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Ann Romney, promoting new book, opens up

Ann Romney in Dedham Thursday at a stop on her book tour for “The Romney Family Table.”ROSE LINCOLN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

A lot of Internet ink is being spilt over Ann Romney’s gibe at New York mayor and Medford native Michael Bloomberg about Fluff. The Romneys succumbed to the marshmallow treat when their five sons were growing up in Belmont. In her new cookbook, “The Romney Family Table,” the wife of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney writes that Bloomberg’s disdain for unhealthy food “would be an added incentive to keep it around.”

The poke at Bloomberg is the sole political knock in Romney’s glossy collection of comfort food recipes, ruminations, and family photos, including of most of her 22 grandchildren. Subtitled “Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes and Favorite Traditions,” the cookbook was released Tuesday and is already the number-one selling cookbook on Amazon.com. Romney’s first book signing was Thursday, at Book Ends in Winchester.

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Ann Romney, 64, began the cookbook last January at the urging of her son Josh, after her husband had lost his election bid against President Obama. In years past, worried that recipes handed down over the generations would be lost, Romney gave her daughters-in-law bound copies of family favorites. “The Romney Family Table” is an extension of those handouts.

The cookbook also reflects Romney’s belief that eating at the dining table is critical to forging family bonds. “We have to remember to put the electronic devices down,” she says. “We just need to come to the table and have the traditions and the conversations.”

Proceeds from the cookbook will benefit research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s proposed Center for Neurologic Diseases. The donation is a tribute to Dr. Howard L. Weiner, who is treating Romney for multiple sclerosis, which she says is now in remission. “The ingredients that are so dangerous for MS are stress, irregular schedules, not eating well,” Romney says, laughing. “And you look back and say, ‘What’s a campaign?’ It wasn’t exactly the best thing in the world for me.”

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Peggy Hernandez can be reached at mphernan1@gmail.com