Feeding oneself while working to deadline

[petite tête de chou]

Coffee, water and asprin. But if my cramped, stressed stomach can handle food it's something very crunchy, like celery or carrots. I've found that eating crunchy foods loosens my clenched jaw and relieves a bit of the stress.

[loiosh]

Real Programmers, California variant, also consume big fat burritos stuffed with rice, beans, meat, cheese, and salsa.

I worked at a startup directly opposite a Krispy Kreme store. When the "HOT donuts NOW" sign lit up, we were off like a shot. Especially after midnight.

[jsolomon]

REAL Programmers don't eat quiche. They like Twinkies, Coke and delivered palate-scorching Szechwan food.  Oh and lukewarm pizza in cardboard boxes

REAL Programmers don't bring brown bag lunches. If the vending machine sells it, they eat it. If the machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it.

Real Programmers turn coffee into code

...

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And beer.

Don't forget about real systems administrators who unplug the mainframe from the UPS so they have a disaster-proof coffee supply.

Real systems administrators also wear hiking boots into the server room just in case a mountain springs up from the raised flooring requiring them to pick their own coffee.

[Rehovot]

Hot Tamales candies got me through many all-nighters.

Edited November 11, 2005 by Rehovot (log)

[Pontormo]

PBJ, skim milk, carrot sticks, apple slices

A jar of applesauce, straight

Gingerbread (bought) and applesauce and skim milk

Bags of white-cheddar cheese popcorn

Grilled cheese

Roast chicken from the grocery store

Chocolate-covered raisins

Bananas and peanut butter and skim milk

Apple slices and peanut butter

Handfuls of raw almonds

Raspberry-flavored, zero calorie, seltzer

Whole Foods thrives on deadline-culture & desparation of new parents for whom $ is no object.

They do roasted vegetables, quarts of noodles, soups, curried chicken salad....

In college I kept one of those metal creamers found in diners on my desk filled with M & M's. Finished a section on outline or a page? Flip the lid.

[*Deborah*]

Oh, and similar to working to deadline is eating to deadline (before running out to a rock show at which one expects to consume large amounts of Jameson's), where my aforementioned Triscuits or Digestives work with the cheddar slices (individually wrapped Black Diamond, kept on hand for just such incidents as well as tasting good with a fried egg sandwich on toast): unwrap the slice, fold it into quarters, insert two quarters between two Triscuits or two Digestives, fool yourself that you're eating something remotely good for you. It's really fast, though, and you can finish chewing in the elevator on the way out. It's certainly better than drinking large quantities of Jameson's on an empty stomach.

[jennahan]

It's really sad how many of my "meals" are on the fly. Actually, I think that foraging is a more accurate description of the way I eat on days like this:

Cheese and oat biscuits with cherry tomatoes and a fruit chutney (need to get some veg in!)

Cereal

Toast and butter

Toast butter and jam

Cheese on toast

Tinned sardines on toast

Handfuls of nuts

Chocolate

Yogurt with grape nuts and sunflower seeds

Tinned mackerel

When it's really dire, baby's pureed fruit pots.

[MarketStEl]

Rock bottom for me is when I just eat cheese. It's alarming how much cheese I can eat, unaccompanied by anything else, while typing furiously at the computer. I can easily eat a pound of mozzarella without even noticing. That's probably why my keyboard is such a mess and my space bar make a weird groaning noise every time I push it with my right thumb (it sounds fine if I push it with my left thumb).

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And I thought I had a serious cheese habit.

I prostate myself before you, Sir.

[moosnsqrl]

While not as amusing as most of these, I find that nutritious foods fuel me better than coffee, grease and sugar. Not that there is anything wrong with those, they just end up distracting me with their false buzz. I guess I'll never be a real programmer or sys admin.

I lay-in a bunch of Fantastic Foods cup-of-soups, whether at home or the office, just stir in some hot water, wait about 5 minutes, and body and soul-sustaining warm, tasty stuff will appear. And I won't hate myself in the morning.

