3.9 — Afternoon Sugar Rush

We have a freelance Photoshop guy in this week and he decided to give our row a little afternoon energy boost by delivering this bite-sized (or is that fun-sized?) bounty in our aisle.

We of course told him we couldn't be bought, even as my coworkers were ripping open bags and popping chocolates into their gobs. As soon as the sound of the crinkling bags echoed off the wall, Judy (aka Snackasaurus) showed up to investigate. That sound is like the anguished cry of a wounded gazelle on the Serengeti to a hungry lioness for the Snackasaurus. She can't resist.

I can, did and will have to continue resisting since the bags of candy are sitting about 5 feet away from me.

3.9 — Two Bites and Some Fancy

I don't know who the makers of these cupcakes are kidding, but these St. Paddy's day-themed mini cakes don't even register as bite-sized. Maybe "Two Bites" refers to what it would take to eat the entire contents of the package.



Frango's and Dilettante's, two Seattle chocolate originals. I'm not sure about the history behind it, but there is a strong chocolate-making community here in Seattle. There are several home grown companies that pump out gourmet chocolates and candies. Maybe there really is something in the water here that inspires entrepreneurial world domination. We got your coffee, aircraft, delivery services (UPS got it's start here — didn't know that, did you) and gourmet chocolates. There is Frango's, Dilettante's, Seattle Chocolates, Theo's, Fran's, Simply Seattle and a host of others who are trying to spread their cocoa confections across the country.

Enough exposition. Back to the resistance.

Fancy chocolates, I rebuke you!

2.14.11 — Traffic Love

Speaking of showing your love and admiration by giving someone high calorie foods...



Each Valentine's Day, our Traffic department puts out a box and instructs the rest of us to show them the love... with the implied threat that if we don't they will make our lives a living hell. Since they actually have that power, we all tend to come through. My offering was not food-related, but most of the others were even if they were leftovers from the gift baskets that came into the agency last December.



Not all the offerings were safe ones. Yes, that is a VHS tape of the Vanilla Ice movie, Cool as Ice. Behind it, the Matthew McConaughey movie, Fool's Gold. Clearly, someone was tempting the Traffic wrath. We may watch the two as a double-bill feature, if we can stand to sit through them both.

2.12.11 — Poker Food 2

The monthly poker game rolled around and the snacks this time were dominated by chocolate. Cookies, candies, those new mini Reeses' bite thingys, two kinds of Oreos, etc. I was mostly good and stuck to the fruit trays (which I brought) and the veggies. I did have some of the pita chips and some regular potato chips. However, keeping with my new moderation attempts, I had very few chips and focused on the fruit and strawberries.



These looked very tasty, but since they were swimming in oil and covered by slabs of cheese, no benefits that the tomatoes or herbs might have were worth it.



Of course, all the chocolate was there because the next day is Valentine's Day and somehow giving high calorie snacks and chocolate to people is how you're supposed to express your love or admiration. I guess it would be okay if it all also came with a free diabetes screening.

1.10.11 — It's a Law in Hawaii

Hawaii is a popular vacation destination for Seattlites, especially during the height of our annual Seasonal Affective Disorder Festival (October through May). I think that just as giving tourists a flowered lei as they get off the plane (and then having Ricardo Montalban and a midget fulfill their every fantasy - weird, but don't knock having midgets in your fantasies) is a Hawaiian tradition, making sure that the same tourists leave with a box of chocolate-covered macadamias is a state law. The mega jar of flavored popcorn is a new twist.

Interestingly, the jar remained unopened for quite awhile, but as soon as that seal was broken, it was gone shockingly fast. The chocolates made it an hour or two.

12.22.10 — The Good, the Bad and the Evil

One of my coworkers has made a tradition of bringing in bagels and lox each year. He told everyone ahead of time that we was doing it today, so others brought in some fixings of their own. We ended up with several packages of salmon, I think 3 tubs of cream cheese, a couple tubs of egg salad, some red onion, tons of bagels, a box of crackers appeared and then the gift basket lobster spread and salmon spread from one of this week's gift baskets. There was plenty for everyone.

The primary supplier, CR, wanted to know why I was photographing the spread since it was all "healthy." Well, technically, as long as I'm not eating any of it healthy or not, up on the blog it goes. But, as I explained, the only healthy part of all of that was the salmon. On it's own, salmon is great. It's very low cal and has a ton of protein. However, slathering it with cream cheese and egg salad and carrying it around in a big freakin' bagel tends to crank the calorie total up to 11 (on a scale of 1 to 10). So no, I didn't have any.



You might think that salmon and bagels for a large group might be enough food first thing in the morning. You'd be wrong because 3 big bags of candies showed up. Remember the industrial box of chocolates from a couple days ago? This haul had more.

That had to be enough, right?



Good lord. Yes, that is bacon sticking out of the top of those cupcakes. These monstrosities are french toast and bacon cupcakes with maple buttercream frosting. How in the hell is something like this even legal? I was literally stunned when they were deposited on the kitchen table. The audacity, the sheer lunacy of making cupcakes of this magnatude left me unable to form coherent thoughts. All I could get out when I saw the crazy woman who made them was, "What the hell were you thinking?" I understand now how the villagers felt when they saw Frankenstein's Monster for the first time — burn it and hang the creator for bringing such an abomination into the world.

