Vice President JD Vance has been quietly perfecting shokupan, the pillowy Japanese milk bread that commands cult followings at high-end bakeries, and his wife just told the world about it.
Usha Vance shared the details during a joint appearance with the Vice President on Saturday's episode of "My View With Lara Trump," praising her husband's dedication to the craft.
"He's been working on it for a while and he does it really well. Almost as well, or as well, as some of the restaurants that we get it from."
The Vice President, never one to undersell himself, interjected: "I'd say almost as well."
The couple's appearance painted a picture of domestic normalcy that stands in sharp contrast to the gossip mill that churned around them over the past year.
Vance's baking skills have apparently come a long way, the Daily Beast reported. When Lara Trump asked him to name the best and worst dish he ever cooked for his wife, the Vice President didn't hesitate to revisit the disaster.
"Usha is a vegetarian, and I am not. So, I'm thinking to myself, what does a vegetarian eat? Vegetables, dairy, and bread. I got crescent rolls, rolled them out into a pizza shape, and put vegetables and ranch on top, and stuck it in the oven for 30 minutes."
The verdict was swift and self-inflicted.
"It was disgusting. Like, it was actually inedible."
Vance chuckled at the memory, adding that "it's amazing that the relationship lasted." Twelve years of marriage and a fourth child on the way suggest the relationship has done more than last. Usha added that her husband "doesn't believe in recipes," and the pair laughed off the incident together.
The appearance matters beyond its lighthearted content. Usha Vance was spotted several times without her wedding ring last year, feeding speculation that the couple's marriage was under strain. Vance was also the subject of tabloid chatter after being filmed in what was described as an intimate embrace with Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, during a Turning Point USA event.
None of that seemed to register on Saturday's episode. The Vances looked like what they presented themselves as: a married couple expecting another baby, ribbing each other about bad cooking.
There's a lesson here about the political media ecosystem. Every awkward photo and missing accessory gets fed into a narrative machine that runs on inference and innuendo. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one. Sometimes a ring is at the jeweler. Sometimes a hug is a hug.
The shokupan detail is the kind of biographical color that humanizes a political figure without the usual stagecraft. Vance has long introduced himself as a "conservative hillbilly from Appalachia," a framing that served him well on the campaign trail and in the cultural conversation around his memoir. The self-taught baker working his way through Japanese bread techniques doesn't contradict that identity. It rounds it out.
Curiosity is not a betrayal of where you come from. A guy raised in a middle-class Ohio family who picks up a demanding baking technique because he wants to is the kind of story that cuts against every lazy caricature of conservative America as intellectually incurious or culturally monolithic. The left loves to sort people into boxes. Vance keeps refusing to fit.
Lara Trump, who has hosted "My View" since February of last year, drew out the couple with the kind of ease that comes from shared familiarity. She recently recounted her own early dating stories with Eric Trump on Miranda Devine's podcast, including his memorable first impression after learning she attended culinary school.
"He looked at me, and he grabbed my stomach, and said, 'Wow, you're too skinny for any of your food to taste good. You must be a horrible chef.'"
Bold opening line. It apparently worked.
Saturday's episode was not hard news. It was not meant to be. But in a political climate that treats every personal detail as ammunition, two couples trading embarrassing kitchen stories on camera carries its own quiet weight. The Vances showed up, laughed at themselves, and let the bread speak for itself.
Crescent roll pizza with ranch. Twelve years later, shokupan. People grow.
