I kinda forgot I have this site. I got real busy at work and there was Covid. And then I left Twitter for Instagram, and left Instagram for Bluesky, and left Bluesky for peace and quiet. I realized that the problem isn’t which app you’re on. Social media is a mental hospital that’s on fire, full of people scolding each other for screaming about the fire in the wrong way. Extremely normal and cool. Good job, everybody!

Anyway, hi! It’s me, Dan! From the 2010s! I’m alive!

I’ve made very little progress on Fred Dracula (because work, see above), but still want to get back to it as well as a book of 100 silly poems. I’ve got about 70 of those. But the thing that made me load up the old site and start typing is some food I just ate. And no, I did not take a picture. You’re welcome.

I’m out of town for my job and the hotel I’m at is surrounded by expensive restaurants whose menus are all dogshit. Fortunately, there’s a bakery chain called Tous Les Jours who has a location nearby. I believe it’s French for “the day’s toes”. They rule. You get a tray and some tongs and walk around grabbing flaky pastries and little cakes and stuff. Molto bien tres magnifico zuper duper etc.

My favorite thing, the thing that inspired me to write this, the thing that cured my exhaustion-induced writer’s block is the sausage onion pastry.

Take a look.

You start with a diamond-shaped flat pastry, like a depressed croissant who’s seen all the other pastries get chosen by happy customers and doesn’t understand why nobody wants it. It’s been there for years, slowly deflating as life passes it by. You put some kind of cheese food on it. Sure, why not? Who cares? And then you plop on a slightly dried up frank.

Now, this isn’t a hot dog that’s been on the roller all day at a gas station. This is more like how a Vienna sausage starts before you soak it in Can Juice for a few months. It’s got the crispy, shriveled ends of a store-brand Slim Jim knockoff that’s called a Meat Stick because that’s the only combination of words the FTC or FDA will allow on the package. That’s what’s been on the gas station roller all day.

So you plop the frank on the flat, flaky pastry that’s given up. That’s what it’s called, by the way. A frank. It’s there on the list of ingredients alongside “flavor”, “mixture”, and “prepared edible fat”. Then you probably roll it up, right? You do no such thing! Not in this house!

You eat your crusty sadness tile with the frank lying straight across it. What’s that, you think a hot dog is a sandwich? Allow Tous Les Jours to dissuade you of that little notion, mon ami.

They say they’re “French Korean inspired”, and I believe them because it’s equal parts existentialism and the demilitarized zone. The bleakness of this schadenfoode is only surpassed by its deliciousness. I truly love this thing. 7-Eleven is my favorite restaurant, and this is like if Anthony Bourdain took over their readymade menu. I eat there every time I come here for work.

The rest of the menu is lovely. Cloud cakes with bits of real mango. Excellent coffee served all the ways. A bunch of normal sandwiches if you’re a boring NPC who hopes this Hallmark Channel Christmas movie has a happy ending. But for the Werner Herzogs among us, the sausage onion pastry provides the highest of the lowest. A Michelin star printed out and taped to the side of a dumpster. It’s perfect. I’d eat it every day if I wanted a loophole to get around my life insurance policy’s nonpayment for suicide. I think it’s my favorite food. Thank you for this, our daily toes.