I can’t say for sure that only small things would change if I had one of the three winning Mega Millions tickets. Money does strange things to people. I might start collecting faberge eggs, hang privately commissioned portraits of myself on every square inch of my walls, buy expensive bonnets for my cat, or hire someone to spoon feed me my oatmeal in the morning. But I’d like to think that I would make only a few changes. My friend Val and I discussed this very thing on Saturday. If she won the Mega Millions she would finish the renovations on her house and hire someone to do the gardening jobs she hates the most (she has a huge garden!). Not  big changes, but definitely quality of life improvements.  These are the things I would change, and of course, they all involve food. Here’s my Mega Millions checklist:

1. Buy a bigger yard. Not necessarily a bigger house (my three-bedroom townhouse is enough for me) but definitely more land, preferable with trees for tree-house building. A bigger yard also means more room for gardening, an outdoor pizza oven, a fire pit, and maybe a swimming pool.

2. Get chickens, lots and lots of chickens.  I wonder what kind of chickens I could buy with Mega Millions money. I’m sure I could afford as many Silver Sussex chicks as I want, which is the most expensive breed I could find online at $19 a pop.

A regal beast

3. Visit all the local restaurants I haven’t been to yet due to low funds. Restaurants like Harvest in Glen Mills, PA and The House of William and Merry in Hockessin. I will get to them soon enough because I’ve heard great things!

4. Cut my hours at work so I can spend more time blogging about food. There’s nothing more frustrating than having a great blog idea only to have to put it aside to do my real job. Being responsible is overrated; I’d rather blog all day.

5. Learn more about how other cultures eat by traveling to places like Italy and Thailand. I’m thinking the food is really good in these places because it’s local.

So maybe next time a $656 million jackpot comes along, I’ll have the winning ticket. If I do win, don’t hold me to this checklist, because I’ll probably move to California, buy a winery, have French pastries flown from Paris directly to my breakfast plate every morning, and charter private jets so I can follow Anthony Bourdain around the world (in a non-creepy way, of course).