Chef hopes to heat up Senate race in South Carolina

A doyenne of Southern cooking, Nathalie Dupree, is the latest addition to an already memorable race for a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina.??

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint is popular in the state, despite remarks like those he reinforced last weekend -- that gays and single women in sexual relationships should not be schoolteachers. He believes such issues should be decided locally.

?DeMint is favored for reelection after an unemployed, unknown Democrat, Alvin Greene, won his party’s primary earlier this year.??

Now Dupree has announced a long-shot write-in campaign, saying the state can do better.??

“This is a really beautiful state, and it should be given its due,” she said by phone this week from Charleston.??

She said she was particularly moved by DeMint’s objections to a proposed federal earmark to expand the Port of Charleston.??

Then the chef tried out a string of campaign slogans that sizzle like butter in a frying pan.??

“I’m going to cook his goose,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m going to bring home the bacon. I’m going to put it on the table. I can give you about 85 more.”??

She said donations are pouring in since she announced her candidacy last week, but even at a few thousand dollars a day, experts do not give her campaign much of a chance against DeMint.??

The senator has gained prominence nationwide as a conservative kingmaker after he endorsed “tea party” Senate candidates in the November midterm election.??

Dupree is not swayed, saying of her campaign: “It’s the winning recipe.”

lmascaro@tribune.com