3.18 - Ugh

I may have to check back over my history of posts, but I think this may be the most unappetizing thing I've seen yet, aside from the potato salad (and just thinking about it for the few seconds it's taken for me to type this was enough to make me get queasy).

Rhubarb pie. Looks like a squid pot pie and is almost as vomit-inducing as a squid pot pie would surely be.

How can anyone look at that and say, "Damn. I got to have me a big ass slice of that tasty rhubarb." What the hell is a rhubarb anyway? Someone said it's a relative of celery. WTF? Do people make celery pie? No, that would be disgusting.

3.17 - They Keep Getting Bigger

I think whoever orders the meeting vittles has a new supplier of food with elephantiasis added in as a spice or something. Seriously, again with the gigantor desserts.

These brownies were, like the Specialties' cookies and the sentient head-sized pastry, these brownies were obscenely large. Each was a meal on its own. Most of the time, people will take a quarter of a donut, or a half of a cookie on the pretense that a smaller piece won't be as bad as taking the whole thing. Of course, they end up taking a quarter off of five or six donuts, but at least they can tell themselves they didn't eat a whole one.

These brownies were big enough that I didn't feel the need to mock anyone for slicing off a piece and not trying to take on the whole slab.

I guess they were pretty good. A couple people actually squealed when they saw the coconut options in there. Squealed.

I don't squeal.

3.17 - Gigantic Pastries

Yes, another meeting and yes, more pastries. However, these were freakin' gigantor pastries. The one at the top of the photo was so big, no one would dare cut into it. My coworker N said that no one would eat something as big as their head. And it was... as big as your head.

No pastry has any business being that big.

It was the last one on the platter, untouched for quite awhile. It was gone later, but I don't know if it finally went under the knife or if it gained consciousness and walked off on its own.

3.17 - Kind of Expected These

Store-bought St. Patrick's Day cookies. Feh.

Next.

3.16 - Nijo's Late

My group had a bit of a late night and my coworkers decided to get food from Nijo's, a Japanese place about a block away from the agency.

I'm not a fan of sushi, and even though they do offer other things, it ESA easy for me to take a pass and wait until I got home for some rightly cooked food.

3.16 - Back to Normal

The Chinese food for the earlier meeting was a fluke, because the next client meeting of the day and the more traditional Specialties' catering, and because only one client showed up there was a complete platter of these monsters left for the masses.

Let's face it, Specialties' cookies are obscenely large. Unnecessarily large. They are so over-the-top big that I don't think I would have tried to put a whole one away even when I was at my heaviest and most gluttonous. These things ought to be on the National Institute's of Health's Most Wanted list.

There really can be too much of a good thing, and these cookies are it.

3.16 - Chinese Meeting?

I guess it wasn't fried chicken at least. Chinese food for a meeting is a new twist. Luckily for me, I didn't realize there were Chinese leftovers as a possibility. When I got involved, there was only box after box of white rice left... with some gravy smears. Yeah, I had no problem passing up cold rice.

If my spidey senses had been a little more on the ball, I might have had to face a real test and had a crack at the leftovers before they had been totally decimated. Among all the other items that sit on my It Takes an Iron Will to Resist list, Chinese food is right up there near the top with French fries and ice cream.

My wife and I went to China to see the Olympics in 2008 and one of the highlights for me was going to a restaurant in Beijing to get some real Chinese food. The wait staff didn't speak English and we were the only westerners in the place. It was truly the best Chinese food I've ever eaten, and they kept bringing out more.

So yeah, I have a soft spot for Chinese food, even though what we call Chinese food is a pale glimmer of the real thing.

3.14 — Bad Moon Rising

Jo Jo went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and all we got was this box of banana "flavored" Moon Pies.

So you're not from the South, like me, and don't know what a Moon Pie is? It's a secessionist, Northern War of Aggression-grudge holding, Lynard Skynard lighter-waving, rebel flag draped over the gun rack in the back window driving, glorified s'more.

That's right. The vaunted Moon Pie is a graham cracker (heavy on the Cracker) smothered chocolate (or in this case, banana "flavoring") and marshmellow. Ooooooh, you Southerners. Way to come up with an original snack. Take a s'more, flatten it, make the packaging all nostalgic and then name it something that makes normal people (mostly me) think of slow-witted country folk plunking on a banjo and hoping for some pig squealing later.

Ok, I'll admit. That was kind of prejudiced against people who play the banjo. It is a noble instrument, if not intensely annoying. I apologize to all the banjo players out there.

Anyway, this one didn't yank my chain really at all — not a fan of marshmellow. Or s'mores. Or flat, redneck s'mores.

3.9 — What is Going On?

Is today some sort of Bring Food to Work Day or something? After stretches of time lately with nothing showing up in our end of the building, all the sudden we're being deluged by snacks and free food.

This was a collection of pastries brought in by a freelance photographer who was here to show off his portfolio. The pastries were made by the guy's wife, who just happens to be a pastry chef.

I didn't dare touch any of this stuff, but stood there while others took bites of this and that and proceeded to have near-religious and/or full-body experiences because what they were tasting was so good. I had to leave because I actually started to waver a bit. I immediately went back to my desk and ate an apple. And then I ate another one, just to be safe.

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 — Fat Tuesday Leftovers

Some left a big tupperwear container of jumbalaya in the kitchen with a post-it note that it was Mardi Gras leftovers. I had already eaten lunch (a tasty spinach, tomato, cucumber salad with seasoned chicken slices, and a sugar-free chocolate pudding pack on the side), so I didn't even blink at the rice, beans and sausages. It might have tempted me more if I had been hungry, but as good as rice might be for you it can be carb and calorie hell. This looked like just that kind of trouble.

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!

3.8 — Now this is what I'm talking about!

YEAH! Now that's a worthy opponent. 2 donuts, slathered with thick icing and covered in mini M&Ms and Captain Crunch with Crunchberries cereal.

Just look at those things. Good God, what kind of sick mind looks at a donut and thinks, "Not sugary enough," then spackles on a thick layer of icing, steps back, considers, then decides, "Not only does this donut need more, it needs an unspeakable level of more."

A coworker who tried a piece summed it up best when he said, "It looks like a cereal box threw up on a donut."

I offered to test his blood sugar before and after eating a piece of the Captain Crunch option, but he declined. There is some information you really don't want to know.

I have to admit that the audacity of these donuts made me want to try a piece just to see how it tasted... and to see if my heart rate would jump 10-20 beats a second from the sugar rush.

It's been awhile since I've been this excited about not eating something. To whomever it was that brought in these abominations, thank you.



OF course, it wasn't too long before the old standard showed up, more Top Pot donuts. They look kinda plain, lame and week compared to the monstrosities above, don't you think?

3.7 — Tub o' Cookies

A random tub of store bought cookies. Judging by the variety, I'm thinking someone had a few packages of cookies with a couple cookies left in each. Throw them all in an old butter container and voilá, Tub o' Cookies.

Temptation meter: Not even flickering.