Sublime Online: Food Clocks

What time is it? Time to eat white bread, apparently

In this newsletter’s first post, I included a photo of an (incredible) Waffle House clock, and within minutes of the post going live, my friend Kristina commented “more food clocks PLEASE.” So for the second edition of Ok Perfect’s “Sublime Online” vertical, I did a little deep dive on eBay.

Like many places on the Internet that were once solely treasure troves of the weird and wonderful, eBay is now a place, like Etsy, where you have to sift through a bunch of algorithmically-optimized, mass produced products in order to find the actual gems. After wading through many unperfect designs that looked like they were made by the AI lovechild of Canva and a Cricut machine, here are the Perfect Designs I found. [This email may get cut off, so if you’re reading this outside of the Substack app, click “view entire message” to see the whole thing.]

Bread Clocks

The colors! The type! The Merita logo that appears thrice!

This back-lit clock was obviously an in-store advertisement, but I would 100% hang it up in my own home today. I love the details in the drawing: the gentle stippling on each slice; the shiny highlights on the cellophane; the tagline “Baked While You Sleep.”

“…and bring my Daddy home ~” in that fake-ass blackletter looks like a tattoo Taylor Swift might get because she thinks it looks like something Lana del Rey would like.

I’m not totally sure what’s happening here, and I’m really not into the neon ring surrounding the clock, but I’m obsessed with 1) that perfect drawing of the loaf of bread (the scalloped edges!), 2) the phrase “Town Talk Large Loaf,” and 3) the unexpected typeface in the middle.

This is more of a Carbs Clock than merely a Bread Clock, but it has a simple, kind of inane, faux-elegance to it, like an Olive Garden or a Panera in 2002.

Fast Food Clocks

There’s a lot going on here that I love: the green checkerboard fill in the type, the gentle glowing radial gradient, the individually placed coffee beans, and the jaunty arms and legs of each coffee product. A Chock full o’Nuts deep dive may be in the future here.

This is one of my favorites of the bunch. Even though this appears to be an advertisement for their packaged coffee products, I’m including it in the Fast Food section because Chock full o’Nuts (absolutely bonkers capitalization there, by the way) was once an old school lunch counter chain here in New York. Fun fact: after retiring from baseball, Jackie Robinson served as the VP and director of personnel for the company! Another fun fact: there are absolutely 0 nuts in their coffee blends.

I regret to inform you that sometimes gigantic corporations make some absolutely bangin’ merch.

Fruit & Veggie Clocks

This looks like something my grandfather, who lived in Alabama for most of his life but felt a strong connection to his Italian heritage, would have considered authentically Sicilian.

Dessert Clocks

I’m a huge fan of Louis Sherry’s chocolate boxes, which are exquisitely designed and made to keep. So I was surprised to see a Louis Sherry clock, as advertising clocks feel like a lowbrow tactic — until I googled it and discovered that Louis Sherry is an American company, not a French luxury one like I expected! It’s all clicking now.

According to the listing, this is a Japanese cuckoo clock, and the cake and ice cream operate as the second hands. Bizarre, but cute!

Bonus: Not-Clock

When searching for “sandwich clocks” on eBay, I found this little piece of gluten propaganda. There’s something about the composition of the cover that feels akin to a Works Progress poster.

Sorry to be disgusting, but I think the Salami-Egg Salad sandwich sounds pretty good.

That’s all for today! Thank you to Kristina for the fun idea. If anyone sees a cool food clock IRL, send it to me! 🆗