So, the holiday season is officially almost over and I swear to Maude, it’s about time. I cannot stand the thought of being in the same room as another peppermint-sprinkled cocoa nutty rum fudgeball. I’ve been sitting on the December issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray simply because the above-the-name header is COOKIE BLOWOUT. No!  No, Rachael, No!  No cookie blowout! But i guess it’s time to crack the spine on this thing.  It’s a flippy-over issue, and I’m gonna start in on the Holi-Day side. (Actually, she has it as just plain ol’ “holiday,” but I’m changing it to be consistent with the bottom half’s Holi-Night.)

In Rach’s notebook, she says “this issue is our gift to you.” No it’s not; the cover price is still $3.99.  Her follow-up claim is that they have made the issue into a big, fun-filled greeting card, but I opened it up to the middle and there was no long-winded overly rhymey poem about feelings, rose petals, and the undying warm glow of friendship. It also did not have a $20 check from gramma.

Further inside disappointments include:

• p. 22 – butternut squash ravioli made with wonton wrappers. I really don’t think that counts as “sophisticated leftovers.”

• p. 26 – the overall theme of this page is – Editors, where have you been??  First of all, pickled eggs and okra are not “kooky.”  And suggesting the use of Instagram or MySketch to give food photos an additional iota of va-va-va-voom is fine and all, but how about starting with some basic advice, like photo composition?  Also, who even needs to be told about Instagram?

• p. 40 – A radish wreath?  Bitch, please. Have you seen what one day out in the open does to a radish?  It’s a weird, wilty mess. You don’t want that on your door, or anywhere near your house, really.  Oh!  The fine print says, “For a longer-lasting wreath, use hardy white pine branches instead of radish greens.” Because nothing goes together better than radishes and pine. This is the kind of thing you give to a neighbor you hate.

• p. 45 – “Stuff your belly with [potatoes] to avoid overeating during the holidays.” Okay, now we’re talking!  Except, on the next page, all the ‘tater recipes are butter-butter-butter. And cheese.  I’m personally okay with that, but I think binging on Cheesy Chicken Potato Soup may not be the best way to cut calories.

• p. 50 – Okay, maybe buying toaster waffles is easier than making your own from scratch, but think of the children…  Real waffles are so much better. Always.

• p. 68 – the big holiday food spectacular. You know what? I just quickly flipped through this section and didn’t even glance at a single recipe; the layouts and photography were awful and I just kinda assumed that everything was gonna taste bad. Maybe they should have used Instagram.

• p. 78 – OH MY GOD SO MUCH BROWN. I can’t tell the food from the tablecloth, and I’m not even sure I really even want to.

• p. 85 – part of the Big Cookie Blowout!  Marshmallow cookies. These remind me of the time Wyeth and I wrapped marshmallows in sugar cookie dough and baked them, thinking that we’d get these awesome cubes of fluff-filled cookie wonderfulness…  That day, we discovered sugar cookies don’t work like that.  I’m still traumatized.

• p. 99 – If you need to be told that you can add bananas to pancakes, you need to go live  -in Terra Haute- under a rock.

• p. – 111 – oh, I guess we’re flipping over now.  Welcome to the Holi-Night edition.   I guess all the hot parties this season will be featuring meatballs on toothpicks and tomato soup shooters. Good thing I’m all partied out, get a couple ounces of soup in me and I’m all WOOOO-WEEEEE-WOOOOOOO-HEEHEHEHEHEHE-WAAAAH! And believe you me, nobody wants that.
  

• That’s the only interesting thing in the upside-down part.

Do I dare hope for better in the New Year?  Not really.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away, I worked in a fussy little gift shop. It was a nice little shop, but the owner was a bit delicate about certain matters. The dress code was about 3 pages long and specified things like “no exposed leg” and “tunics, if worn with leggings, must extend down to 2″ above the knee.” We were also quietly advised to avoid wearing anything bright red.