[mizducky]

The fact that this is my first post on eGullet since November 11th should tell y'all something about how totally flat-out busy I have been. And this is just a brief respite before the final week of madness running up to the show on the 26th.

What I've been eating: well, there's been a *lot* of cheese. (Fat Guy, we must have studied from the same deadline-food playbook.) There's been a lot of take-out--mainly greasy-spoon steam-table Chinese, with a burrito or cheeseburger here and there. Last night there was delivery pizza from Papa John's (Fearless Housemate thinks it's a few cuts above Domino's and Pizza Slut, I mean Hut; myself, I think it's barely one cut above ... and I think I may have just badly mis-used that metaphor, but oh well).

Attempts at "healthy" food have been half-hearted at best and pathetic at worst: there were some canned pineapple chunks in there somewhere, and some canned chickpeas somewhere else. Oh yeah, and a bag of those Sunsweet cherry-essence prunes. (Don't ask. Just ... don't ask ).

There was a way-too-quickly-inhaled chocolate fix comprising a bag of Brach's Bridge Mix. And as always, there's been a few more iterations of my favorite too-busy-to-do-it-right microwave nachos and microwave melted cheese sandwiches. And just gallons and gallons and gallons of diet pop. My liver must be glowing in the dark by now.

Note that I am being more than a little vague about when these various items were consumed; the past week was kinda like that. As Fearless Leader's girlfriend (also a part of this undertaking) commented last night, we're having trouble remembering what day it is here ... unless it is in relation to D-Day or some subsidiary deadline pertaining thereto.

Needless to say, a proper Thanksgiving meal has kind of fallen off my schedule ... or would have, except that I'll be taking time out to help volunteer at a free community T-day dinner being hosted by my church. Fortunately, all I have to do for that is stand around and be one of the greeters/hostesses; they'll have a bazillion volunteers to do all the real work. And then the next day it's back to my grind--the (probably all day and halfway into the night) tech rehearsal, and acres of delivery pizza ordered to feed all the performers (a musical group, like an army, proceeds on its stomach). And then the actual performances the day after that, with more pizza to appease the troops. Reminder to self: pack along the JUMBO-size bottle of Extra-Strength Tums. Or better, buy a couple of additional bottles.

If I don't manage to jump on here again between now and Thanksgiving, have a great holiday, folks!

[FabulousFoodBabe]

So--what are other folks' true confessions about the food you consume when there is simply no time or extra energy to even breathe, let alone cook?

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Diet Pepsi. Mini pretzels and if I really, truly have to have fat, I microwave goat cheese, sprinkle it with walnuts, and dip the pretzels in it.

[MarketStEl]

Attempts at "healthy" food have been half-hearted at best and pathetic at worst: there were some canned pineapple chunks in there somewhere, and some canned chickpeas somewhere else. Oh yeah, and a bag of those Sunsweet cherry-essence prunes. (Don't ask. Just ... don't ask ).

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Anything you say, Ellen. I'm resisting the temptation.

My efforts at virtuous eating are always tempered by tossing in some vice, usually in the form of a dairy product. I switch from potato chips to carrot sticks, but keep the onion dip, for instance. These are also common last-minute, type-furiously-in-front-of-the-computer fare.

[annanstee]

Peek Freans Digestive biscuits, which are somehow, in my mind, more healthy than other cookies.

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Deborah, Have you tried chocolate covered Hob Nobs? They are my new digestive.

I will inhale a cup of coffee and a large chunk of cheese for breakfast- this is one of those cases where I will extract one tiny piece of a diet to justify the consumption of clumps of fatty protein goodness ie: South Beach likes Cheese!

Atkins approves of pancetta! Dr Wiel says eat half a loaf of whole wheat bread! (Sourdough qualifies, right?)

My quick dinner is spaghetti with an entire head of garlic sauteed in olive oil with chile flakes- generously salted and parmesaned, and about 15 mins prep time. I like to eat this when my husband isn't home for dinner, as he tends to view a meatless meal as a jobian punishment sent to personally test him.

[eJulia]

I learned something marvelous from anothern eGulleter.... sorry I can't remember who!

