Obama misses on culinary metaphor

By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff

NEW LONDON, N.H. -- Memo to Barack Obama: if you can't handle the metaphors, stay out of the kitchen.

In nearly all of his speeches, Obama turns away from the usual sports and war metaphors and opts instead for culinary language when he jokes about anonymous establishment figures who criticize him for being inexperienced and naïve.

"They say Obama has not been in Washington long enough," Obama says, usually to laughs. "He needs to be seasoned and stewed to boil all that hope out of him."

It would be a flawed recipe for maintaining the status quo. Anyone looking to stew Obama -- which would intensify his hope -- should simmer him at a temperature far lower than a boil. Seasoning Obama first would serve only to seal the hope inside, according to Shola Olunloyo a Philadelphia-based chef who blogs about cooking.

"If you wanted to boil the hope out of him, just throw him into a pot of water without any seasoning and boil away," Olunloyo advises.