As Kamala Harris held her first presidential campaign rally, Charlee Nessel was sipping a light margarita at one of the vice president's favorite Los Angeles restaurants: El Cholo in Santa Monica.
Nessel, a regular visitor, was pleased to learn that Harris often stops by the Wilshire Boulevard location when she's in town. Could that influence Nessel's vote in November?
“If we have similar tastes in food … that would be a starting point,” said Nessel, a real estate agent.
But, he said, there was one caveat: “I'd like to know if he ordered something authentic or strange.”
Food has long been a part of politics. It can reveal a bit of personality and connect a candidate with voters. But obstacles abound. When a culinary moment goes wrong — John Kerry ordering a cheesesteak in Philadelphia with Swiss cheese instead of Cheez Whiz, or Gerald Ford trying to eat a tamale without removing its corn husk wrapper — a politician can seem elitist or even, yes, a fool.
Harris, however, seems prepared to navigate potential culinary blunders, because she possesses genuine culinary knowledge and has made it part of her public persona for years.
Kamala Harris cracks an egg with one hand in her 2019 series “Cooking with Kamala.”
(Kamala Harris campaign)
She maintains an eclectic list of her favorite Los Angeles restaurants, from the greasy to the finest Italian and American joints. She has long spoken of her love of cooking, and showcased it in the 2019 YouTube series “Cooking With Kamala,” in which, among other feats, she made masala dosa with actress Mindy Kaling. And Harris, 59, has expressed a kind of reverence for Sunday family dinners.
“One of the things I enjoy the most and that gives me stability is cooking family dinner on Sundays,” she said in an Instagram video posted on July 21, the day President Biden announced he would not seek reelection. “That gives me joy and it gives me stability.”
Bennett Rea, creator of the blog Cookin' with Congress, said that while “Cooking With Kamala” was a show, it didn't feel like a performance. “It felt like I was walking into people's homes,” he said.
Her videos also showed subtle cooking skills that real cooks appreciate. “Use the back of the knife to scrape the celery into the bowl — you don’t have to dull the side of the knife, like I did when I was learning to cook,” she said.
Among his skills: He can skillfully break an egg with one handMoments before a television interview, she advised a reporter on how to brine a turkey for Thanksgiving. She reads cookbooks to relax and has thought about writing one someday.
If Harris defeats former President Trump in November, she will become the best chef ever to serve as president, said Bruce Kraig, author of “A Rich and Fertile Land: A History of Food in America.”
“She should really say, ‘When I’m in the White House, I’m going to share recipes with you,’” she said. “That would undermine a lot of right-wing Americans who are shouting for women to get back into the kitchen.”
Food has been part of Harris’s political agenda at least since her days in the Senate. In 2020, for example, she introduced the Closing the Food Gap Act to expand and strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for low-income families.
In the days since Biden endorsed Harris following the president’s withdrawal from the race, the media has focused on her interest in food, even speculating that a Harris presidency could boost Washington’s food scene. Los Angeles may offer a model.
Harris’s favorite restaurants in the American South suggest a willingness to move away from the world of white tablecloths and extensive wine lists. Among his favorite establishments, The Times reported, are Zankou Chicken, the beloved Armenian chicken chain, and Guelaguetza, a pioneering Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown.
Bill Esparza, author of “LA Mexicano,” a book celebrating the city’s Mexican culinary culture, was struck by Harris’ inclusion of the Guelaguetza, which was founded in 1994 by Oaxacan immigrants. With “the Guelaguetza, you’re supporting an indigenous family,” he said. “Oaxacans refer to this part of California as ‘Oaxacalifornia.’”
The Santa Monica branch of El Cholo, whose original location on Western Avenue opened in 1923, is also on the list. Its inclusion makes sense: Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff have a home in nearby Brentwood.
