From the Los Angeles Times 

"Not only do I eat, I also am a Democrat," wrote Frank Sinatra in an intro to 1960's "Many Happy Returns: The Democrats' Cook Book, or How to Cook a G.O.P. Goose" (the sales of which helped buy TV air time for candidates). "Not only should every Democrat own a copy of this book, but he should load up all his or her friends, and even smuggle some copies into Pasadena and other points where the enemy is strong and square."

"Many Happy Returns" is one of the more entertaining of a long string of little-noticed ephemera of political campaigns -- the partisan cookbook, written by politicos and their supporters (wives, celebrities, members of the Glendale Republican Womens Study Club), pundits, humorist gourmets, or even a displaced White House chef -- and it even has a few workable recipes.

Maybe the cookbook helped secure JFK his narrow victory that year by pleasing happy squares with Jacqueline Kennedy's recipe for crisp, light waffles (the secret is the egg whites). (It certainly won't be Cindy McCain's butterscotch oatmeal cookies that catapult Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain into the Oval Office in this election. Who cares whether she stole the recipe, which appears on the Family Circle magazine website -- they look like leaden lumps.)

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