I forgot to mention that she also brought in crumbled up bacon so people could sprinkle more on top just so they could have bacon in every bite.

Of course, the cupcakes were wiped out quickly.



How do you top that? Well, you don't... ever. But, the craziness of the salmon, chocolates and bacon was brought back into a little balance by the arrival of these home baked cookies by one of our long-time copywriters who is now freelancing (well, she got laid off from here last year and is now freelancing, but still loves us). Naturally, I passed on the cookies, but just looking at them restores some of my faith in my fellow humans. Yes, we are capable of creating great culinary evil, but we can also create with love.

12.20.10 — Gift Basketapalooza

Now this is more like it. When it starts coming in crates, you know someone is serious. Also, this one had a great variety of stuff. High quality chocolates. Flavored popcorn. Champagne in single-serve bottles (single serve at least for the booze hounds in this place). More peppermint bark. Crackers. Lobster spread. Salmon spread.

An aside — I like the easily applied consistency of a "spread," but I have a problem with calling the paté-like substance in conjunction with it's main ingredient an "X spread." Lobster spread just sounds... dirty.



Compare these chocolates with the box o' bulk cellophane in the other post from this morning. Which would you want to jump into and cover your body with? These may suck balls, but just look at them. You want these chocolates inside you and now. The other ones, not so much.



And oh lord, here is the topper. The Danish butter cookie tin. Actually, calling this a tin is inaccurate. It's more like a small industrial drum of cookies. I guarantee that once this monster makes it out into the general population (aka the Kitchen), it will be gone before the end of the day. These things are crack and this office is a willing pool of addicts.

We only have 5 working days before C-Day (yes, we're open and will be here until the wee hours on Christmas Eve — the glamorous advertising life). It took awhile, but the gift basket train is finally rolling in.

12.20.10 — In Bulk

I don't know if this qualifies as a gift basket or just really lazy packaging. It was a big box — like 12" x 24" x 3" or so — full of individually wrapped chocolates, in there grab bag style.

Figuring that the chocolates had to be really good to make up for the haphazard presentation, I asked someone who was walking away with a couple in hand how they were. Not good. I didn't follow up with my next question... then why did you come back for more?

12.9.10 — Pizza and Balls

Another agency meeting of some sort, another stack of leftover Zeek's pizza. There was maybe a full pizza between two boxes. 10 minutes after it hit the table in the kitchen, gone. I almost had to run back to my desk to get my iPhone. Seriously.



And then late in the afternoon, a tub of Hawaiian chocolate covered macadamia nuts showed up. They smelled good, but I was told that they weren't that good. "They're not worth it," was the instant review.

My coworkers, making my weight loss more difficult and easier all at the same time.

12.8.10 — Cheap Bastards

I didn't even have any and I was irritated.

A client sent this paltry collection of chocolates to the agency today as some sort of seasonal gift. Pah. Wait until the real gift baskets start rolling in from some of our vendors. Now that's a party. This was a poor excuse for holiday cheer.

12.6.10 — Monday Morning Tequila

This is almost the perfect food item for an advertising agency first thing on a Monday morning — Tequila filled chocolates.

The aroma coming out of the plastic container (with a classy gold plastic screw on lid, of course), was super sweet booze. I got a little buzz just breathing that in.

Booze and chocolate have been paired up for a long time. My mom used to make rum balls at Christmas that I absolutely loved, and yes they had real rum in them. It does seem like a good way to absolutely maximize your calorie intake in one bite-sized package. I almost want someone to pound all of these down to see how many it would take to actually get you drunk.

I won't be that person.

11.8.10 — Costco's Finest

Here we have a collection of the finest European cookies with Belgian chocolate... from Costco.

Don't get me wrong, The Woman and I swear by the big box from Kirkland. Their fresh produce and meat selection is surprisingly good. We make a pilgrimage there at least once a month.

But, it is a little comical to be getting Kirkland Select brand of premium European cookies. Not comical enough for me to have any, of course.

I will note that the tray pictured is the second of two. The first one was wiped out before noon. Current bets have this one emptied by 2 pm.

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)

10.8.10 — 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.

9.28.10 — Aloooooooha

A coworker came back from a week-long vacation in Hawai'i and thoughtfully brought us a 30oz. bag of macadamia nut Hershey Kisses. Damn. One could seriously do some damage with almost 2 lbs. of Kisses. I'm not even sure at my height of stuffing my face that I could have polished that off, although I probably would have tried.

No longer. Nope, a quick photo, maybe a lingering sniff over the giant bag of blue-foiled heaven and that's it for me.

9.1.10 — Chocolate Loaf

A "gift" from a media client trying to get us to spend money with them. Coworkers who tried it described it thusly:

Orowheat with shitty chocolate ribbons.

Ho ho without the cream filling.

It looks like a blurry tramp stamp.

Yummy.

Total weight lost: 186.5

8.27.10 — Chocolate Carnage

The remnants of some Specialties cookies, much like the remains of a wildebeast after the lions, hyenas and then buzzards have had a go. Not much left but the odd chocolate chunk, crumbs and cookie bits.

Total weight loss = 185