So anyway, one of the items we carried in this precious boutique was the metal dog pictured above. (You can get this one at Uncommon Goods. He’s a tea light holder.) It’s kinda hard to see in the photo, but look closely and you’ll see that he’s a boy dog. The horror!

We had to neuter him.

A few days after our puppy herd was, uh, culled, a brown paper bag mysteriously appeared on my desk. Written in Sharpie on one side was the cryptic notation “Spot’s Manhood.”

Because really, what else are you going to do with a bag of metal testicles than give them to me?

I had every intention of sewing the disembodied balls onto the leopard print purse I was using at the time – they’d have made an awesome metal fringe – but I never got around to buying/making the necessary jump rings, and then I quit my job and moved across the country and life happened and the purse full of Spot’s manhood sat in the back of the closet of forgetfulness for years and years.

Until last night.

Turns out they’re the perfect compliment to the black/silver Gothmas tree.

Y’all may know this about me already, but I’m cranky. And because of that, or maybe even to further that, I tend to surround myself with like items: Nietzsche, Grinderman, police procedural TV shows with curmudgeonly characters…

My overall view on “happiness” is threefold:

• What we think of as happiness isn’t really genuine. We’re so inundated with expectations that we don’t even know how to accurately read our own state(s)-of-being.
• Hedonists and narcissists, as a general rule, are overcompensating for something.
• Chipper people creep me out.

Not to say that happiness is a bad thing, because I kinda like it. However, I do think the concept is ill-defined and even iller-understood. We substitute satisfaction and satiety, and we don’t allow ourselves the luxury of our own subjectivity. As a semi-wayward sometimes-student of the Frankfurt School and their whole Culture Industry thought tank hoo-haw, I’m hyper-aware of conspicuous cultural consumption. I notice what people are reading, I peek at iPod screens, I eavesdrop. It’s in my nature.

Relatedly, I can differentiate between an active and genuine interest in something and a generally kinda apathetic but still gotta be keeping up with the Jones’ attitude. I’m pretty damn good at it, the differentiating thing, and in keeping with that, I know when eyes are turned on me.

There is a point to all of this.

There’s a small gaggle of hipster/commuters who share the back of the bus with me. We stand at our stop in silence, board the bus, exchange 2-minute pleasantries, then dive into our Kindled bookworlds while we lurch towards downtown. Usually the chatter is friendly, but over the course of time, we’ve developed a bit of mocking sociable camaraderie. Our books, in turn, are generally humorously dismissed; mine are often called “grandpa books” (notably the Aubrey/Maturin series) and waved off as old-fashioned and/or irrelevant (most often by my own hand). A general sharing of titles goes something like this:

- “Oh that book made a great impression on me. — pause pause pause — In 9th grade.” (Herman Hesse’s Glass Bead Game)

- “If the men had therapists and the women had the internet, that wouldn’t even be a story worth telling” (Dashiel Hammett’s Red Harvest)

- “The Literary Equivalent of MacArthur Park” (Steig Larsson’s The Girl Who Did The Thing To The Stuff trilogy)

- “Seriously, people doing bad things in Thailand, whoda thunk it?” (John Burdett’s Bangkok Haunts)

- “There is no postman! Never was!” (James M Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice)

It’s really kind of the best way to start my morning.

I ran out of book the other day. I just finished Storm of Swords and need to take a break before diving into the next rapey-killy George R R Martin tome, and I’ve read all the shitty-but-guilty-pleasure James Burke stuff. The only things on my shelves that I haven’t read and re-read are a couple of cookbooks and some vintage paperbacks. And 1Q84, but that’s not anything I can take on the bus. Things die horrible deaths in my purse, and I don’t want to see this massive tome eroded away by wayward emery boards, uncapped lipstick, and whatever else lurks in the dark shadows.

My bookstore guy is pretty well trained; he calls me whenever vintage cookbooks come in, and he always sets aside any old Scribner paperbacks so I can take first crack at ‘em; he knows I’m a sucker for well-designed 1960′s cover art. He’s also kind of like a nerdy cross between Elvis Costello and Jason Statham. Plus he has big nerdy glasses. And when he’s working, there’s a constant stream of Joy Division and Dream Syndicate playing. But I digress.

