This is what a baked potato looks like on Whidbey Island.About a

This is what a baked potato looks like on Whidbey Island.About a month ago, the Seattle Food Geek delighted Voracious readers with the tale of a 10-course meal at the Inn at Langley’s restaurant. It turns out they take all kinds there, as our old buddy and erstwhile Voracious columnist, the Surly Gourmand, recently made the same Whidbey Island pilgrimage, writing about the experience as only he can on his blog.His conclusion? “This gluttonous marathon punishes you, but the courses are so creatively fucked up, curiosity about what’s coming next trumps the fact that your stomach feels as stuffed with food as your mom feels stuffed with cock.”And now that we’ve told you how the book ends, please take a moment and read Chapter Three: “The third course was a “baked potato.” No, I’m not one of those people who use quotation marks inappropriately, like when they’re trying to emphasize something. Once when I was a kid I patronized a snow-cone stand with a sign that read “Please ring the ‘door bell’ for service.” The door bell wasn’t in reality a midget’s ball sack with an LED attached to it; they just thought they’d call attention to the fact that you should use the “door bell” instead of yelling “hey bitch come out here and get me a snow-cone.” What I mean by this pleasant walk down memory lane is that my cloistering of the phrase “baked potato” in quotes means that it wasn’t actually a baked potato. What we got was a small chunk of pork belly, slow-cooked sous vide for 15 hours then seared. This was served in the bottom of the bowl adjacent to an ivory cloud of potato foam, dotted with miniscule bracelets of diced chive. But we weren’t supposed to eat it like this: eventually the waitress emerged with a small kettle of potato consomme, which she poured into the bowl, halfway submerging the belly and lifting the foam afloat. The consomme, sadly, was not served boiling hot, as consomme is classically served. Nonetheless, this “baked potato” was “awesome.” So awesome, in fact, that it made me temporarily forget how to use quotation marks.”Follow Voracious on Twitter and Facebook.