milk and ends with chamomile tea. Her New Year’s resolution for 2019 is to cook more, especially Sunday family dinners.

There is plenty of New York representation with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Eric Holder, and Michael Bloomberg, so that could bring New York City classics like bagels, pizza, cheesecake, and pastrami to the White House. Bring some Brioschi, too! Ms. Gillibrand would no doubt bring her food safety experience and concerns with her. She enjoys cooking carrot-ginger-squash soup, baking  pies, and chocolate banana bread sweetened with dried fruits. 

Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio and former Housing and Urban Development secretary, was raised in Texas by his Mexican grandmother, so that could mean some delicious south-of-the-border and Tex-Mex fare like camarones à la diabla, chiles rellenos, mole poblano, flautas, and flan. Beto O’Rourke, another Texan, likes Whataburger, Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, cheese on his burgers even though he’s lactose intolerant, and enjoys playing doughnut roulette with his staff. The winner of the roulette gets to choose the doughnut flavor for all to enjoy. Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru and author, is also from Texas but it’s hard to comprehend her food preferences in spite of her book on weight loss and spiritual lessons. 

Pete Buttigieg is the youngest candidate, a millennial from Indiana. I asked some millennial acquaintances what the ultimate millennial food would be and one said “fusion cooking. Fusion anything, even when it doesn’t work.” The other millennial said “Flamin’ Hot Cheeto Asteroids.” If Indiana is known for any foods it may well be pork tenderloin sandwiches, Van Camp’s baked beans, Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn, and Wonder Bread. Oh, well.

Maryland and Virginia have a few potential candidates, so that could mean some Chesapeake Bay blue crabs would show up at state dinners along with peanut soup and country ham biscuits. If any Pacific Northwesterners like Jeff Merkley (Oregon) or Jay Inslee (Washington) win the election we could see lots of salmon, apples, marionberry pies, and Beecher’s and Tillamook cheeses at the White House. The California candidate (besides Kamala Harris) Eric Swalwell might bring a taste for sourdough bread, Dungeness crab, and avocados.

Amy Klobuchar, the senior senator from Minnesota, does not have a particularly sterling record when it comes to food issues, school lunch contents, and farming practices, nor is Minnesota known for particularly healthy food. The state is known for the Juicy Lucy, a hamburger seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and American cheese inside the beef patty. The iconic dish of Minnesota is called “hotdish.” One word “hotdish.” The senator’s “recipe” can be found at the end of this column. I put quotes around “recipe” because it is the same recipe as most websites and cans of vegetables and soup that encourage the preparation of this thing. Hotdish is basically ground meat, a can of vegetables, a can of cream of mushroom soup, some cheese, and topped with Tater Tots. I kid you not!

From Hawaii we have Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who is a Samoan-American and the first practicing Hindu in the U.S. Congress. We learned from President Barack Obama that shave ice is a favorite treat from the islands, along with poke, poi, and lau lau. Shave ice is fluffy, fluffy ground ice topped with flavored syrups and perhaps a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk. Poke is cubed raw fish, sometimes marinated with soy sauce, sea salt, seaweed, Maui onions, and/or lime juice. Poi is an acquired taste. It’s basically a thick paste made from taro root. Lau lau is made with the taro leaves, which are wrapped around pork, chicken, or fish and then cooked in an underground hot rock oven for hours. 

Truly, the number of people running (or potentially running) is astonishing. What is refreshing is the diversity and variety of candidates and therefore also the food possibilities that could be served at the White House in 2021.

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE