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Letter (Aug. 22): Let’s feed the Socialist hippies of Aspen

Dear Editor:

Inspired by the brainstorming of comrades Glenn Beaton and Maurice Emmer regarding the city of Aspen’s newly mandated affordable restaurant in the downtown core, I humbly offer a few more suggestions:

1. Make it food-stamp friendly. Anyone not living in a penthouse is receiving some measure of food assistance these days, but what good is it if it can’t be used to purchase hot meals? I propose that the city set up a “conversion station” outside the new restaurant, whereby a debit from a patron’s Colorado EBT “Quest” account can be converted into a credit at the restaurant. Of course, just as Jesus threw a hissy-fit at the tables set up by the moneychangers outside the Temple in Jerusalem, so the state and federal governments might object to this, but when have city, county, state and federal governments been on the same page anyway? Think marijuana.



2. Institute a sustainable menu. Even low-budget Aspenites value organic field-to-table food, but this is hard to provide during the winter unless frozen cows at Conundrum can be harvested more efficiently, so I suggest that the restaurant’s managers become proficient at using Leftovers, a new Google app that would allow them to locate and recycle fancy fare that is left unconsumed by Aspen’s fancy-pants winter clientele at those private, market-based establishments.

3. Offer a low-flatulence menu. Aspen’s green agenda seeks to reduce methane and other greenhouse-gas emissions, and because foods rich in B vitamins are favored by our gas-producing intestinal flora, these foods should be off the table. As a safeguard, instead of the traditional peppermint hard candy that arrives with the check, a waitperson might discreetly offer the patron a Beano tablet.




4. Encourage “messy vitality.” Since the locals value this so highly, why not suspend those snobby “No shirt, no shoes, no service” regulations? We’re all socialist hippies now, so let it all hang out. As for 85-decibel noise — er, music — well, that’s another matter.

5. Have menu managers to ensure that menu diversity does not conflict with menu equality. Perhaps Nanny Bloomberg could advise the city as soon as his mayoral term expires in the Big Apple.

Enough for now. “Maird” and “Bon appetite”!

Chad Klinger

Basalt