DeWine’s wife campaigns in Hamilton with cookbook in hand

“I tell people some of the things Mike has done and then I ask what some of their problems are, and then I go back and tell Mike. I go back and give him reports.”

In addition to talking with some local county officials at Hyde’s Restaurant in Hamilton last week, DeWine was passing out the 12th edition of “Fran DeWine’s Family Favorites” cookbook. People are less likely to throw it away as opposed to campaign literature.

“When we first campaigned (when Mike ran for Greene County prosecutor), we knocked on 18,000 doors,” she said. “It’s hard to knock on doors when people don’t want to answer the doors.”

As a home economics major at Miami University in Oxford, she thought a cookbook with family recipes would be more receptive to people. It was, and some still ask for that first edition from the 1970s. Only 5,000 were printed for DeWine’s state senate campaign.

Now Fran DeWine prints off 100,000 copies of the book with her favorite recipes and she’s passing out the 12th edition of the book as her husband is seeking re-election against former Hamilton County commissioner David Pepper.

She chose the recipes by looking at the condition of her recipe cards, and picked out the ones with “little spots because you made them so many times.”

DeWine is familiar with Butler County. She went to Miami University, and her first two children were born in Butler County.

“I just remember driving that night and I remember the full moon,” she said about heading to the hospital for the delivery of her first child — Hamilton County Court of Appeals Judge Patrick DeWine. “There are some things you never forget. I remember driving into Hamilton with a full moon at about 10:30 at night to have my first baby.”

No write-in candidates

Monday was the deadline for write-in candidates for statewide office to file, and no declarations of intent were filed with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.

For information on the status of write-in candidates for other races, voters are asked to check with the county boards of elections offices. For races with multi-county districts, the most populous board of elections should be contacted.