10.29.10 — Office Halloween

Our annual office Halloween party — costumes, booze and lots of pot lucky food.



Things got started a little early with the Monkey Brain shots — a disgusting looking mix of kaluha, schnaps and grenadine. I didn't try one. Those that did kind of regretted it if only for the texture, described as something akin to snot in a glass.



The old standby. Is there any other candy in the world that has as bad a reputation as candy corn that still gets purchased, put out in big bowls and (sometimes) eaten by people? I don't think so, and yet it endures.



More of your normal Halloween bite-sized fare. Or maybe that's fun-sized. Or maybe it's why are my thighs as big as small children-sized?

What follows is a sampling of the variety of treats, both tasty and confusing, that were displayed on the table in our kitchen. I stayed away from it all and honestly wasn't that tempted by any of it. Mostly I was fighting off a supreme level of irritation because our group almost didn't get to go at all due to a pile of last minute work dropped on us right as the party began. Maybe that is the secret to resisting food you shouldn't eat — be really angry already when you face it.

10.27.10 — Pumpkin Pie and The Lingering

It's been a slow week for goodies. The best my coworkers could come up with were these Pumpkin Pie cookies. After announcing my new weight loss achievement (201 lbs. lost), maybe they taking it easy on me? Yeah, I didn't think so either. We don't call Judy the Snackasaurus because she has tiny forearms and hands.

Still, the dollop of cream cheese did make these a little intriguing. Eh, who am I kidding. They looked kind of sad, and they were all stuck together in a unnatural kind of cookie mass.

Speaking of stuck together...



They just won't die. I can see now why old people have bowls full of hard candies that have melded into one ginormous chunk. These things linger beyond any kind of normal life span. Seriously, a bowl of ANYTHING is gone sometimes in moments around this office. The fact that the Ranchers have survived almost a whole week is nothing short of amazing... and a little scary.

10.24.10 — Fuck You Chocolate

What better way to celebrate the day that I break the 200 lbs. lost milestone (actually down by 201) than to go to a gathering of people selling, tasting, exhibiting and otherwise basking in the warm, dark glow of everything chocolate? Odd choice, you say? Perfect choice, I say.



Chocolate is my bitch. I own chocolate's ass and have left it on the corner, turning tricks to make ends meet.

I not only don't need chocolate any longer, I don't even really want it. I was able to walk around this little expo and take photos like I was looking at displays in a museum. I wasn't tempted even once and was able to keep a fairly objective, detached mindset about everything in front of me.

I purposefully went into the lion's den, kicked the lion in the balls and said, "Fuck you, Lion."

So yeah, fuck you chocolate. What else you got?

(and yes, this was not a work-related food incident and not technically eligible for this blog, but I figure it was a special occasion)

10.22.10 — Jolly, My Ass

Talk about a name that is not much more than a couple random nouns jammed together that have nothing to do with what the actual product is: Jolly Rancher. What the hell is a jolly rancher? Some old dude standing in a cow-pie covered field with a stupid smile on his face holding a government check paying him thousands to not grow crops in one hand while he pounds a big sign into the ground with the other hand that says something brilliant about cutting deficits and stopping the welfare state. Go Tea Party!

Fuck the jolly ranchers out there and fuck this stick-to-your-teeth, too hard to chew and too slimy to sit there, over-sugared diabetic coma in a small plastic wrapper.

10.21.10 — Meager Offerings

Or to be specific, offer: this sad little leftover piece of danish. It's not always piles of french fries, acres of pizza or baskets of weird international candy. Sometimes, the hardest things to resist are the lonely little bites that would be so easy to just grab and pop in your mouth as you walk past. Think about how easy it would be to just slam that half danish in your mouth. A couple of chews and it's gone. So easy.

But then that'd be the easiest and emptiest couple hundred calories I would have had in a long time. Sure, I'll admit to pausing for a second and entertaining the thought of just downing it, but only for a second. It's not worth it. Even if I weren't closing in on my weight loss goal (might be hitting a huge milestone this weekend), it wouldn't be worth it. And therein lies the battle I have every day, most of the time several times a day — is it worth it or not?

