Our first discovery was the Grateful Dead Dancing Bear - a happy little nugget of batter nestled among our fish and hush puppies at Captain D's .....

Then ... the Coleslaw Dog Walker strolled right out of a bag of precut cabbage .....

And, this past Friday, the Ambivalent Fry (photo at left) showed up at Liza's last supper with her high school buddies, a stowaway in our large takeout order from Zaxby's .....

I know the Virgin Mary makes regular appearances. On grilled cheese sandwiches, on toast, on bagels, in chocolate drippings, even in bags of Rold Gold pretzels. And the lucky discoverers welcome these appearances with a sense of reverence.

"I picked it up and I felt emotion just come over me."

"We all had a feeling of warm and spirituality when holding the pretzel."

I'm not sure what to make of all that - particularly the woman who sold the grilled cheese sandwich on eBay for $28,000 (and the pan it was created in for $6,000). If you hadn't heard, she recently had an image of the much ballyhooed sandwich tattooed on her chest to keep it close to her heart. Her words. Not mine.

I guess I could spend a lot of time thinking about the messages that my little food friends bear.

If you get confused, listen to the music play?

Take your dog for a walk?

F*%K Off?

What did Thoreau say? "Life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." Here's my simple message. Look for fun everywhere, my friends. Even in your fish and french fries.