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Ahhhh dont we all love Potluck Day on the job?


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My first post, please be gentle with me :wub:

Ok, we are had a potluck here at work today. Pretty good, I wandered into the breakroom with my dish of stuffed mushrooms, checked out the spread. Most of the stuff, pretty much run-of-the-mill items: fried chicken, spaghetti, different salads, sandwich tray, veggie tray, fruit and cheese tray, brownie bites, etc. There was a particularly excellent ham also. My coworker and I get down to the end of the table, and what to our hungry eyes does appear----a pan of enchiladas. They were the ones done with a white sour cream looking sauce….mmmm…love that kind. So, we decide to try them. I lift one from the pan, place it next to the other items on my plate, coworker does the same. We go back to our desks to eat and chat a bit.

On the way there, a most peculiar aroma began assailing my nose, wafting up from one of the items on the plate…..hmmmm…..smells like…..like……fish or something! At my desk, upon closer inspection of said enchilada, I come to the realization that it is not a chicken enchilada, but a fish enchilada….ok, this doesn’t freak me out….that comes in just a moment. Looking intently at the enchilada, I start to notice some un-enchilada like qualities of the above-mentioned enchilada.

The jack-o-lantern orange cheese-like matter on the top of the enchilada is not melted, but lays there in a semi-congealed blob of tepid goo. Underneath the cheese is the sauce….I slowly come to the realization that I have NEVER seen an enchilada sauce…with bits of PICKLE in it! Yes, you heard me right…BITS O' PICKLE! I bring my nose closer to the plate, and my olfactory senses start beating a hasty retreat, around to the back of my head, where they huddle, quivering and whimpering at the hairline of the back of my neck. I realize just what the sauce on the pseudo-enchiladas is……tartar sauce…yes, as much as it pains me to type it….tartar sauce. Such an inoffensive word, turned oh so terribly wrong with one swing of a spatula.

I am curious now, I HAVE to know what is lurking in the middle of the corn tortilla of the pseudo-enchilada. I use my fork and try to cut it in half. It slowly gives up the fight, with a curious “crunching” sensation as my fork penetrates the outer shell of this monstrosity. I pull the halves apart and for the first time in my life, I am totally speechless.

She made seafood enchiladas, topped with tartar sauce, a jar of Cheez Whiz, I don’t know why I had the optimism to expect anything different.

She had gone to the local Long John Silvers, purchased fried fish fillets there…..cut them up in long pieces, coated them with a mixture of mayonnaise, dried onions and chili powder (information later provided quite readily by the cook, as I just HAD to find out what she did to make such FABULOUS enchiladas).

So, here we are.

LJS fish that is covered with a palate-wrenching combination of condiments rolled in corn tortillas, then covered with the contents of a jar of Best Foods tartar sauce, then a jar of Cheez Whiz covering it all. At the time of inspection, I didn’t know what lurked in these little rolls of anguish, and neither did my coworker. I turned to tell her what I had realized, just as she placed a forkful of it in her mouth.

As much as I like this woman to work with, I just couldn’t bring myself to lunge at her, pry her jaws open and make her spit it out before the realization that her tastebuds would never be the same struck her. I watched, as she started to chew, then she stopped dead, looked at me, her face growing whiter by the second, then lunged for the trash can between our desks to spit out the horror. She then proceeded to take a napkin, and furiously wiped her tongue with it between drinks of water and soda till the taste went away.

We might not have been super close friends before, but now that we have shared in the “experience”, I think we will be a team. United against bad, wrong, socially inedible, scrape your tongue and blow chunks, bad, nasty potluck food made by people who OBVIOUSLY don’t have a clue.

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(information later provided quite readily by the cook, as I just HAD to find out what she did to make such FABULOUS enchiladas).

Congratulations... You have now guaranteed the reappearance of this horror for the rest of your professional life. :laugh:

Hi! Welcome to the forum!

Mark

The Gastronomer's Bookshelf - Collaborative book reviews about food and food culture. Submit a review today! :)

No Special Effects - my reader-friendly blog about food and life.

