Dear Sedaratives,

How does one make a Spanish tortilla? I keep trying, and somehow end up with scrambled eggs and home fries. Help!

Rick

Dear Rick,

If you focus on your destination, then the journey will betray you. Many a traveler has set off for El Dorado and wound up at a discount hotel. Do not start with ground corn, water and spices. Depart them, wordlessly, and make the tortilla seek you out. There will break a dawn when you will find yourself on a street in Venice. A radio will play a song you’d forgotten you’d remembered. Turn around twice. Embrace your fear. That’s when the tortilla will hand you an umbrella.

Patton

Dear Sedaratives,

I have a really nice ass, but I don’t have a boyfriend. How can I get someone to love me?

Hope
Denver, CO

Dear Hope,

’Cause it’s 2009. Two thousand and nine is the year of the killer rack. Two thousand and eight was the year of the really nice ass. Wait till it cycles around again in 2015.

Patton

Dear Sedaratives,

My neck is super sore after a night of dancing. How can I find out why this is the case?

Harry
Houston, Tex.

Dear Harry,

A night of dancing? In Houston? Be happy it’s only your neck that’s sore.

Patton

Dear Sedaratives,

There’s a nice, small, family-run grocery store on my block. Recently I’ve been reading about the upsides of feeding your dog real food, not the cardboard that passes for “dog food.” Anyway, I fed him some carrots and beef from this grocery store and now my dog is dead. Do you think I could sue the grocery store, and is it possible to sue for a new dog?

Warm regards,
James David Lighton

Dear Mr. Lighton,

“Carrots and beef”? I’m going to assume you served your dog sliced carrots and some sort of ground beef, possibly chuck. Quaint, tasty, and simple, yes? It’s clear your dog died not from any foodborne illness but from mortifi cation. Any pairing of a root vegetable with “upper- half” meats (chuck, rib, short loin, the three sirloins and round) should also include a dark, bitter vegetable to counteract the intensity of the beef and the sweet/starchy quality of the root vegetable. When your dog realized he was forever shackled to such a culinary philistine, he surely willed his bodily functions to cease.

I shudder to think of your idea of a wine pairing. The poor mutt probably died with the sad tang of an overpriced Neb biolo on his tongue.

Patton

Dear Sedaratives,

When I moved into my house, the...