10.19.10 — Pizza and the Dirty Bird

Pizza again for an agency meeting. Only problem was that this was a meeting I actually wanted to go to, but ended up working through lunch trying not to get any salad bits on my keyboard as I ate while hammering away at project uploads. At least I didn't have to face the pizza directly in the face for the meeting. With as much pizza that has been flying around here lately, my resolve has been weakening. A man can only take so much.

Actually, I can take it. I'm getting very close to a weight loss milestone and I'm not going to let limp, greasy pizza to deter me.





Same goes for the Dirty Bird, aka Red Robin. It was another late night for us and the consensus order was the Dirty Bird. I can mostly easily pass on pretty much anything they offer even when I'm not trying to resist bad food. Their only real selling point is amount — when you're hungry you know you'll get a lot of food, even if it all tastes the same and is horribly bad for you. The only thing that tweaks my temptation meter are the french fries — not so much because their fries are anything to rave about. They do have size and if you order in you can get the free refills. THAT is a dangerous option when I'm around. As for the sauce tubs above, I have no idea was is in them other than some evil sort of mayonnaise hybrid, but it is very tasty... the last time I had it.

Tonight, nope. I waited until I got home and had my calorie and portion-size appropriate dinner.

10.15.10 — And So It Begins

I've been dreading this day - the beginning of the Halloween treat smorgasbord. It will start slowly, in this case with some extra cupcakes someone brought in from a batch they made for their kid or some other thing that doesn't impact my life, and pick up speed as we get closer to the end of the month. Then there will be an explosion of treats and candy culminating in the big day. We'll probably be having a party at the office and then the wife and I will be fending off the neighborhood ankle rats all night long.

And then we're into the official "holiday season" which means food flowing like water through this place. It's going to be a rough couple months.

10.14.10 — Cocktail Thursday

Our team needed a break, so we had a some drinks at the end of the day and listened to some good drunk stories. It was fun, but I stayed dry. No need to mess up a good week by drinking a lot of empty calories.

10.13.10 — Pizza, Again

Sigh. Another agency meeting means another giant stack of Zeek's Pizzas. It's always more visually interesting after the masses have picked over the helpless pies rather than taking photos of the pristine and unsuspecting pizzas before the attack.

This was a tough one. Yes, I've faced down pizza on many occasions and stood fast again today. But, it was so hard today. I was so hungry and it was all set up just a few feet from my desk and it all smelled so good. I was thinking I could just take a bite. Just a small, slow, sensual bite (take a moment, wait for it... continue). But one of the biggest things I've learned about myself over the last four years as I worked on losing weight is that a small bite becomes a small piece, which becomes a small slice, which becomes a small pizza, which becomes how much can I eat before anyone notices (the secret is to not take more than one piece of any one kind at a time and then to move around the room so that the same person doesn't see that you've gone back to the trough for a fourth or fifth time).

So no, I didn't have a small bite. I sat there in the meeting, eating my salad, ignoring everyone else as much as possible... and hating them just a little.

10.11.10 — Pie Sunday Leftovers

Every so often, one of my coworkers hosts Pie Sunday. She bakes a ton of pies and has people over to eat pie, watch movies and hang out. My wife and I didn't go this time because sitting in a room full of pie and people eating pie would be a new kind of hell since we couldn't, or wouldn't, join in. No worries since the hostess brought the leftovers to work today.

I'm not going to do my normal find the grossest thing about the food item to try and convince myself that whatever it is that I'm not eating tastes horrible anyway, so I'm not missing anything. I've done Pie Sunday before. They are all delicious. Seriously delicious. People go into food comas after eating this pie.

Sigh. No pie-induced coma for me.



Here is a melange of several pies, including apple and pecan.



This is a Gluten- and Lactose-free Blueberry Crisp. I don't know how one makes a crisp that is both gluten and lactose free, but she is the master at these kinds of things.

10.8.10 — Candy from the Sea

Our boss took a couple weeks of vaca and went out to Cannon Beach. This is what he brought us — a box of salt water taffy from Bruce's Candy Kitchen. I don't think an individual piece of taffy would do that much damage to my daily calorie budget (my fillings on the other hand...), but taffy tends to be a little like Lay's Potato Chips — you can't eat just one. So, I eat none.