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff enter El Cholo in Santa Monica last year.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Nessel, surrounded by friends and a small dog on the restaurant’s sunny patio last week, acknowledged that “El Cholo represents something.” At the end of the happy hour conversation, Nessel said she felt she understood Harris, at least in one sense.
“You come here to be satisfied… and not have to worry about anything else,” he said. “I feel like that’s what she comes here to be satisfied with.”
Enraptured in the kitchen
Harris has said she learned to cook from her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher who died in 2009.
In 2020, she told Glamour magazine that her mother, in action behind the stove, was fascinating.
“As a child, I remember hearing the pots and smelling the cooking and, like I was in a trance, I would walk into the kitchen and see all these amazing things happening,” Harris said.
Years later, he wasn’t shy about voicing his culinary opinions. Take the tuna melt incident of 2020. As the pandemic raged, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) posted a tongue-in-cheek cooking video online detailing one of his “all-time favorite recipes.”
Derreck Johnson, founder of Home of Chicken and Waffles, stands in front of a mural of Kamala Harris painted inside his Oakland restaurant in 2021.
(Josh Edelson/For the Times)
Warner “dumped an entire can of undrained tuna on white bread, covered it with cold cheese and an obscene amount of mayonnaise, microwaved the whole thing and ate it in front of America,” Washingtonian magazine reported. “If there is a bar, it is low.”
Harris didn’t accept it: “Mark, we need to talk. Call us. Please.” She tweeted.
She later shared a video online teaching viewers how to make a delicious tuna melt, featuring Warner, who joined in via Instagram Live.
“You have to know you have to drain the water,” explained Harris, who was wearing an apron from his alma mater, Howard University.
Vice President Kamala Harris stops by Brown Sugar Bakery in Chicago in 2021.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
But even in the kitchen, politics are unavoidable. Rea noted that when Warner asked her what kind of mayonnaise Harris used, she replied, somewhat awkwardly, that it was from Whole Foods.
The high-end supermarket chain, Rea said, is a brand that “is not automatically going to connect with 60% to 80% of the country.”
Dangerous culinary terrain
For Harris, talking about her culinary predilections comes with other potential risks.
Consider something as innocuous as bolognese, the Italian meat sauce that can take several hours to prepare. Harris is known to be a fan of it.
Jan Whitaker, a restaurant historian who maintains the blog Restaurant-ing through history, advises: “I wouldn’t use French or Italian words. Anything that [like] “Bolognese” – that might put off many Americans. It doesn’t matter if it’s a simple dish, it’s just the word.”
Meat and potatoes may be safer ground. And among Harris’s favorite grocery stores in Los Angeles is Huntington Meats, the famed butcher shop at the Original Farmers Market. She’s known for buying its spicy sausage, a key ingredient in her Thanksgiving cornbread dressing. As Huntington’s 20-plus varieties of sausage glistened behind glass, owner Jim Cascone said he was “very honored” to have the vice president’s business. “Foodies come from all over,” he said. (The verdict on Harris’s favorite sausage: pleasantly spicy, with a nice earthy flavor.)
Rea said there was something subversive about Harris regularly showing off her culinary chops. At a time when the Project 2025 policy playbook, created by allies of Donald Trump, promotes “traditional American values,” Harris’ embrace of cooking during her presidential campaign goes against the norm, she said.
President Biden, from second right, Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff participate in a service project at DC Central Kitchen in 2021.
(Oliver Contreras/Getty Images)
“Some politically minded people would say [to Harris]“Cut down on the time you spend in the kitchen, because we’re fighting an uphill battle running a woman for president,” said Rea, whose blog focuses on cooking politicians’ favorite recipes. “She doesn’t seem to be doing that. Her refusal to let go of that part of herself speaks to how important it is to her.”
Trump, on the other hand, is no glutton: the former president's cravings tend toward fast food and well-done steaks.
He may be using food to project that “he’s rich, but not elite,” said Whitaker, who has written about the eating habits of presidents.
“That’s what his followers love,” he said. “It could be a strategy.”
