The Day Job: Principal, LPCA Public Strategies LLC

Campbell’s public policy firm, LPCA Public Strategies LLC, is expert in using the same strategies that have proved successful in politics to help corporate clients build their image or perform damage control.

The Hobby: Cooking

Cooking, like politics, has always been a central part of Bonnie Campbell’s adult life.

Particularly when she and her late husband, Ed Campbell, were living and working in Washington, D.C., food and entertaining were constants.  

“It was just a large part of our lives,” she said as she prepared to try a new variation of a pan-seared scallop recipe she enjoys. “We both loved to cook. He was the grillmaster, and I did everything else.”

Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general, gubernatorial candidate and Democratic Party chairwoman who married a career lobbyist, now runs a public policy consulting group in Des Moines.

She learned cooking basics from her grandmother. Because of her busy schedule, Campbell said she usually sticks with simple favorites, such as chicken marbella or grilled beef dishes. The most difficult creation she ever attempted, a souffle, literally fell flat, but she managed to salvage it to incorporate into a passable dish, she said with a laugh.
  
While heading home from her office in the East Village, Campbell often swings by nearby AllSpice to buy ingredients for the next recipe she wants to try.
 
“I usually start out with a recipe the first time, but the second time, I experiment and make notes, because otherwise you can’t remember what you did last time,” she said. And for Campbell, the variety is all in the spices. “I have a spicy palate,” she said.

On this day, she prepared seared scallops and cauliflower on a bed of farro, topped with english peas and capers and garnished with flat-leaf parsley.