Let's say you're stuck at your eye doctor in Renton, which doubles as a Dairy Queen because you meet all your health needs via discount medical coupons purchased online (also: free ice cream!). And your eye doctor is too busy fixing the soft-serve machine to see you, and near-sighted children are screaming for Dip Cones, and the Internet is preoccupied with the weather. What the fuck do you do?

You read about carrots. Because apparently, they're making a comeback:

Carrots, those little spark plugs in a salad or a stew, have suddenly become an engine driving restaurant menus. Chefs across the country are showcasing handsome, meaty specimens in a rainbow of colors, dressed and garnished without a sliver of meat or fish. Well, maybe a touch of bacon.

“People are feeling more comfortable with having something like carrots in the center of the plate,” said Dan Kluger, the executive chef at ABC Kitchen in New York, where a salad of roasted carrots and avocado has become one of his most popular, and imitated, dishes.

Troy Guard, the chef and owner of TAG in Denver, makes a carrot taco that puts the root vegetable through its paces, with a carrot tortilla and a filling of braised carrots, a salad of raw carrots and cilantro, and guacamole.

“Last year brussels sprouts were really huge,” he said. “Now it’s carrots.”

And then you pray to Jesus Carrot-Humping Christ for your eye-doctor-slash-DQ manager to offer up a couple of forks, so that you may take care of your eye and entertainment problems in two quick twists of the wrist.