I always have Progresso's Wedding soup or minestrone in my cupboard. I also always have parm reg in my fridge. If I'm lucky, I have basil pesto (either homemade or store-bought) as well.

A heaping tbls of pesto, a healthy grating of parm, some warm soup, and you're good to go!

[gini]

COFFEE, dammit! That's all you need to motivate you to finish anything. EVER! IT IS THE SUSTAINING LIQUID OF LIFE! IF YOU AREN'T GETTING YOUR STUFF DONE, YOU AREN'T DRINKING ENOUGH COFFEE!

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Seriously, that was hilarious!!!

I myself don't drink so much coffee, but here are my wee-hours sustaining substances.

Cheese, plenty of it. But not any sort of crumbly or too hard to cut stuff. Give me the camemberts, the morbiers, the cheddars and the gruyeres. Sadly, roquefort it too crumbly to make the cut .

Peanut butter eaten with a spoon out of the container.

And when I lived in Paris, Nutella eaten out of the BIG container with a spoon while sitting on the kitchen floor at 4am.

[MarketStEl]

Has there been any research into whether cheese contains stimulants or hormones that increase alertness or stuff that heightens your ability to focus or some other miracle compound?

That now makes two confirmed cheeseaholics-on-deadline. I sometimes fall into this category.

However, here at the office, it's coffee all the way.

[mizducky]

The beauties of cheese as deadline fodder (based on personal experience):

--You can kid yourself it's a healthy snack food (which it is--although not, perhaps, in the quantities consumed by a deadline cheese-a-holic like moi)

--A lot of protein (as well as goodly amounts of fat and salt) in a single food-package

--As long as one avoids the crumbly types, as someone upstream already mentioned, it's a relatively non-messy food to eat out of hand

--Two words: melted cheese. 'Nuff said.

[emilyr]

In college I really liked crunchy things when I was working on papers or projects. My roommate claimed she could tell which kind of classes I was working on based on my snacks. Broadcasting, film and theater papers always led to chips or carrots with some sour cream based dip. Wasabi peas for poli sci. Those individually wrapped biscotti from Sam's Club for English and Italian. And for the dread Psych and Stats I usually ate chocolate covered espresso beans - my true induldgence in college. Plus I usually fortified them with Venti Cafes au Lait from the Starbucks in the lobby of my building. (I don't know if it was just my caffeine-controlled imagination or not, but sometimes it seemed like my fingers moved faster than my brain on those nights. I'd go back and read a paper after an all-nighter and not remember writing half of it ) I took a lot of philosophy and theology classes too cause I went to a Catholic school, but I can't think of anything particular for those. Probably cause I had no interest in them at all. Hm...When I was really poor I'd eat saltines with canned frosting or ramen noodles with salad shrimp (or canned chicken) and alfredo sauce from a jar. I shudder to recollect .

Now, I'm not really on deadline, but it seems like I'm either working or on my way to work and I have no time to cook. I'm relying a lot on dried cranberries and double bergamot Earl Grey made with two teabags per cup so that it gets all black and thick...

[mizducky]

I have survived my deadline, but only just barely.

Eating patterns hit an all-time height (or depth) of weirdness the actual day of the deadline. I think my entire food consumption that day prior to midnight was one chocolate bar, a handful of cough drops, and a bottle or two of water.

I was expecting to get a little pizza in there too, but by the time I made it back to the green room I discovered that the kids in the youth orchestra had already wolfed down all 12 pies I'd ordered for them. Lesson for next time: grab my slices while the orchestra is still trapped on-stage for the matinee show.

Finally, I made it to the after-party a hair after midnight, and was pleased to see that the woman I put in charge of it was the expert Costco/TJ's shopper I guessed her to be: trays of croissant sandwiches, mini-eggrolls, cheese and crackers, hummus and pita chips, nice veggie tray and fruit bowl, big soft cookies, etc etc etc. And one of the college age orchestra "kids" brought a six-pack of framboise lambic--yum. Nice way to decompress from a deadline.