You lived in Brazil and Japan as a child.
How did you find the food?I was quite
young when I lived in Brazil, but my
family ate at a churrascaria almost every
weekend and I fell in love with Brazilian
food. In Japan, I would take the train
to school and would eat the udon and
ramen at the train station most days.
I loved living in Tokyo and getting to
experience life in the big city. My family
ate Japanese food as often as possible
and it remains one of my favourites.In your book,Yes We (Still) Can, you said
you planned to “go to law school, become
a lawyer, probably hate my life”. Why the
move into politics?I kept signing up for
more campaigns and delaying law school,
because I didn’t want to go out on a loss.
I believed the candidate I was waiting for
was right around the corner. And he was.During your interview with Barack Obama
in 2006, he asked, “How often do you get
to put your shoulder against the wheel of
history and push?” Did you know then andthere you wanted to help him become
President?It was in that first interview
that I saw he was different from any
politician I had met before, and I knew
deep down that this was the campaign- and the candidate – I’d been waiting for.
Your tasks as a political intern included
“getting coffee for the people who get
coffee for other people...”I actually made
it all the way through several campaigns
and six years in the White House without
drinking coffee. It wasn’t until I visited
Vietnam after I left the White House that
I started drinking coffee – getting addicted
to the very sweet Vietnamese coffee.In the campaign’s early days, you worked
above a Subway sandwich shop. What’s
it like walking past one now?I hold my
nose – the smell still makes me nauseous.What are some highlights from your time
working for Obama?There were so many- being there on the night bin Laden was
killed, the passage of Obama’s healthcare
Dan
Pfeiffer
The podcaster and ex-Obama
staffer on coffee addiction,
dumplings for breakfast and
life in the White House.
EATING WITH
Dan Pfeiffer’s
book,Yes We (Still)
Can: Politics in the
Age of Obama,
Twitter and Trump
(Hardie Grant, pbk,
$29.99) is out now.bill, and visiting the pyramids, Stonehenge,
Petra and Buckingham Palace with him.On your podcast,Pod Save America, you
have a very up-front way of speaking about
politics. Why?Too much political analysis
and punditry is filled with jargon, stale
talking points and risk aversion. We want
to make it approachable and fun – if you
can believe it.We hear you love dumplings.When I lived
in Japan, we often visited Hong Kong. I
discovered you can have dumplings for
breakfast, which is amazing.Why is inspiring young people to engage
with politics important to you?As you may
have heard, politics in America is in a
particularly dark place. The bright lights
are the young people fighting to improve
the country. They are our only hope.What’s the food like in the White House?
You usually eat it standing up, and you
INTERVIEW LEE TRAN LAM. rarely have time to digest.
GOURMET TRAVELLER 31How I eat