Pavs at 50 paces, hangi at high noon, a roast round-robin, or an Anzac biscuit offensive? Elspeth McLean casts an eye over the politics of baking.
Now Hillary's out of the running for the White House, I want to think she might be taking refuge in the kitchen.
Not sitting at the table stabbing a spoon into a large tub of chocolate ice cream while she snivels to all and sundry; my image is of her taking control, immersing herself in some good ol' down-home cooking therapy.
If she's feeling vengeful she might whip up a few cholesterol-laden treats for that liability Bubba, knowing they won't be good for his heart but he'll scoff them anyway.
Perhaps she will be in a generous mood, keen to reward those who have worked for her by concocting them comforting sweet tasty morsels.
Oh, she knows from experience they will go straight to their hips. She doesn't much care. It will make her feel better. Cooking's like that.
While most women long to escape it from time to time, there can be something immensely rewarding about preparing food for other people to eat.
And it seems a very womanly thing to do, although I would hope she would not attempt to impersonate the orgasmic Nigella Lawson.
Such behaviour does not sit well with women of a certain age.
Preparing sensible, heart-warming tucker is the answer.
The slow cooking of a stew or hearty soup would allow plenty of time for contemplation although it would not do to think of too many cooks spoiling the broth.
It would be best to avoid puddings too - not just because of those hips, but because it could remind of her enthusiasm for over-egging (just think Bosnia).
Light and fluffy is not required either. It's too easy to compare her failure with the adage about a souffle not rising twice. Oh, the pain.
I want to think she might be reclaiming the kitchen, but I fear Hillary may only think cookery is a means to an end; not one of those feminists who, to paraphrase Germaine Greer, sees the home as a creative opportunity in the forlorn hope someone might value the work of their hands above the work of machines.
Hillary got herself off-side with home-makers back in 1992 when she said "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was fulfil my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life."
Then she had to mend fences by portraying herself as cookie-maker extraordinaire.
In one account from those times she said had been making cookies since she and her brothers competed to see who could produce the largest at Christmas.
Family Circle magazine leapt into the fray with a cookie bake-off between the wives of the presidential candidates, which has now become an election-year tradition.
The magazine publishes the cookie recipes and readers vote for their favourite.
Hillary was so determined to win she got her friends to bake cookies and hand them out, but she ran into trouble at Madison Square Garden where health regulations prevented food from unapproved kitchens being distributed.
Undaunted, she got a bakery to make more than 6000 of them.
That should have told everyone her apron was not quite in the right place.
Hillary won that contest with her oatmeal and choc chip offerings made with shortening (and too much salt in my culinary opinion) pipping Barbara Bush's made with butter and choc chips but no oatmeal.
At every election, the winner of the bake-off has had the winning presidential spouse.
Hillary trotted out her same recipe to beat Elizabeth Dole's pecan rolls, Laura Bush's governor's mansion cowboy cookies trounced Tipper Gore's ginger snaps and, last election, Laura's oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies outdid Teresa Heinz Kerry's pumpkin spice offering.
That was not without controversy.
There was a question over where Teresa's recipe came from and whether the aide who provided it was trying to do her harm.
Laura's recipe was also not acclaimed by all.
Food historian Laura Shapiro who felt like the sorcerer's apprentice when making it, described the results as "blowsy, overburdened, trying desperately to make an impression, these cookies are victims of their own monumental ambition".
The wooden spoons are out again.
Cindy McCain has put up an oatmeal butterscotch recipe against Michelle Obama's shortbread offering containing orange and lemon zest.
Bill Clinton also has oatmeal cookies in the contest which must have started before Hillary was dumped. Quite what will happen if he wins I am not sure.
Perhaps our political spouses here could follow suit.
What would it be, pavs at 50 paces, hangi at high noon, a roast round-robin, or an Anzac biscuit offensive?
Nah, it would take them three years to agree on what to cook and with so many parties and co-leaders it would all become unwieldy.
It's one of those times when we should feel grateful for MMP.
Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
