Sarah Palin Celebrates Her Humble Roots by Eating at a Restaurant That Serves a $25,000 Dessert

Sarah Palin, ever the faux-populist, has finally committed an act of absurdity that perfectly allegorizes her own political M.O.

Last week, while in New York City, Palin dined at Serendipity 3, a restaurant in one of Manhattan’s swankier sections. Serendipity 3 is known for hosting celebrities (others have included Zac Efron and Bill Clinton), but it’s not famous for that. It’s famous for the "Frrozen Haute Chocolate," a sundae composed of edible gold and 28 different cocoas from across the globe. This treat, which costs $25,000, holds the Guinness world record for most expensive dessert. It is eaten with a diamond-studded gold spoon and served with a side of $2,600 per-pound chocolate. At the base of the sundae’s goblet (it is served, by the way, in a goblet) is an 18-karat gold bracelet with 1 carat of white diamonds.

One can only assume that the banana leaves to be fanned with are sold separately.

So how does Palin’s stop at Serendipity compromise her everywoman persona? Let me count the ways. Not only was she in one of the more expensive corners of the Big Apple (a city she promised ‘true’ Americans she would not visit during her book tour, on account of its elites); she was dining at a restaurant where just one item costs more than what many of her supporters will make in a year. Maybe more than twice what some of them will make.

Of course, this sort of gleaming, gold-plated contradiction is nothing new for Palin. Even the most baby-witted of observers know that her two main recipients of polito-pandering (working class Americans, the corporations that routinely screw them over) don’t quite line up right. No, the beauty here is the symbolism of it all -- the sweet, flagrant absurdity: Underdog (dare we say it? "Rogue") politician, preparing to set out across America in a grassroots neo-conquest of a book tour, must first stop to fuel up for the harrowing journey. What better place to do so than at a restaurant whose finest dessert costs as much as a year of college?