ABOUT

These dishes aren’t left or right; they’re wrong.

Cookin’ with Congress started with a discovery at my girlfriend’s grandmother’s house. Sitting in her rocking chair, twirling her feet around at age 90, she suddenly pulled out an old 1989 South Dakota Bicentennial Cookbook, handed it to me and said, “isn’t this a trip?”

The infamous South Dakota Centennial Cookbook

I was in love. Real recipes submitted by real senators, congresspeople, mayors, governors and even the President of the United States. And they were all…horrible.

Inspired by that initial disgust, I’m now on a mission to recreate and taste every strange recipe from a politician: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Will I get sick?

Maybe.

Will I learn something about America along the way?

Probably.

Will it prove the need for term limits?

Definitely.

As to why this is my destiny: I’m a writer, storyteller and home chef with a professional mixology background and an enormous political cookbook collection, but mostly, when I was six years old I wanted to be President of the United States and a chef at the same time. So here we are.

—Bennett Rea