Brownies For Vegans, Filet And Turducken(!) For Fido

The room service menu at the W hotel is a riot. While it contains “Vegan Chocolate Brownies” to cheer up those ordinarily joyless souls who believe themselves to be inferior to animals, it contains lots of treats to make pets–or at least their owners–feel pretty darn superior themselves:

PET MENU
24 hours

10 oz filet ($30)

8 oz burger: lightly cooked with iams kibble ($15)

gourmet iams dog food ($10)

gourmet iams cat food ($10)

bone cookie treats ($9)

still or sparkling water ($8)

(All-lowercase spelling on original menu, complete with sanserif typeface.)

As James Lileks writes today in his Daily Quirk, Thanksgiving for pets is about to have a whole lotta quirk itself:

Today’s helpful hint: how to flatter yourself to please a creature that would be happy eating a fly-blown buzzard. Step one: Find one of those boutique grocery stores that sell shade-grown organic Lucky Charms. Step two: Go to the pet food department and look for the “Merrick” label. Step three: Realize you are looking at yuppie culture gone stark howling mad, summed up in three words:

turducken for dogs

Yes, that famous wad-o-fowl has been made in pet-food form. Merrick specializes in upscale treats; their dog food is packaged so attractively I’m tempted to plop it in a bowl and plant my mug in the slop. “Wild Buffalo Grill,” for example, contains “cracked pearled barley, zucchini, carrots, snow peas, fuji apples.” It’s described as “Homestyle,” as if you have a family tradition of bringing down a bison in the back yard and carving off hot steaming chunks for Spot. There’s “Thanksgiving Dinner,” which contains all the trimmings, “Campfire Trout Feast” and “Napa Valley Picnic.” The last one contains duck. Duck! So Pluto wants Creamed Donald for supper?

It’s two bucks a can, and you’re supposed to give four cans daily to big dogs. Or you could send the money to the Union Gospel Mission and toss the dog a slider from time to time. He’ll love you anyway. You will miss the feeling you get from being A Person Whose Dog Just Loves Duck, but you’ll live.

(Note: Yes, I bought a can. Because I love my dog. Pathetic.)

Hey, at least he didn’t make tinfoil shoes for Jasper…