He also brought this back. Called "Sea Foam," it is apparently a honeycomb (bees, not cereal) based confection dipped in chocolate. Each of those chunks are between 1-2 inches across. Someone who ate one said they taste just like Violet Crumbles, an Aussie treat. I was so intrigued that I was ready to give in and try one out. One of my more level-headed office mates talked me off the ledge.

10.7.10 — DICK'S!

If having an ass load of fried chicken and all the fixin's wasn't bad enough today, the agency held a little party for one of our coworkers who is very pregnant (dilated at 3cm and holding — yes, her dilation amount has been announced over the agency intercom). What do you feed a woman who is about to pop any second?

Dick's, of course.

I think there were many implied jokes. Dick's taste good in your mouth, everyone craves some Dick's every once in awhile, who can say no to a pile of Dick's, she's pregnant so we already know she likes Dick's... really, this stuff writes itself.

For me, this was as hard or harder (yes, I know, going for the low hanging fruit there) to resist than Reuben Tuesday. I'm unafraid to say I love Dick's. I used to gobble up Dick's whenever I could. I'd get 2 Dick's, a couple fries and a chocolate shake - throw in a couple tartars for good measure - and then race home to eat it all. You have to be quick with Dick's because if the fries get cold then you're left with a limp lump of flaccid potato-shaped grease. It was also usually a good idea to not look to closely at the ever-growing grease stain on the bag. But, I can tell you, grease or not, Dick's do indeed taste good in your mouth.



Dick's shakes — any flavor you want so long as it's chocolate, strawberry or vanilla.



You thought I was kidding about the grease stains. Look at those puppies. The burgers aren't wet. It wasn't raining while they were being brought into the building from the car. They weren't accidentally dropped in the sink. No, all that "wetness" is pure grease. Yummy.

Oh, and just for the sake of full disclosure, my "normal" Dick's order came to just about 2100 calories — about what I eat in a day now.

10.7.10 — Meeting with Ezell's

There is some sort of big meeting going on and Judy ordered out for catering from Ezell's, a chain of fried chicken restaurants in Seattle. I'm told that their fried chicken is good — one coworker called it "paradise." Perhaps, but even paradise in a giant aluminum foil tub with some grease coagulating in the bottom loses a little of its luster.



This might be very lumpy mashed potatoes or especially gooey potato salad. Either way, it instantly made me want to hurl. Gurk. (Potato salad is my kryptonite)



Industrial sized coleslaw. Nice.



One of these rolls probably has the same amount of calories as my entire lunch. Slather some butter on one (or two) and make it meal!

10.6.10 — Honey Crisp!

Stuff I absolutely ate today. It's Honey Crisp apple time, so I took a lunch time jaunt up to the Pike Place Market and bought a bag of the giants — a couple for me and some for my coworkers. And yes, I both of mine. They are expensive (almost $3 a pound), but oh so good. Sweet with just a hint of tart, crisp all the way through the apple — it actually snaps when you bite into it, and HUGE. I do love my Granny Smiths (I have a couple each day for snacks — the Honey Crisp in the photo is taking the place of the Granny Smith I ate in the morning), but I would be eating Honey Crisps every day if they were in season more. Like crack off a tree.

10.4.10 — A Uwajimaya Run

Judy went up to Uwajimaya's and brought back a grab bag of snacks. Thanks to a recent visitor to Seattle from the Philippines, I've tried the BOY Bawang Corn Snacks. Holy crap those things are tasty — kind of like Corn Nuts but not as hard, lightly flavored with garlic and salt, and waaaaay too easy to go handful after handful straight to open, gaping maw. It was hard to resist them.



More from the trip to Uwajimaya. I don't need to crack one of these open to know my future doesn't include eating fortune cookies.

10.1.10 — Cheese + Crackers = Nips

We had our monthly agency meeting and of course had lots of snacks. I'll give the organizers props however. They did include a lot of fruit too, which I gladly ate. They also had this line-up: cheese slices, crackers and Cheese Nips. I had to ask myself, isn't that a little redundant? If you have cheese and crackers, do you really need Nips? If you have Nips, do you need cheese and crackers? There was some kind of snack math going on and I suck at the new math.



More from the agency meeting. Yep, these are the ones that got me. I finally broke down and had some of these nuts after watching coworker after coworker dig in. On my 10-mile bike ride home, I had to fight the need to puke. Serves me right I guess — I finally give in to one of these food temptations and I get sick.