09/09/2026
# # KINDA DUMB DEAL OF THE AFTERNOON
We have a new sausage roll.
There is one small problem.
**It doesn't contain sausage.**
This is generally considered a weakness in a sausage roll.
Instead, it contains **potatoes and cheese.**
Which raises an important question:
**What the hell do we call it?**
A Potato Roll?
No. That's bread.
A Cheese Roll?
Sounds like something involving Velveeta and a church basement.
A Potato & Cheese Roll?
Accurate, but it has all the marketing excitement of **Replacement Furnace Filter.**
A Vegetarian Sausage Roll?
There is no sausage.
Calling it a vegetarian sausage roll is like calling a canoe a **motorless speedboat.**
A Sausageless Sausage Roll?
Now we're getting somewhere.
So we turned to Britain.
The British invented sausage rolls, and they have names for things like **bangers, spotted dick, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole** and **Welsh rarebit**, which contains neither rabbit nor, as far as we can tell, Wales.
Surely these people could help.
They could not.
So for now we're calling them:
# # CHEESE & POTATO ROLLS.
Brilliant.
Twenty-two years of marketing experience right there.
Anyway, they're terrific.
Cheesy potato filling wrapped in flaky puff pastry and baked until we briefly forget that we're supposed to be figuring out what to call them.
And because they're new, we're doing an introductory deal.
We can't call it the **Dumb Deal of the Day** because:
**A)** This isn't particularly dumb. We're introducing a new product.
**B)** We already have a Dumb Deal of the Day running.
Please see the previous email if you've lost track of our increasingly complicated discount infrastructure.
Therefore, we proudly announce:
# THE KINDA DUMB DEAL OF THE AFTERNOON™
**CHEESE & POTATO ROLLS — $2 EACH.**
**TODAY ONLY.**
There is one additional complication.
Our marketing department was too lazy to put the $2 deal online.
Our marketing department is Pie Man.
So you cannot order the $2 deal online.
# # YOU HAVE TO COME IN.
Walk through the door.
Say something like:
**“I'd like some of those sausage rolls without the sausage.”**
We'll know what you mean.
Now, if you're thinking bigger—
Maybe you want **10**.
Maybe you want **24**.
Maybe you want **123**, which is an oddly specific number but we respect a person with a plan.
**Call the shop.**
We'll work something out.
With enough notice, we can probably make you a few dozen of these tasty little ditties.
Or perhaps **diddies.**
We briefly wondered whether the British call small delicious things “ditties.”
They do not.
A ditty is a short, simple song.
So technically these aren't ditties either.
Which leaves us exactly where we started.
We have made something.
It contains potatoes.
It contains cheese.
It is wrapped in puff pastry.
It costs **$2 this afternoon.**
And we have absolutely no idea what to call it.
# # COME EAT ONE.
Naming rights may eventually be awarded to the public.
— Gray House Pies
# # # OH, ONE FINAL MATTER.
This new product has created a serious accounting problem.
**Do Cheese & Potato Rolls count toward our ongoing effort to overtake Great Britain as the world's leading seller of sausage rolls?**
At first the answer seems obvious.
**No.**
They don't contain sausage.
And traditionally this has been one of the stricter requirements for something called a **sausage roll.**
However, the matter becomes considerably more complicated upon further examination.
**Exhibit A:** They were directly inspired by our sausage rolls.
**Exhibit B:** They're made exactly like our sausage rolls, except somebody removed the sausage and replaced it with potatoes and cheese.
**Exhibit C:** If you put a Cheese & Potato Roll next to a Sausage Roll and squint, you can't tell the difference.
This is accepted methodology in several branches of science.
And finally—and this is where we believe our case becomes extremely strong—
**we're betting the British are counting them.**
You cannot tell us a country with vegan sausage rolls, vegetarian sausage rolls, meatless sausage rolls and God knows what else is suddenly getting strict about the definition of sausage when somebody from Cleveland starts closing the gap.
So we're referring the matter to the **Gray House International Sausage Roll Competition Rules Committee**, which currently consists of Pie Man sitting at a desk.
A ruling is expected shortly.
Until then, we're putting an asterisk next to every Cheese & Potato Roll sold.
Britain has been warned.
Click here for an update from Gray House Pies!
