Welcome to the Idaho Potato Museum Gift Shop
Also, is "Elsbeth" a good spinoff? Plus, we yell at Matt Lauer.
As we careen through spring and toward summer, I am pleased to welcome my fellow Broads to a new edition of Enter Through the Gift Shop, the feature where we examine the offerings of the world’s most intriguing museum gift shops. As you head off on your adventures over the next few months, please remember that I am always interested to hear about cool and interesting (or, I guess, notably weird and lame?) candidates, and can be reached at dwbgiftshop@gmail.com. (If you’ve sent in a suggestion that I haven’t tackled yet, please rest assured that I have them on a list and I will get to them. Y’all have sent in some good stuff!)
Recent editions of ETTGS have taken us to Amsterdam’s Cat Cabinet, South Dakota’s glorious Corn Palace, the Corning Museum of Glass, Hawthorne’s iconic House of the Seven Gables, the Huntington Library, the Museum of Neon Art, Milwaukee’s National Bobblehead Museum, and, most recently, Wisconsin’s National Mustard Museum. Today, we’re leaving Wisconsin and heading west to Idaho, where we are finally getting our spud on at — where else?? — the Idaho Potato Museum, which “strive[s] to educate people about the Idaho Potato and the Potato Industry.” TripAdvisor ranks it as the number one thing to do in Blackfoot, Idaho, although looking at that list, it might also be the only thing to do in Blackfoot. (The museum’s building used to be a train depot.) Reviewers were uniformly delighted by the giant spud on display outside and noted that the cafe makes (no surprise here) great potatoes, although it seems like they run out quite a lot: The cafe’s website notes that you should order your potato two hours in advance, like it’s a complicated souffle or something. The tater tots sound like a decent substitute if you’re not organized enough to pre-order a museum potato, which… one would think they’d have them ready to go? It’s right there in the name.
Additionally, reviewer John P wrote:
We spotted a woman we had seen hours earlier at the Craters of the Moon park 80 miles away and hours ago, not realizing that we would see her again tomorrow at the Mesa Falls State Park another 100 miles and hours from Blackfoot ! Who is following who ?
Great insight!
Leaving aside women potentially following you to Mesa Falls State Park, the potato museum does look extremely cute — exactly the sort of place you want to stop at if you’re taking a cross-country road trip — and the website promises the following:
You’ll be intrigued as you stroll through the historic building which was built in 1912. Once a bustling flurry of activity, the stone depot represents significant ties between the railroad and the potato industry. The Potato Museum provides information on potato history, the growing and harvesting process, nutrition, trivia and educational potato facts….As you tour the museum you will be intrigued by the number and quality of potato artifacts and collections. Did you know the Idaho Potato Museum may have the largest collection of potato mashers in the world? The museum certainly does house the largest potato crisp ever made – it is a Guinness Book of World Records holder!
And if the world’s largest Pringle wasn’t sufficiently enticing1, Roadside America’s tremendously detailed write-up informed me that the museum — like the Bobblehead Museum before it — has its own theme song, which gives it bonus points in my book, and that it displays a potato signed by former Vice President and famous potato-misspeller Dan Quayle, as well as “a burlap rodeo queen outfit -- vest and skirt -- made of potato sacks, and the burlap tuxedo worn by Idaho's first Potato Commissioner.” Apparently, originally visitors could also get potato sack outfits made for themselves, but this is sadly no longer on offer. I hope the Potato Commissioner found a new tailor!
But we’re not here for giant potato crisps2 or the burlap outfits, anyway. (For once.) We’re here for the gift shop, which the site promises “has almost every potato-themed gift item imaginable. From potato soap made with potato starch to Spud Spikes, the gift shop has the right potato gift for you!” Is that possible?
Well, leaving aside the fact that I could not find the aforementioned spikes in the online shop, it’s otherwise stuffed with potato-y delights. Their selection of t-shirts truly has something for everyone; there is also obviously a potato-shaped shot glass, and I’m low-key obsessed with this truly weird Christmas ornament. Strangely, the museum offers no tote bags, which feels like an oversight, and while they do (of course) have mugs, I feel like the world of potato mugs is probably actually more vast than this. Having said that: We've all got enough mugs and tote bags, but I’d wager none of us have enough spud soap:
It’s literally shaped like a potato! “This is a luxurious soap!” the copy promises. Is it? I’m not sure if I’m in the market for luxury potato soaps, anyway; being shaped like a tuber is enough for me. Imagine the reaction from your friends and family when they find this in your guest bathroom!
