TDG: Cubicle Cuisine

[Fat Guy]

Kara Newman goes deep inside the cult of the granola bar.

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[fresco]

The one item I was expecting to see and didn't was microwavable popcorn, which is huge in any office I've spent time in.

[Carlovski]

Anyone read Douglas Copelands 'Microserfs'?

There is one bit where one guy locks himself in. They have to pass him flat food under his door, and he declares that from then on he is only going to eat 2 dimensional food.

Personally I always have a stash of Nissin Cup noodles in my desk.

[s'kat]

The one item I was expecting to see and didn't was microwavable popcorn, which is huge in any office I've spent time in.

My office is currently in the midst of a microwave popcorn 'debate'. Half of the people here can't get enough, and the other half are extremely verbal about being repulsed by the chemcial-laden fake-butter smell that wafts down the hallway.

I'm repulsed, but quietly.

[fresco]

The one item I was expecting to see and didn't was microwavable popcorn, which is huge in any office I've spent time in.

My office is currently in the midst of a microwave popcorn 'debate'. Half of the people here can't get enough, and the other half are extremely verbal about being repulsed by the chemcial-laden fake-butter smell that wafts down the hallway.

I'm repulsed, but quietly.

It's usually considered good manners to stick to the plain variety.

[joler]

Instant Grits in my cubicle. A true Southern Girl.

[tryska]

hmm..my desk drawer has.....peanut butter, hot sauce, a 5lb tub of chocolate protein powder, straws, lysol wipes, spoons and napkins, and a lone tootsie roll.

granted i bring a cooler with meals for the day in it. never fish tho. unless it's hidden in mac and cheese.

[Katherine]

The one item I was expecting to see and didn't was microwavable popcorn, which is huge in any office I've spent time in.

My office is currently in the midst of a microwave popcorn 'debate'. Half of the people here can't get enough, and the other half are extremely verbal about being repulsed by the chemcial-laden fake-butter smell that wafts down the hallway.

I'm repulsed, but quietly.

Even worse, someone in an office where I was working put popcorn in the microwave located in the center of a large office/lab area with shared ventilation, mis-set the timer, and walked away. People realized something was wrong when clouds of black smoke filled the central area. The microwave survived, but it was a long, long time before the odor vanished.

[alacarte]

Katherine, that sounds horrendous. We may need a thread devoted just to office-food disasters!

[joler]

ooh yea, nothing worse than burnt popcorn. Altho' someone here was on a cabbage diet at one point that was pretty gruesome...

Forgot to mention the ever-present bottle of Texas Pete on my desk. What would I do without it?!?

[Toliver]

Forgot to mention the ever-present bottle of Texas Pete on my desk.  What would I do without it?!?

I have a bottle of Tabasco Chipotle and a tin of ground black pepper hidden away in an office drawer. I am mulling over ordering a mini Magnum for better pepper flavor. Mmmmm...fresh ground pepper.

[reverendtmac]

The only food I keep in my desk is a Costco-sized box of Nature Valley granola bars, but they're mostly used as a meal replacement on my way to the golf course...unless you count ketchup packets a la The Sopranos

What shocked me was the 1 in 20 that keeps booze in the desk. I've got a bottle of Aberlour that'd make the afternoons disappear like a treat...

[Foam Pants]

I once torched a bag of popcorn and got yelled at by my co-workers. Since then I'v been too scared to go near the dang micro. I usually try to keep some banana chips. There is a grocery store about half a block away so I don't really need to keep anything. Get me some fried chicken!

[Jason Perlow]

I used to keep a lot of food in my cube, and not just for myself. When I was working at a Japanese company in NJ this year I was practically a cubicle caterer -- I kept around all kinds of ramen noodles and exotic japanese snacks, in addtion to donuts and teas for bribery purposes. Japanese are also major chocolate and cookie fiends.

