When I was doing my undergrad at Acadia University, the entire political science department used to gather for elections of any kind – near or far, local, provincial, federal, Canadian, Iranian, American.
Bets were made, beers were poured and verbal assaults were unleashed, with a focus on character (or lack thereof), strengths and weaknesses, and the effectiveness of campaign tactics.
To us it was sport and was treated as such, and it was accompanied by the traditional pizza, chips and nacho-train that the pubs served up in great goopy glory to whoever was planted there for the night. It wasn’t much of a diet, but it sustained us to a certain point, and what it didn’t cover, the beer did. Being on the campaign trail, however, requires more care and attention to diet. Or not. For the most part, Squamish city candidates have been hustling around town with little time to eat normally.
“I must say I am taking intravenous coffee at the moment, and the challenge with elections is that there is so much going on at night that you don’t sit down for a proper dinner,” said mayoral candidate Patricia Heintzman. “And there are lots of lunch meetings, so you tend to eat too much at lunch.”
Heintzman said that while she doesn’t get overly nervous when running for office, if she needs comfort food she relies on the goodies she won as the farmers’ market raffle prize, which came with local breads, pies, and other treats.
For celebrity body double candidate Peter Kent, nutrition is typically key to his daily routine, but the election campaign has made it difficult to keep on track.
“These days my eating habits have not been that great, I’ve been running flat out – when you’re running for council, you are literally running,” said Kent, a council candidate.
“But one of our family favourites is spaghetti, I’ve been making the sauce for years. It’s my mother’s recipe and it used to be a favourite of Schwarzenegger’s, too – I’d bring it to set all the time.
“Nesters has the best ground beef, so we always get our ingredients there, and remember to always add lots and lots of garlic.”
Paul Dosanjh’s campaign picture shows a man who looks like he’s just finished an excellent meal, and sure enough even when on the caffeinated fly, this candidate has been eating well, thanks to his wife.
“Well, coffee is a good one, that’s the number one thing in the past few weeks,” he said with a laugh. “But my wife will put a stew on, or something in the slowcooker – we had pulled pork last week, so there’s always some kind of good dinner for us at night.”
Best of luck to the candidates, and don’t forget – voting is to democracy what food is to life!
