This Is What Kamala Harris Really Eats

Kamala Harris is a very busy woman — California senator, former presidential candidate, and now Joe Biden's vice president. She will go down in history as the first woman, not to mention the second person of color (and the first one of mixed Asian descent) to occupy one of the top positions in the White House. While Harris has proved that a woman's place is in the House, in the Senate, and in the West Wing, she's also equally at home in the kitchen since cooking is one of her favorite hobbies.

Glamour reveals that Harris learned to cook as a child, and her earliest specialty, perfected when she was in third grade, was scrambled eggs topped with cut-out cheese smiley faces. According to Politico, Harris has moved far beyond such easy fare now, regularly bookmarking recipes from The New York Times cooking section and working her way through Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food.

One of Harris' favorite dinners is a roast chicken which, she told Glamour, can last for three meals. She first spreads the chicken with a mix of chopped herbs, lemon zest, minced garlic, salt, and pepper, then trusses the bird and lets it sit for at least 24 hours in the fridge as she says this results in crispier skin. She then rubs the chicken with oil or butter, then slow roasts it at 325 degrees for a few hours. She makes a sauce of the drippings and serves the sauced-up chicken for dinner.

Leftovers get repurposed as chicken salad for a second meal, but the frugal Harris isn't done with that chicken yet. The carcass goes into a pot of water with carrots, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, and maybe some fresh parsley, and it simmers on the stovetop for about four hours or so. Strained, it makes what Harris calls "the most amazing chicken broth," which she uses to make a soup (she mentions split pea) for yet one more meal.

Sometimes Harris' food choices and her politics come into conflict, but she is honest enough to admit it and to try to do the right thing despite her personal preferences. As Newsweek reports, Harris spoke at a climate change town hall meeting last September at which she made the confession, "I love cheeseburgers" before going on to advocate, nonetheless, for federally-mandated limits on the production of red meat. Although it's obviously going to hurt her just as much as it hurts the rest of us, Harris says that we, as a nation, must commit to establishing healthier eating habits.

While she isn't advocating a vegan diet for everyone (herself included), Harris does say we need to learn moderation. She also reminds everyone that reducing our red meat consumption isn't something we must do for the good of our arteries alone, but for the sake of the planet, and suggests the government needs to play more of a role in "educat[ing us] about the effect of our eating habits on our environment."

When fellow senator Mark Warner, a veteran Democrat from Virginia, decided to share a video that showed him making a tuna melt, Harris was shocked — absolutely shocked — at his substandard technique. For starters, he made the rookie mistake of using way too much mayo in his tuna salad, and he didn't even drain the tuna, making his salad a watery mess. What's more, he committed the ultimate cooking apostasy of renouncing the pan-grilling so necessary to any grilled cheese variant (as the tuna melt could be considered) in favor of microwaving his sandwich.

In response to this caught-on-video sandwich train wreck, Harris immediately tweeted, "Mark—we need to talk. Call. Please." Warner played along, and the two released an Instagram video (via YouTube) later that same day in which she schooled him on the art of the well-constructed tuna melt. It begins with well-drained tuna, includes chopped celery and red onion, only contains a moderate amount of mayo, and also incorporates Dijon mustard, fresh parsley, a tiny bit of salt, and a squeeze of lemon juice. The tuna melt is then put together using sliced cheddar, and the sandwich is browned in a skillet with melted butter. Warner seemed a bit skeptical at some of her inclusions (particularly the mustard, which he called "definitely Northern California,"), but he seemed to accept the tutorial in good spirits, and even asked for her advice on his next project: a bologna sandwich.

As Iowa is traditionally the first state to hold a presidential caucus, all of the candidates tend to spend a lot of time there in the months prior to this contest, and Harris was no exception. Along with most of the other Democratic candidates, she visited the Iowa State Fair in August 2019, where The New York Times reveals that she shared her favorite pork chop seasonings (Ancho chiles, minced garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper).

A few months later, however, Harris paid another visit to the Hawkeye State where she visited a 17-year-old young woman who may be one of her biggest fans. Together the two baked up a batch of cookies from a recipe passed down from the girl's grandmother, the super-sized "Monster Cookies." According to a YouTube video Harris posted, these flourless cookies contain peanut butter, oatmeal, and M&Ms, and they seem to taste pretty amazing, too.

Mindy Kaling may be the nation's best-known Indian American celebrity, and Kamala Harris is one of the most prominent Americans of Indian descent in the realm of politics. When the two of them got together last year at Kaling's place, it was only natural for the two of them to bond over preparing an Indian dish, masala dosa (via YouTube). This traditional south Indian food (both Kaling and Harris have origins in the south of India) involves a two-step process. First Kaling and Harris made the dosas, which are pancake made of rice, black lentils, and chickpeas, and then they stuffed these with a spicy filling made of potatoes, onions, and peas.

When they finished cooking and got to the eating part, Kaling said she would only give the dish "a hard B minus," and admitted to being very nervous cooking for Harris. Harris, on her part, said "the flavor is very nice," and told Kaling she was "such a good cook." Kaling went on to say she was both honored and excited to have the opportunity to vote for Harris and offered to come and cook her a meal in the White House, which may yet come to pass. Stay tuned, we'll try to share all the details if it does.