So anyway, I was in the store, milling around, mostly not finding Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders (don’t judge me; it’s not Twilight) and generally just wasting time because I couldn’t think of anything else to do on my lunchbreak. I was just hemming and hawing my way through the used literature section when Bookstore Guy came out from behind his perch and asked, kinda shyly, if he could recommend something. It was cute. I said “sure.”

He pulled out a copy of The Geography of Bliss. He said I looked like I needed it.

It’s bright blue. And it’s all about happiness, what makes it, how we interpret it, and a study of the social and cultural stuff that goes into finding it.

So, this morning I’m on the bus, nicely nestled in the wayback, and nobody was looking, and I pulled out the bright blue Bliss book as surreptitiously as possible and started reading. Almost instantly the other readerheads’ swiveled around, they were onto me… “That’s one really bright book.” “Wait! Bliss? Is that a self-help book!” “Are there at least dragons in it? Or mutants?” “Will this help you survive a giant squid attack?”

So now, I’m already very conscious of reading a book about happy places. The unasked question, am I in danger of finding mine? It’s hard to say, but with a literal busload of early-morning commuter cynics Heisenberging over me, I’m overly aware of my reaction.

My initial rejoinder is to affect disinterest. I tend to claim pure unaffectedness whenever a reaction is expected of me; it’s part defense mechanism, part unwillingness to let people predict my response, and part secret inside joke that’s funny only to me. So there is that. Reading this book has already become much more of a test of will than it really should be.

All that aside, the 35 pages I’ve read already are pretty darn good. But before the day is through, I will be investing in a Max California-style book cover. Who wants to join me at the porn store?

A couple of months ago, I started a pretty ambitious art project: a partial portrait in beads. I’d taken a black and white photo, blown it up all huge, gridded out the pixels, and made a beading pattern that would have made a vaguely 6×10 finished piece. My notably flawed math skills notwithstanding, I figured that it would take a couple bags of beads and maybe 10 hours to finish, and that it would make a nice gift for a friend.

I kind of underestimated things, though. I set the pattern out in blocks that were 10 beads high by 75 rows wide. Each block took about two hours to set up and bead. The finished piece would have been 16 blocks high and used 120,000 beads. Factoring in the amount of nightly free time I have to work on such things (not a lot), and adding in a couple extra hours here and there for reworks and distractions, I guessed I would probably have finished it sometime mid-2047.

Somehow, I managed to find the time to get the project just a little bit over halfway done and then some crap happened. Crap! And overnight, my reason for finishing the piece changed from a magnanimous "hey, I made a thing for you" to a spiteful "hey, I made a thing, and now you can't have it." And right about the time that the intention switch got flipped, I fucked up the piece. Irreparably.

I learned a valuable lesson – making pretty things into petty things never works.

After the fuckup, I kept working on it because I was bound and determined to finish, because: spite! Also, I wasn't quite ready to give up. A week later, I threw it away, and the following day, I started on a new one. This one, I thought, is just for me. I’m doing it because it’s a damn good idea and a damn good design and it’s something I want to start and finish and hang on my wall because I liked it.

Which was a great plan and all, but I fucked that one up, too. There is a lot of counting involved, and it’s hard to keep things straight when watching Criminal Minds and trying to also hold a conversation with Mr. Boyfriend. I’d count something, get distracted, answer a question, recount, make a quip, recount, get impatient, need a glass of water, recount, ad infinitum.

When I was stitching blocks of blocks together, I noticed a spot where two lines of beads did not match up and could not match up with out significant re-working. I’d already done some pretty stellar post-fixing and was feeling all kinds of crunchy about doing any more. It was too much to think about, I’d have to undo and re-do about 1,400 beads, which was just too, too much. Last night I took a good hard look at what I had worked on and decided that it wasn’t worth salvaging.