[mcdowell]

I keep some ramen noodles in the bottom drawer, along with a giant bag of wasabi-coated peas (better than popcorn, and twice as addictive). There's also trail mix (heavy on the nuts) and about five different kinds of loose leaf tea within arm's reach.

In the community conference room, we keep a case of Kraft Easy-Mac and cases of root-beer, all from Costco. I don't go near that Easy-Mac stuff. Never. Nope. Not me.

[anil]

Oh Boy !! This looks like a pandora's box

[Pouncy]

Where I work, we don't have cubicles, but a small prep kitchen for the few baked goods our shop sells (Cornish pasties, shepherd's pie, raisin scones). I've got a few packets of apple cider mix, a jar of macadamia nuts, and a thing of Happy Family Indonesian ramen stashed away in the kitchen for days when I just can't take the smell from the surrounding restaraunts anymore! One day I brought in a California Pizza Kitchen BBQ Chicken pizza and baked in in our miniscule oven, and it was the best work lunch I'd ever had. Smell is not really an issue for us, anything we make doesn't smell nearly as pungent as the onions we bake for our pasties and pies.

We have a Meditteranean bakery behind us, Shakespeare's Pub and Grilleto one side, a gyro place directly downstairs, and Saffron, Su-Mei Yu's restaraunt downstairs and to one side. It's olfactory torture, and we're all sick to death of what we bake, even though it's free or discounted.

[Katherine]

Mmmmm...fresh ground pepper.

I was in an office lunch meeting once where I had the opportunity to pull out my micro peppermill to season my food. They were all suitably impressed.

[alacarte]

One tidbit that didn't make it into the article -- Bob Thompson said that there are essentially two categories of office eaters:

1. Thos who go for the "drive-by eating experience" -- usally eats food that is wrapped & can shove down your throat. i.e. candy bar, granola bar, box of raisins. The point is “furtive, quick eating on the run.”

2. Those who turn their desk drawers into pantries – usually these people have access to a microwave. i.e. Ramen noodles & the microwave.

I suspect that eGulleteers fall into that second category, pretty much across the board. But we're a community that savors the eating experience. Live to eat as much as eat to live, am I right?

[hjshorter]

I had a coworker who brought sardines for lunch with nauseating regularity. It would not have been too bad but for the fact that she would leave the empty tin on her desk for hours after lunch. It was a very small office with no windows.

I always had Crystal hot sauce, S&P, crackers, and a jar of peanut butter in my desk, and mayo and mustard in the office fridge.

[fresco]

I had a coworker who brought sardines for lunch with nauseating regularity.  It would not have been too bad but for the fact that she would leave the empty tin on her desk for hours after lunch.  It was a very small office with no windows.

.

The other really bad food thing that happens at work is people leaving lunches, or remnants of lunches, to rot in the fridge, prompting indignant memos to be posted every month or so.

[alacarte]

The other really bad food thing that happens at work is people leaving lunches, or remnants of lunches, to rot in the fridge, prompting indignant memos to be posted every month or so.

or worse still -- people EATING other people's lunches! This happens regularly in my office.

[Oceangroveguy]

Salt, pepper, instant chicken broth, ketchup, Mitsukan seasoned vinegar (for salad bar takeout), Texas Pete and Tabasco

[fresco]

The other really bad food thing that happens at work is people leaving lunches, or remnants of lunches, to rot in the fridge, prompting indignant memos to be posted every month or so.

or worse still -- people EATING other people's lunches! This happens regularly in my office.

Perhaps you should post a memo with directions to the nearest food bank.

[Rachel Perlow]

A place I worked has resorted to the Friday fridge purge. Any food left in the fridge (including the plastic containers) was thrown out by the cleaning staff every Friday evening. This didn't include things like bottled salad dressing, but anything miscellaneous like plastic containers, leftover chinese cartons, paper bags of mystery, etc. After you lose a piece of Tupperware or two, you learn to clean it out and take it home. No extra warnings either, just a memo taped to the fridge as a perpetual reminder.