The Counterintuitive Kitchen Holiday Guide

Are you a carnivore, or a pulverizer of nuts and crackers? For chewable meats and productive expressions of rage, I suggest an all-steel meat tenderizer.

For whom?

For almost anyone, really

They tend to range from $7 – $40. I say avoid the ones with a rubber handles, because if you are one day in a wind-blasted open field and there is lightning and thunder and you hold your tenderizer aloft, the rubber handle could prevent you from knowing your One True Name and becoming an intergalactic pagan god.

For you, perhaps

Got plans to gather and think you might have some things to get off your chest? May I suggest Kenneth as your role model.

For people with upper parts

Maybe you or someone you know has a neck, neck-to-nose area, or forehead-to-airspace-above that is chilly and/or unadorned. May I suggest this little number. You can also use it as a blindfold, a hair band, and a mask for when you are thieving or burgling. It will not prevent you from getting a disease. It’s 15 American dollars! You can get it online. Tube bandana gaiter from Frog and Toad

For the charming conversationalist

A free source of dinner table facts. Who doesn’t like to talk about menstruation over turkey legs and chestnuts and mac and cheese?

For a messy or clean person

It is true! You can just use a rag. But if you are used to vertically stored paper towels and are more likely to use these rather than the wreckage of the great Canadian boreal forest, I can tell you, they are handy.

For most people (yes, yes, maybe you have a bidet, please don’t start describing it again)

I GIVE YOU A TP BUYING GUIDE! Happy f’n holidays.

One million acres cut every year for a tree-to-toilet pipeline. Boreal old growth (never before logged) forests apparently emit 3X the greenhouse gases of replanted forests.

…

For those who like to communicate in a special way

I used this mofo below today to get my son out of bed. $13.95 and no need to strain your vocal chords.

For those living in the here and now

Affordable housing is on everyone’s mind. Age in place in style in this LL Bean dog bed! You can spill coffee, tea, or whiskey on it and no one will know. Fits in most any stable friend or family member’s mud room or hallway. A one-time investment of $179 at llbean.com, plus some brass guts, and you have your forever home.

For the disheartened, or for the landholder

If you have the holiday blues, get yourself three Newfoundland puppies, one donkey, and one golden doodle. You will spend the rest of your days in a warm heap of fur and hair, making sustained eye contact, and getting no emails. Alternatively, drop off a donkey at the home of someone with land, and never admit that you have done so, but include a collar with a little silver capsule in which a note, written in calligraphy, that says “[First name of donkey recipient], Finally, I found you and we are together! I am the key you have searched for for so long, the key that unlocks all of your dreams.” And then just visit when you feel like it.

For a middle-grades reader or anyone, really

If you have a youngish person in your home or life, The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman includes a paragraph in which some children are given permission (by trees) to harvest wood for fuel, but only if the children first agree to become trees for a period of time and experience the consciousness and time-sense of trees .

For people who say they want to stop doom-scrolling and mean it

For those in compromised relationships

The saber-briquet is deemed a very ineffective sword, and was used by the infantry of the Grande Armée in close combat situations. In melee! A good gift for someone whom you doubt and a life-saving steal at €87.50 from Napoleon-Souvenirs. €87.50 is equal, in American dollars, to a different amount which I am confident you can figure out.