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Once upon a time, I came across a site that was a testimonial to similar potluck items, as preserved for posterity in companies' in-house cookbooks (you know the ones..."This lovely Jell-o and smoked oyster salad comes from Debbie in Accounting..."). Unfortunately when I moved I did not think to export my bookmarks, or I'd offer a link. It was pretty, um...interesting.

Some of the old Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbooks are amusing, too, in a gut-wrenching sort of way.

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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Once upon a time, I came across a site that was a testimonial to similar potluck items, as preserved for posterity in companies' in-house cookbooks (you know the ones..."This lovely Jell-o and smoked oyster salad comes from Debbie in Accounting...").  Unfortunately when I moved I did not think to export my bookmarks, or I'd offer a link.  It was pretty, um...interesting.

Are you thinking of this link: The Company Cookbook?

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Welcome, indeed, Mysstwalker!

I wonder whether this person might in fact be a food-friend-in-waiting. This dish isn't really a jello and smoked oyster mash up; it's a carefully constructed attempt at a smashing pot luck dish. It's not to my (or, it would seem, most posters') tastes, but I'll bet that most people didn't make special trips to purveyors, create a spice rub, and so on. (I'm stopping short of calling this fusion, you'll be glad to know.)

Chris Amirault

eG Ethics Signatory

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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Hey Mystwalker,

I guess we have to give her points for presentation, do we not? She managed to disguise something that doesn't work as convincing enchiladas, and suckered intelligent adults into sampling her wares. That takes skill.

Hot (and probably by the time you guys got to the end of the table, warm) tartar sauce doesn't do it for me. But, I am not a tartar sauce fan. I think LJS also does a "grilled" fish filet, that you may suggest to her to "tweak" her recipe, as you will be seeing this time and again at every potluck you and she attends.

Great first post, by the way.

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This easily wins the "Best First Posting" award that we should have started long ago. Congratulations and welcome!

And also, welcome to the world of realizing that there are actually people in the world that eat like this all the time - the person who prepared the dish was probably trying their best which makes it that much more scary to think they eat that way all the time!

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She had gone to the local Long John Silvers, purchased fried fish fillets there…..cut them up in long pieces, coated them with a mixture of mayonnaise, dried onions and chili powder (information later provided quite readily by the cook, as I just HAD to find out what she did to make such FABULOUS enchiladas).

Had she seen this recipe somewhere or was it her own creation?

SB (tends to award points for originality and good intentions :wink: )

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Thank you for your kind welcome! Actually, she had made up this recipe, she said her kids LOVE it <gag>. Fortunately, tomorrow is my last day, as it was a temp contract position re-writing software tech manuals, so she can continue to torture the rest of the people there with her "specialities"....ahem. Anyway, I will be happy to keep posting, I have lots more stories, next time, I shall post "The Saga of Mystery Meat Mountain" and "Project CFB" also known as Project Chicken-Fried Bacon heh.

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Thank you for your kind welcome!  Actually, she had made up this recipe, she said her kids LOVE it <gag>.  Fortunately, tomorrow is my last day, as it was a temp contract position re-writing software tech manuals, so she can continue to torture the rest of the people there with her "specialities"....ahem. Anyway, I will be happy to keep posting, I have lots more stories, next time, I shall post "The Saga of Mystery Meat Mountain" and "Project CFB" also known as Project Chicken-Fried Bacon heh.

Oh man, Chicken Fried Bacon. That has to be awesome. Does it come with gravy?

That's the thing about opposum inerds, they's just as tasty the next day.

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Thank you for your kind welcome!  Actually, she had made up this recipe, she said her kids LOVE it <gag>.  Fortunately, tomorrow is my last day, as it was a temp contract position re-writing software tech manuals, so she can continue to torture the rest of the people there with her "specialities"....ahem. Anyway, I will be happy to keep posting, I have lots more stories, next time, I shall post "The Saga of Mystery Meat Mountain" and "Project CFB" also known as Project Chicken-Fried Bacon heh.

Oh man, Chicken Fried Bacon. That has to be awesome. Does it come with gravy?

It is, and it does.

Click here for Bacon Porn

I haven't made it since then, hmmm, I bet it would be great with some sliced tomato on the side...

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