The US is nearing D-day in this insane election season, and as the clock winds down, the bombshells are getting bigger. After footage of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women—just some good ol’ “locker room talk”—surfaced last week and sent election coverage into a tailspin, Wikileaks decided to pile on the media frenzy by releasing hacked e-mails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Podesta says Russian spies were behind the hacks and are hoping to influence the outcome of the election. But maybe, they were actually after Podesta’s secret, never-fail recipe for perfectly creamy risotto.
Videos by VICE
Amid e-mails about campaign strategies and day-to-day operations (and correspondence with Tom DeLonge about extraterrestrials) was one delicious morsel about how chef Podesta whips up a batch of restaurant-quality risotto every time, folks. When Peter Huffman, a former staffer at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, had a question about why he has to add a quarter or half cup of stock to the risotto at a time instead of just dumping all the stock in at once, he came knocking at the door of the maestro.
“So I have been making a lot of risotto lately…and regardless of the recipe, I more/less adhere to every step you taught me.” Huffman began, promisingly, in an e-mail he sent at 6:28 PM. “Why can’t you just add 1 or 2 cups of stock at a time b/c the Arborio rice will eventually absorb it all anyway, right”
Podesta fired back at 2:50 in the morning with the wisdom that can only be gained from decades of slaving over a stove methodically stirring risotto. “Yes and no. Yes it with (sic) absorb the liquid, but no that’s not what you want to do. The slower add process and stirring causes the rice to give up it’s (sic) starch which gives the risotto it’s creamy consistency. You won’t get that if you dump all that liquid at once.”
Truly words from a master.
And John isn’t the only Podesta with prowess in the kitchen. In a series of e-mails arranging a dinner party, John’s brother Tony, a lobbyist, asks if there’s any interest in using his outdoor pizza oven.
No matter your political leanings, let’s all agree on this—dinner sounds pretty good chez Podesta.
