When I lived in Japan I saw 50-gallon drums turned on their ends and repurposed as charcoal grills on several street corners. I could buy a handful of hot grilled chestnuts for a couple of hundred yen.

Mel Tormé sings his signature song, one he co-wrote with Bob Wells in the summer of 1946. Here’s “The Christmas Song,” aka “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Comic book and screenwriter Mark Evanier has a wonderful story of Tormé surprising diners and carolers in LA one Christmas season, to which I link nearly every year. Here it is.