Technically my vacation started today, but I made sure to come in for our potluck lunch, which Nick did an excellent job orchestrating. It was a great spread overall, complete with cookies, enchiladas, salad, sweet potatoes, and all sorts of snacks in between. I brought in some homemade beef jerky (or as close as one can get without owning a food dehydrator), as well as “Octopus Garden,” which ended up being some sort of macaroni casserole.

The key to Octopus Garden is actually in one of the first devices I remember ordering on the internet, The Octodog. Basically, the Octodog takes an ordinary hotdog and transforms it into a nautical being of myth and mystery by making a series of slices along the length of hot dog, and two little holes at the uncut end. When the dog’s cooked, the legs curl up and take the shape of an octopus. Sorta. Anyway, here’s where all that lead to.

First, I cut a few Octodogs, and then made little slices from the rest of the hotdogs in the pack, and boiled them all up. While that was going on, I gave some broccoli a light steaming. Then I tossed the cut dogs and broccoli into a bowl and mixed them up with some pepper, diced parsley, basil and a little garlic. Then I cooked up some shell-shaped pasta, which is thematically crucial here.

Once the pasta was done, I mixed it all up with the rest of the ingredients and added in some shredded cheddar. Then I tossed it all into a baking pan, spread it out, and topped it off with a bunch of crumbled up Ritz crackers and three Octodogs before baking it for about 30 minutes or so. It wasn’t much to look at, but I like to think it was pretty edible. In retrospect, it really could have used a little more greenery on the top. But who knows. Maybe octopi are shitty gardeners.