It’s tempting to look at all the lost time and all the changes of intention that went into making the piece — 100 hours, easy, and a lot of good thoughts at the beginning — and think that because I’d put so much into it, it deserved to be finished. But it doesn’t. Yeah, I spent some time, and yeah, I spent some brainpower, but all that’s really lost, though, is just $12 worth of beads. That’s all it was ever worth.

PHOTO BY BILL ROGERS/FLICKR

I had planned to dive into the Thanksgiving edition of Everyday with Rachael Ray, but I can’t find it.  I checked everywhere in and around my desk and nope, it ain’t anywhere. I did find two issues of Modified Monthly, though (that’s the magazine on which I practice my madd copyediting skillz),  an old Popular Photography that i had saved for an HDR article, and the latest issue of Imbibe. 

<soapbox> Imbibe is a great magazine. If you like cocktails like I like cocktails, I highly recommend subscribing. In fact, I highly recommend subscribing to pretty much any magazine you enjoy, even Modified Monthly. It’s cheaper — usually half-off the cover price. And it’s convenient; they just come to you like magic!  Like clockwork.  Like clockwork magic!  Subscribing also gives the business side of the ‘zine some numbers to work with when deciding things like size, paper quality, how many ads they need to run, and how many writers and photographers to hire.  Because I like reading magazines that are printed well and have a high content-to-ad ratio, with pretty pictures and writing that is relevant, entertaining, and informative, I subscribe.</soapbox>

Anyway.  No Rachael Ray. Which is probably for the best, because I’m really not a fan of Turkey Day, anyway.

The first time I made a Thanksgiving feast was, well…  I was 18, had just moved into my first apartment, and didn’t really have niceties like cookware or a wall calendar. So when that third Thursday in November rolled around, I didn’t think anything of it until about 2 p.m. when I realized, “Oh shit! I haven’t gone grocery shopping!  Also, I’m broke!” My roommate and I pooled our cash, scrambled up the street to the 7-11 and grabbed everything we could afford that we thought would make an acceptable Thanksgivingy meal.  With our combined eleven dollars, we got Minute Rice, carrots, some raisins, and Nutter Butters. And a couple Big Gulps, because it ain't a real dinner without Dr. Pepper. From that, we made something that fed all of our friends. Nobody seemed to mind the lack of canned cranberries or stuffing, and we all got pretty drunk on some purloined Grain Belt. It was a nice evening indeed.

One thing bothered me, though; everyone called it an Orphan’s Feast. And the subsequent Thanksgivings I’ve had sans family — which is all of them — have been referred to, at least once in the course of the meal, as an "orphan’s dinner."  I hate that phrase.  It implies that it’s a less-than event, something cobbled together for the poor unfortunates and unwashed heathens that have nowhere else to go. The reasoning seems to be that if not for the grace of the host, we’d all be standing on street corners, kicking rocks at passing cars.

I don’t think this is the case at all. It’s a gathering of people who want to be together rather than have to be together. It’s a gathering of friends who enjoy each other’s company with no strings, guilt trips, or trumped-up family drama. You can drink too much wine and talk politics and literature and not have to make up excuses to go out behind the garage to have a cigarette or huff some ReddiWhip. You can get up and go whenever you want. You can bring your best fuckbuddy and not have to refer to him or her as “an old college pal.”    You can show up in a tux.  You can show up in pajamas. You can bake your own turkey and stuff the damn thing with whatever the hell you want!

But even with the looseness of a chosen family, there is the Expectation of Damocles that continues to hang over everything – the comparison to the Family Dinner. Whether as antagonist or protagonist, The Dinner makes for a bad guest at any table.  Not the food itself; that part is awesome. I mean the expectations, and the comparisons, to every traditional family dinner ever.  There must be turkey; if there isn’t, there is "something missing."  This annoys me to no end — not just as a vegetarian, but as a free thinker.  There needs to be stuffing and pie and sweet potatoes with marshmallows and it’s just not a real dinner without them.

You know what makes a real dinner?  Nothing. There’s no magical checklist. There are no proper ingredients. You either have it — in whatever incarnation you choose — or you don’t.