And while I acknowledge that this is America and it’s surprising we’re not all issued one of these at birth, as it combines two of this nation’s passions — firearms and carbs — I suspect there are plenty of us who want a spud gun:
Will it take an eye out? Bring one home to the kids and find out!
Less potentially painful, presumably, is the honestly adorable Spuddy Buddy:
Snuggly! I want to hug it.
And, for your beloved with a sweet tooth, naturally we’ve got potato candy:
The description reads:
This iconic Idaho candy bar has been delighting consumers since 1918! Made by the oldest candy company in Idaho, the Idaho Spud bar has a delicious foaming chocolate middle, wrapped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with coconut! The Idaho Candy Company is still located in Boise, Idaho where it started business in 1909!
Although I am concerned by the words “foaming chocolate,” I truly love the enthusiasm! And the Spud Bar is fun — even if The Idaho Candy Company notes that there is no potato in this candy, which feels like an oversight. Perhaps something for our friends at the Potato Museum to work on for the future? Maybe while the baked potatoes are percolating for two hours. Just a thought!
— Jessica
Your Resident TV Crank Is Not Unhappy With CBS’s Elsbeth
If you are not aware that CBS is airing a spinoff of The Good Wife called Elsbeth, based on a popular recurring character, then it’s likely because you are not watching Survivor, or Ghosts, or anything else on CBS. Because boy did they do some irritating pop-up advertising, and in this case I mean it fairly literally (apologies if there is sound; you can mute it though):
Popular secondary and tertiary characters can be tough traps for a show. Often, you can tell when the writers/producers are so obsessed with a particular actor that the show gets railroaded by their screen time — my immediate examples are Billy Eichner the seasons he was on Parks & Rec, and Chelsea Peretti’s Gina on Brooklyn 99, a show that never seemed to realize it was almost always better without that character’s point of view. It is a delicate balancing act, I’m sure, made easier when the person only periodically pops up as a guest star, but you still want to make sure viewers don’t get tired of the shtick. And Elsbeth Tascioni is full of shtick: She is the classic case of a woman whose intelligence is underestimated because she’s wide-eyed and earnest, a bit flighty, often unfocused, and wears patterns. She is a series of left turns when everyone else wants to go right. In personality, Elsbeth was a super counterpoint to the stiffness and seriousness and sameness of all the suits on Whatever That Law Firm Was Even Called on The Good Wife, although obviously Julianna Margulies and Christine Baranski looked super (and, shout out to Diane Lockhart’s necklace game). Still, CBS took a mighty chance in giving her a whole hour-long show, and my concern — in no small part boosted by those annoying pop-ups — was whether more Elsbeth would be way too much.
Robert and Michelle King — the Good Wife creators — must be relieved that Poker Face is off the air right now, because conceptually it is very, very similar to Elsbeth. Yes, okay, Natasha Lyonne’s character is on the run and avoiding the law, whereas Elsbeth is simply moving to New York from Chicago. But both shows cite Columbo as their inspiration, and accordingly both shows begin with showing you who did it and how, and then letting you follow the main character as she spots the breadcrumb trail and susses out the culprit. Both shows stunt-cast the cases of the week; Elsbeth, in just three episodes, used Stephen Moyer, Jane Krakowski, Linda Lavin, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and two Sex and the City alums, Molly “Susan Sharon” Price, and Nadia “Nina Katz” Dajani, and we’ve still got Blair Underwood on tap along with Keegan-Michael Key, Retta, Gina Gershon, Laura Benanti, Aryan Moayed, and You’s Elizabeth Lail. And both shows revolve around a redhead playing the quirky central character, and so adeptly that you can’t imagine her in anyone else’s hands.
