CHICAGO -- Local restaurateur Legume O. Poivre today announced plans to commission the world's largest pepper grinder.

Poivre, who owns an outdoor cafe at the base of the Sears Tower, has opened bidding on the pepper grinder contract. The buttressed oak pepper mill, designed by a prominent firm of engineers, is to extend to the top of the skyscraper, from which the metal grinding mechanism will be operated by a system of computer-automated gears remotely controlled by waiters on the sidewalk below.

"I felt that in the flourishing artistic medium of pepper-grinder length, some definitive statement needed to be made," said Poivre. "My location here has given me a unique opportunity to make that statement -- and to serve my customers a salad experience they won't soon forget."

At present, the largest pepper grinder on record stands 210 feet from crown to mouth. It is operated from the reception desk at a 3-story hotel in New Orleans, and furnishes pepper to diners in the establishment's riverfront pub, as well as to room service customers throughout the building. Meanwhile, plans to build a government-subsidized "Super-Grinder" that would route pepper from a midwestern condiment center to salads on both coasts appear to have been permanently shelved.