Bill Clinton will potentially be the first first gentleman in the U.S. Could he also be the first male crowned the winner of the presidential cookie poll?
Didn’t know the presidential cookie poll was a thing? Brief primer: In 1992, when Bill was running in the Democratic primary for president, the country had a hard time understanding why his wife had her own career. Hillary, a successful lawyer, said she wouldn’t be giving up her own work just because her husband was in public office.
The way she phrased her public response to the criticism made a lot of people mad.
"You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life,” Hillary told the press, who were inquiring about her career.
People thought Hillary was making a jab at stay-at-home moms and women who did bake. But Family Circle magazine came up with a public relations ploy to respond to what became a gaffe for Hillary: It proposed candidates’ wives participate in a bake-off. Since 1992, each potential first lady has submitted a cookie recipe to the magazine, which published it for readers to make, sample and vote on their favorite.
Hillary won the contest, which has since become a poll rather than a bake-off, in both 1992 and 1996 with the same oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe.
And if Bill’s recipe looks familiar, its because it is. He submitted the same recipe, now dubbed Clinton Family’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. While the recipe contains vegetable shortening rather than butter, it does call for two eggs, making it verboten under Bill’s mostly vegan diet.
Melania Trump submitted a recipe for star cookies, a sugar cookie recipe. Each recipe is posted on Family Circle so voters can make each and then vote on their favorite until October 4.