So what am I doing this year?  Absolutely nothing.  El Boyfriendo will be off in a sunnier climate (EDITOR'S NOTE: Not unless the magazine pays me, I won't), and I have chosen not to avail myself upon the kindness of friends. I will be sleeping late, wandering around a bit in my pajamas, watching all the Criminal Minds reruns I can find (which is all of them), and maybe, just maybe, ordering a pizza.  Not because it’s the only thing I can think of to do, but because it’s what I want to do. If I’m lucky, I won’t have to put on a bra or brush my teeth for three days. It’s going to be a wonderful, quiet, boring long weekend … and for that, I am very thankful.

PHOTO BY TERESIA/FLICKR

It’s haircut time!  Oh, endless misery and woe… 

What I want is a 1990s-style graduated bob.  Short in back, long in front, with a good, strong angle.  And I want the bottom third of the bob layered.  No bangs, no fringe, and yes, I part it on the left.  It was that way when I came in here, it’ll be that way when I walk out. 

What I get, more often than not – despite proper diligence and crafty refocusing techniques – is a straight-all-the-way-round bob, nothing fancy, no frills.  And I’m not really looking for frills; I just want the back short.  There needs to be some hott clipper-on-neck axxxtion or I’m not getting my ass out of the chair.  The law has been laid.  Down. 

Having to argue industriously for a haircut is insane.  Especially when photos are involved: I mean, I bring in photos of myself, in the cut that I want.  Look, proof!  I have had this cut before; I can indeed “pull it off.”  I’m paying a (hopefully) highly trained professional to cater to my whims and to have them question my wants/needs/preferences is throat punchingly insulting, especially when it’s really nothing more than a simple trim. I’m not asking for a striking and stunning re-do; I’m not asking to get a foot taken off and the remnants dyed glow-in-the-dark; I’m asking for a cleaning up of what I already have, thank you very much. 

Nope, I don’t want to add volume.  Nope, I’ve not thought about getting a perm.  Yes, remember, I part my hair on the left.  The left.  My left.  YES, I’VE HAD THE CUT BEFORE, IT WAS CALLED THE ‘90S.  YES, IVE HAD THIS CUT BEFORE, OH LOOK, I HAVE IT NOW.  Why is it so hard? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

I’ve even been told things like “it’s salon policy not to go that short on women.”  WHAT?!  If I want a fucking buzz cut, I will get it because I’m paying you to give me one.  Also, since when is one inch past chin-length considered short?

Luckily, I’ve had a great stylist for the past couple of years, so I don’t have to deal with new stylist bullshittery very often, but there are times when I’m out of town or she’s out of town or schedules don’t quite meet up or, you know, whatever, and I have to try to find someone who will do my bidding.  It’s hard.  Makes me bitchy.

ILLUSTRATION BY KARLA MARTINEZ LORIA/FLICKR

My acupuncturist and I talk about food a lot. She’s kind of a foodie, as well as a Chinese herbalist, and we share the belief that what one eats – and doesn’t eat – plays a large part in a person’s well being. On a recent visit, she gave me a stack of stuff to read about various things I can do to augment the treatments she is doing; a lot of them are dietary based. Wading through all of the info was a bit mind-bending, there was a lot of stuff jam-packed into a few paragraphs, and it’s written for an audience of TCM practitioners, not curious patients, so admittedly, good chunks of it went over my head. But the lists of foods to be favored and those to be avoided, those I got down pat. And the gist of it is – eat like a goth.

I can do this!

The Eat Me list was full of black beans, kidney beans, black sesame seeds, beets, molasses, cherries, figs, black lentils, rhubarb, black garlic, pomegranates, roasted barley, red onions, wild rice, strawberries… do you see the theme here? It’s all red and black! There were a few other things on there, too, like dark leafy greens and some purple stuff, but those are all shadowy, gloomy, and doomy-lookin’, too. Also, my favorite dark and stormy seasonings are on the good list – ginger, garlic, turmeric, cardamom, black pepper, and maple syrup. Small amounts of beef and chicken, specifically black chicken, were also suggested, but I think I will be skipping those. If I had a black chicken, it’d be running free around my apartment, scaring the squirrels on the patio, terrorizing the cats, and answering to the name of Mrs. Pendergrass.

