Please join me over the fold for the never-before-told, completely, totally, 100% true story of how Hillary Clinton stole my chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.
You won’t believe it.
It’s the fall of 1991. I’m a newlywed. I decide to bake a batch of chocolate-chip cookies. I’m in my kitchen, gathering the various ingredients, and when I turn around after procuring my sugar canister, much to my surprise, I find myself face-to-face with none other than Hillary Clinton.
Now, granted, at the time, I had no idea it was Hillary Clinton. So, I said, “Hey, blonde lady with a hair band wearing a pantsuit, who are you and why are you in my kitchen?”
“Never mind who I am,” she replied in a flat, Midwestern drawl. “But, hey, look at that pterodactyl on your windowsill!”
I quickly turned to look at the window, and the next thing I know, I hear a “Yoink!” and see my recipe and the blonde lady running down my back steps and leaping into a getaway car being driven by some youngish guy with salt-and-pepper hair. (I would later discover it was Roger Clinton).
Months pass.
One night, my wife and I are watching the news. The reporter’s talking about the governor of Arkansas, who’s announcing his bid for the presidency. I’m paying minimal attention. And then I see the governor’s wife.
“It’s her!” I yell to my wife.
“It’s who?” she says.
“The woman who stole my recipe!”
“No way!”
“Way!”
“Really?”
“Totally!”
(It was 1991. That’s the way we talked. In honesty, it probably went on this way for another 10 agonizing “Wayne’s World”-esque minutes, but you get the idea.)
More months pass. Bill Clinton is in a battle for the Democratic nomination. In March of 1992, his wife says the following:
“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
Clearly, the guilt of her ill-gotten recipe was already weighing heavily on her conscience, forcing her to mock cookie baking. Naturally, this became quite the kerfuffle and would dog her for months.
A few more months pass. Bill Clinton has wrapped up the nomination, but Cookiegate still rears its ugly head. Finally, in July of 1992, Hillary acquiesces and puts her purloined cookie recipe to good use.
From the New York Times:
Hillary Clinton says she has been baking chocolate-chip cookies since she and her brothers competed to see who could produce the largest on Christmas.
"My mother wanted to keep us out of my father's hair while he put up the Christmas tree," she recalled. "We usually got sick eating them and couldn't eat Christmas dinner."
Years afterward, she continued to bake them with her daughter, Chelsea. And now she is in a bake-off with Barbara Bush that Family Circle magazine was inspired to sponsor shortly after Mrs. Clinton's remark about not wanting to "stay home and bake cookies" when her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas. The contest pits Mrs. Clinton's version, made with oatmeal and shortening, against Mrs. Bush's, made without oatmeal but with butter.
In the 22 years that have passed, Hillary Clinton has never adequately apologized to me for snatching my beloved family recipe. Oh, sure, I got the occasional official Clinton Christmas card when Bill was president, but was it ever, even once, personally signed by Hillary? Did she ever jot a personal note or doodle a smiley face in the corner? No. Not once.
I cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton until an adequate apology is delivered.