FOOD Section Bias: Washington Post Fawns Over Kamala's 'Cooking Wisdom'

August 12th, 2024 6:17 AM

It’s always eye-opening when The Washington Post is so liberally biased that you’ll find it in their Food section! Writer Emily Heil – who used to gush over Michelle Obama as a Post gossip columnist – penned this sugary piece: “Kamala Harris’s cooking wisdom: 7 tips from her kitchen videos.”

This is a bit odd, since Harris hasn’t made a cooking video in four years. But any opportunity for fawning can’t be missed. Heil starts off with “chef and humanitarian Jose Andres,” a Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton donor. Heil began:

“I’m just a home cook,” Vice President Harris says in one of the videos posted on her YouTube page in which she prepares food with famous chefs and regular folks alike. That line, from a 2020 video, came in response to chef and humanitarian José Andrés telling her that she has a “big reputation ... as a chef,” a designation she first earned for a viral pandemic-era video in which she schooled Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) on the finer points of tuna-sandwich making (after her colleague’s chaotic and sloppy sandwich horrified the internet).

Harris, now the likely Democratic presidential nominee, long ago proved that politics and cooking can mix. And despite her modesty, the culinary prowess that Harris displays in the videos — including an impressive one-handed egg-crack and deft knife skills — says otherwise.

Liberal journalists really prove their utility by touting a national politician's modesty as genuine.

One can guess that Emily Heil is not a cook, because she’s dazzled that Kamala uses bacon “as a flavor” and puts mayonnaise on the outside of grilled cheese sandwiches, which is not a mysterious cooking hack at all. Heil touts her as a Woman of the People because she professes to like Miracle Whip and fried bologna.

“Harris’s cooking videos are more than political stunts,” Heil proclaimed, which is humorous, since the cooking videos are clearly meant to “humanize” her for voters.

But her point was she also chats about policy on the cooking videos with her favorite Democrat chefs (there’s always Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio for celebrity vibes).

Against the backdrop of their kitchens, Harris dove into pandemic restaurant relief with Tom Colicchio, and hunger and food-insecurity policies with Andrés. She talked about her own Indian heritage with [actress Mindy] Kaling as the two chopped and sauteed. “People have these ... misconceptions about who Indians are,” she said.

She bonded with a supporter over a butter-stained family cookie recipe. And she discussed breaking gender barriers after preparing flapjacks.

“I eat ‘no’ for breakfast,” she said in the latter video, as she dug into the meal she had just made. “And apple pancakes with some bacon.”

Don't get me wrong, knowing how to cook is a cool skill, and it beats feminists like Hillary Clinton exposing themselves of thinking that's a skill for housewives, not career women. But everything about these videos is political, which is why the Post is trying to reintroduce them as one of many, many puff pieces for the general-election campaign. 

PS: Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has thoughts about mocking Kamala's cooking.