Christmas Amusement

Heh.  From The Concourse.

Excerpts from The 2014 Haters Guide to the William-Sonoma Christmas Catalog
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-2014-haters-guide-to-the-williams-sonoma-catalog-1667452305



Item #66-7072176 – Snowman Cake Pan ($29.58)
Copy: "Only our bundt pans have a premium nonstick coating that helps capture every detail on the pan."

Concourse Says: This is the perfect low-end Williams Sonoma gift because a) it costs $30 but is also somehow utterly pointless, b) there is no way that, in real life, your stupid snowman cake will stay upright (how does all that icing stay up on his face? I call bullshit), and c) it's perfect for making a cake that you do not want anyone to actually eat. How do you slice the idiotic snowman cake? You don't. You bake it, you put it in the center of the table, and then you yell at the kids to not fucking touch it. That's how people roll with a snowman cake.





Items #66-1649441, #66-57921819, #66-4974309 – Peppermint Bark Cookies ($24.95),
Peppermint Bark Marshmallows ($19.95), Peppermint Bark Cups ($24.95) 

Copy: "Artisan (Ed. note: Of course) candymakers layer creamy white chocolate over dark Guittard chocolate and then top it with crisp, homemade peppermint candy bits."

Concourse says: Those $30 tins of peppermint bark represent 90 percent of all W-S holiday sales, so it makes sense that they would do a Marvel-style rollout of sequels and spinoffs: Peppermint bark cups, and peppermint bark cookies, and peppermint bark cakelets, and peppermint bark-coated beef roasts, etc. Soon we'll have a peppermint bark origin story. Very dark. Very gritty. I worry about franchise dilution. It used to be about the BARK, man. Anyway, you can make peppermint bark at home with four ingredients, but why do that when you can have an ARTISAN CANDYMAKER do it instead? Let me tell you something: If my kid went through college and then told me he wanted to follow his dream of being an artisanal candymaker named Williamsburg Wonka, I would beat his ass. No remorse. We don't need this many people trying to elevate candy.

But for real, I'd eat the fuck out of all these items.





Item #66-5832014 – Hot Chocolate Pot ($60)
Copy: "New & exclusive! Award-winning mid-century design from the Dansk Kobenstyle collection. Engineered for uniform heating in heavy-gauge steel with a stay-cool teak handle."

Concourse Says: Yes, a hot chocolate pot. Because a fondue pot wasn't quite useless enough. Hey, you know what other kind of pot is good for making hot chocolate?  A POT. Like, any regular pot that you already have. I know sometimes it dribbles down the side when you pour the chocolate out, making you want to kill God. But if you use a ladle, you'll be fine. The Williams-Sonoma catalog will not rest until you need a separate pot for every single goddamn thing you make. QUICK! SOMEONE FETCH ME THE GOAT CHEESE FRITATTA SKILLET! No, not the Western Frittata skillet, you MORON! It's $60. For a hot chocolate pot. Goddamn.

 




Item #66-210252 – Mushroom Logs ($29.95 For Shitake, $29.95 For Oyster)
Copy: "Exclusive! Grow organic mushrooms every two months for three years … Glass cloche protects mushrooms as they grow."

Concourse Says: The cloche does not come with your fungus log; it's an additional $189.95.! And you have to buy it, right? You can't just leave your shiitake log exposed to the elements like that. Your mushroom risotto will end up being 50 percent cat dander that way.

Let's be clear on this right now: If you invite me into your home and serve me mushrooms from your home log, I'm not eating them. You are trying to drug me, and I'm not having it. Don't be a fungus person. They're right below entomologists on the creepy scale.

Item #66-4052924 – Lobster Mac And Cheese ($99)
Copy: "Gourmet comfort food made in Maine with lobster and shell pasta in mascarpone cheddar sauce with Panko-parmesan topping … four ramekins."

Concourse Says: Four fucking ramekins! For $100! At least the $180 ham in this brochure is 18 pounds. I wanna run a business where people pay me that much to ruin lobster. Why does mac and cheese get a pass from the "don't put cheese on seafood" rule? Is it because Americans just blindly eat any mac and cheese you put in front of them? OH WHAT A UNIQUE TWIST ON COMFORT FOOD. There is nothing comforting about shelling out that much money for four frozen thimblefuls of lobster glue.  For a hundred bucks, I want LOBSTER.  Send me a five-pound Tupperware filled with nothing but shelled lobster meat, and then I'll decide the proper way to deploy it.

Item #66-5541453 – Breville Oracle Espresso Machine ($1,999.95 – "New Special Value: Save $500")
Copy: "Features automatic grinding, dosing, tamping, and milk texturing."

Concourse Says: Oh, well, if it textures my milk for me, I'm all in. I wanna meet the couple (and it has to be a couple) who share such an obsession with coffee that they need to drop two grand on a NASA-designed espresso spaceship that grinds every burr to a precise atomic measurement and heats up your coffee cup to a temperature that was calibrated using advanced fractals. I wanna find this couple, and then piss in their coffee. I really do. Send me their address, and I'll figure out a way. No jury would convict me.