As such, Elsbeth is as delightful as you personally find Carrie Preston’s Elsbeth to be. I have always liked her. Preston injects real humanity in there so that Elsbeth is never a caricature, despite being a cocktail of the occasional bluntness of Temperance “Bones” Brennan, the nosyness of Jessica Fletcher and the savvy of… well, at times, Sherlock Holmes. That’s the one trap the show has fallen into so far: Elsbeth is an attorney who’s essentially policing the police in their investigations but ends up doing most of the work herself, and she is not only never wrong, but she is almost immediately correct. This can work in the show’s favor, particularly with Jesse Tyler Ferguson as an Andy Cohen knockoff who is really pretty terrible at feigning concern for his dead leading lady (I do not consider this a spoiler because of the Columbo format), or Stephen Moyer as a gross lecherous drama teacher. We can enjoy her being on their asses immediately because they are such asses. But for how long can it work that Elsbeth notes the merest clue in seconds and comes to the right conclusion? I guess Murder, She Wrote, ran twelve seasons, but even that show didn’t give Jessica Fletcher a hot theory until the last act. And at times Elsbeth, in prodding her chief suspect, reveals too much and then seems strangely surprised when they’re a step ahead of her… but then again, are they ever really a step ahead?
Ergo, for now the crux of the show is less the sleuthing than what it’s making fun of — the Bravoverse, in episode three; cutthroat New York co-ops in the second — and enjoying Elsbeth winning the grudging respect of people who don’t yet know she’s the smartest person in the room. Oh, and the other significant pleasure: Elsbeth truly never has met a floral, nor a ruffle, that she didn’t embrace. These are from the first episode alone:
Elsbeth is light, it’s charming, it skewers pop culture in pleasant ways, and everyone is competent and seems to be having a good time. Stalwart vet Wendell Pierce is the police chief whom Elsbeth is secretly keeping an eye on, and Carra Patterson — fresh off playing Coretta Scott King in Rustin — is great as the first cop to be Team Elsbeth. This is a show where the women get it right and the men are playing catch-up, and yep, I am fond of that hook. Hopefully it will pay off: CBS, curiously, debuted the first episode in February, yanked it for 5 weeks, and then dropped two; they did fine, but boy, that’s a dice roll.
— Heather
Last Week, Paid Subscribers Got…
Last Call
— Of potential interest to everyone who read our Feud recaps is this piece in Vanity Fair: “Feud’s Truman Capote Doesn’t Shine Like the Man I Knew: Yes, he was a lonely, tormented alcoholic at the end, but he was also a riveting dinner companion and a transcendent writer.” This is a little bit old — it was published in mid-March — but just surfaced for me and I found it excellent. Feud did a lot of people wrong, I suspect. —J
— Back in November, Matt Lauer’s PR people floated an item through People about how well he had been doing, and the ways he was contemplating a big return to media. I assume that didn’t move the needle enough, NOR SHOULD IT HAVE, because now Us has the exclusive that Matt believes “enough time has gone by” (!) and that he is owed an apology (!!) and feels like he is the real victim (!!!) and that this is all very painful for him (!V). I cannot scream WHOOO CARES, DIRTBAAAAG, loudly enough. I am sufficiently jaded to believe that someone3 will take a chance on the ratings he might provide, even from people who hate Lauer and hope he spontaneously combusts on camera, but I shall say it louder for the TV execs in the back: LITERALLY NO ONE except Matt Lauer is asking for this! Let him ask! Let him yell himself hoarse! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER. —H
— The Alec Baldwin arm of this Rust case is a mess. While ultimately the entire tragedy seems like the result of a perfect storm of bad decisions, inexperience, dangerous cheapness, and extraordinarily bad luck, I found this bit of info shocking: “[Prosecutor Kari] Morrissey also learned that Baldwin was planning a documentary about [victim Halyna] Hutchins, and was ‘actively pressuring material witnesses in the case’ to be interviewed for it. ‘It was at this point that the plea offer was rescinded,’ she wrote, and she opted to take it to a grand jury.” What kind of absolute idiot decides to make a documentary about the victim of crime for which they are actively being prosecuted? My law degree is from the University of Law & Order and even I know that when you’re facing a manslaughter charge, your best move is to shut up. — J
— In honor of yesterday’s eclipse, a reminder that we recapped the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video for Go Fug Yourself, and it is BATSHIT CRAZY. We also revisited the premieres of Twilight: Eclipse, which were crazy in their own way. — J
IT IS —H
AREN’T WE —H
I predict he’s gonna end up on FOX News. - J
Per the delightful David Chang, you do NOT have to wrap up a tater in tinfoil to bake. (I mention this because I am a t-shirt collector and I was charmed what the museum had to offer. One of the t-shirts said "Some heroes don't wear caps, they wear tinfoil.)
Great read as always! I followed the link to the Total Eclipse of the Heart video, and, um. I'm not certain what I was just watching but I am suddenly glad I was young enough in the 80s to not really understand how TOTALLY UNHINGED they were.