Naturally, my first thoughts were of striped, stacked, and abstract dinnertime creations that would make Lydia Deetz proud. I’m picturing skulls made of molded black and red rices (those bone chillers ice cube trays will come in handy for this) on a bed of dark curly kale. And grilled kabocha squash with a ginger maple glaze landscaped with Truffula Trees of purple and orange cauliflower. Bloodshot-eyed beets stuffed with wild rice and lemon sauce. And roast figs floating in a balsamic/port reduction like so many shipwrecks in the dark North Sea…

Now all I need is a decent set of dinnerware.

PHOTO BY JUSTIN WATT/FLICKR

Autumn has come, and now our thoughts turn towards cocooning up and settling in for the long, dark winter.  Words like warmth and comfort top the list of Needful Things.  The October edition of Everyday With Rachel Ray is out in all its autumnal glory — there are Halloweeny pumpkins and spiders galore and pages are glowing with jewel shades of orange, orange, and more orange.  In this issue, she reminds us that sexism remains rampant in the kitchen, you can never go wrong with lowest-common-denominator flavors (although you really can go wrong with candied tomatoes), and all Italian food contains pasta.

The cheerfulness!  It burns.

I’m just gonna go down the glaring list of wrongnesses:

Page 16: Schools are suffering huge budget cuts. The cost of putting yakitori chicken in Chinese take-out boxes to make it “more fun” for schoolchildren is probably enough to ensure a few books won’t make it onto library shelves. Is this really our priority?

Also, regarding the Mexi Mac – herbs change the flavor of a dish?  Huh?  You don't say.

Page 23: It’s not a Panini, it’s a grilled cheese sandwich with apples.  Panini are made with ciabatta or other crusty, loafed breads and warmed in a heated press.  Your sandwiches are made with sliced white bread and cooked on a skillet.  The ingredients all look pretty tasty, but I’ll stand on the opinion that misnomers don’t taste very good.

Page 35: It's not a PB&J if you use cashew butter.  The P stands for peanut.

Page 37: Beer that incorporates the flavors of food?  It’s called “infused.” Look it up.

Page 40: Black food is nothing new. I mean, it’s great for Halloween recipes and all, and it does create a nifty visual wallop, but I remember getting squid ink-dyed pasta in Fargo, ND in the 1980s.  Fargo.  North Dakota. 1980s.

Page 58: Considering a lot of the recipes and ideas in this magazine are cost-conscious, it seems odd to suggest shelling out $10+ for a can of chalkboard paint to paint a pumpkin that will just rot in a few weeks anyway. If the decoration was mandatory and cost was really an issue, just paint the damn thing black with acrylic paint and draw on it with a paint pen. Half the price. Or spray chalkboard paint on a plastic pumpkin and keep it forever. You are welcome.  

Page 67: I read your so-called rules for touch football at least six times.  Still don’t understand.

Page 84: If you are spending 56 cents on a tablespoon of thyme, you clearly have no idea how the bulk spice aisle works. 

Page 100: "A big trend in food is big flavor and bold, hearty meals" – yeah, it's called winter eating.  Ray goes on to talk about how it’s called “guy food” but girls can eat it too, especially her, because she runs four miles a day.  In the magazine's introduction, Ray even says "I already eat like a man." I. Can’t. Even. Wrap.  My. Head. Around. The. Wrongness. Sexism aside, it makes me wonder; since when is cooking food that tastes good a trendy and novel idea? I thought that was the whole point.

