Super Tuesday! Vote and Let Them Eat Cake!

Today is Super Tuesday. Go out and vote if you haven't already. Many of us are voting in one of the closest and most exciting Democratic Primaries ever, at least in my lifetime. New Yorkers (and many others) are finally having a say in the primary race, rather than it all being decided months ahead of time. Many people are hosting Super Tuesday return parties, with special food or cocktails to celebrate their candidates, like a Barack's Hope or a Hillary's Hillblazer.

Honestly, I was hoping to have a line to wait in to cast my vote, but as usual, I just strove right up to the machine. There was plenty of energy in there, though; you can just feel the excitement and people wondering to themselves: Is it the right time for Obama? Or is Hillary Clinton is the best choice to get this country back on track? Is America finally ready for a woman president? Or a black president? I have high hopes for November 2008.

My voting place is a local elementary school and the PTA was having a well-timed bake sale. Politics and cake--what could be better! The spread was ample, but I noticed only a handful of actual handmade goods and many more Costco-type items: huge muffins, multi-colored cookies and a sheet cake with pink roses. (Of course, my toddler grabbed for the biggest Costco Muffin she could reach.) It's totally fine to have store-bought stuff at a bake sale; it's great that parents were putting in the extra effort and time to run it. I was sad, though, that the homemade goods were priced lower than the store-bought ones. The gargantuan muffins and cookies from the store might seem "worth" more, but I hate that the extra effort involved with a homemade treat was unintentionally belittled. Sure, the homemade cookies might be small or a bit misshapen, but they probably taste a lot better. I ended up getting a couple of homemade things and the one huge Costco muffin my toddler grabbed. (That muffin was almost inedible and went largely uneaten). To make myself feel better about the disparity and since it's obviously for a good cause, I rounded up the difference as if all the items were the same price. More power to the homemade bakers! In baked goods as in politics, sometimes substance should win out over style.

Here's a fun link about traditional Election Day Cake in The Washington Post. If you're not up for cocktails on a Tuesday night, maybe sugar can help you get through tonight's returns.

Update: Although I'm not sure who won our district (Hillary and Obama were neck and neck in most of Brooklyn), the PTA bake sale raised almost $1100, twice what they had hoped. That's a "super-size" I wholly endorse!