Page 138: Don’t get me wrong, I like lasagna. I love lasagna. I love lasagna so much I want to marry it. But I won’t … not because it’s an intimate object, but because it’s a beautiful, creamy, expensive whore. Lasagna is warm and comforting, an occasion to forget yourself and totally and completely sink into.  However, lasagna, also like whores, should never ever, ever be photographed in an extreme close-up.   You want to appreciate the larger picture, here, to anticipate what lies within.  Food photographers take note.

Also, who puts candy corn in Chex Mix?  Honestly.

PHOTO BY ISLAND VITTLES/FLICKR

If I had motivation, business acumen, fistfuls of startup cash, and stuff like that, I’d be a restauranteur. Not a super-duper schmancy one, or a nasty, egotistical one like those you see on TV, but simply a gal who makes some food and serves it up to people. I have an entire notebook full of ideas and sketches, and reminders of places where I can find vintage lighting and glitter vinyl booths.

I’d start with one thing, and I’d do it well. In fact, I’d over-do it well. And that thing is Tater Tots, those crispy bits of potato-ey heaven. I would rock them so hard! The Tot Spot would be an all-tots, all-the-time sort of a place. The sign would be a hypnotically animated neon bulls-eye with Tot Spot written on the arrow.

Ideally, The Tot Spot would be located on some not-quite-busy roadway, just far enough off the beaten path to be a destination, but close enough to town that the drive isn’t prohibitive. In a perfect world, I’d be able to take over an old drive-in theater lot. There would be a cement dinosaur on the property, of course, and possibly a 1940’s-style playground complete with metal slides, monkey bars, teeter-totters, and a personal indemnity clause. I would hold themed movie nights in the summertime, and a special winter holiday edition drive-in Saturday featuring Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” with free mugs of hot chocolate at midnight.

Tot Spot Two would be the hip, uptown branch that would cater to the slouchy, diffident hipster kids. It’d be a nice place and all, but it wouldn’t have quite the same ambience. The kids would love it, though, especially when the laundromat next door offers its irresistible “Tots-N-Wash special.”

The menu, though, will be the kicker. Naturally we’ll offer tater tot casseroles, in styles ranging from Plain Midwestern to Mormon Funeral. Casserole dishes will be filled to the brim with cream of chicken/mushroom/celery concoctions and topped with everything from cornflakes and crisped onions to potato chips and panko. There would also be tater tot scrambles, mixing tots and scrambled eggs and a variety of veggies and cheeses into a delicious, albeit messy delight.

For the health-conscious, baked tots would be available (by special request), and all orders could be split, half on a plate for now and half pre-packed into a takeout container for later. We would also offer soups and salads and hearty breads with ingredients sourced from local farmers; I’d prefer that my patrons not die of heart attacks too soon.

A few signature dishes would round out the menu:

  Totchos: Traditional nachos, made with tots instead of chips, and topped with salsa, cheese, avocado slices. Black olives and jalapeños on the side, of course, as well as a few dishes of sour cream, extra salsa, and chipotle ranch sauce.

  Totdue: Made for sharing; a small dish of melted cheese, a pair of long-handled forks, and tots.

  Tots Au Gratin and Scalloped Tots: Vegetarian versions of tater tot hot dishes.

  Grilled Tot Sammich: A grilled cheese sandwich with a layer of tater tots inside.

  Shepherd’s Tots: A traditional shepherd’s pie, with a tater tot top crust.

  Fishsticks ‘n’ Tots: Pretty self-explanatory. Comes with pots of tartar sauce, malt vinegar, curried ketchup, and garlic aioli.

  Totka Masala: Could tots stand a spicy tomato cream sauce? There’s only one way to find out.

  The Lotta Totta Pinata: A crisp churro-type pastry shell filled with tater tots, suspended over… I dunno, something. Could even be Elisabeth Moss. The real fun happens when you smack it with your fork and the tots cascade down onto your plate.

I’ve given some thought to tots-forward desserts — bite-sized bits of fried ice cream that come with a deep red raspberry dipping sauce, or sweet tots made of grated apples. But I think those may be a little bit too heavy-handed. You can only stretch a theme so far before it crosses the line between kitsch and psychosis. Or can you?