So anyway, on my first day, I forgot to mention that I received an email invitation to a Holiday Luncheon out on the front lawn of our building. It was for all employees of the building. I was looking forward to eating at Le Boulanger again, but I was like “ooh, free food”. The email said “Catered Lunch and Delicious Desserts”. Yesss! even if the food was sucky, at least there’d be desserts — always a plus in my book. So I’m twiddling my fingers, staring at the wall, and waiting for 12:30 - 1pm -ish to come around, and thinking I love this place.
I go downstairs to the lawn where a big white tent had been set up. Several tables had been set up with a bunch of people sitting and eating. Now, what’s weird is that I noticed everyone sitting at the tables was Asian. I was like, whoa. Well, there were a few indian-looking people and white people sprinkled about. Actually I think they were all sitting at the same table actually. strength in numbers i suppose. but really, no exaggeration — mostly Asian. And I was like ‘coolness’. To me, I just thought it to be interesting. No Latinos that I noticed though.
Okay, so now here’s the kicker — I get closer to the buffet table. And whaddayaknow? Asian food. Dear God, why? WHY!??? I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I really don’t like Asian foods. I have no problem with Asian people, I like Asian people, and I get along with Asian people…. but I just don’t like Asian foods. I overdosed on it a few years ago, and I’m just done with it now. I’m sober now, so I can’t stand being exposed to it anymore. But being the strange fellow that I am, I didn’t want to make the eager-to-please catering staff feel bad, nor did I want to perturb the line of people that formed behind me while I stood there at the front of the buffet table, stupefied.
I grab a plate and silverware, and the first platter is filled with big mushroom caps, stuffed with something, and submerged in a brown sauce of some sort. I’m not very fond of mushrooms, but I did recently have a pleasing experience with a portobella mushoom sandwich at Untamed Foods in Salinas, so I was like, hmmmm… but I decided to pass them by, but then the server, encouraged me, saying they were really great and asked how many I wanted. I thought ‘what the heck’ and got two. They looked gross. Next were some little puff thingies that were kinda yellow and pink with green stuff. I don’t know what they were. I forgot what the guy said, but they were like ’something with pork’. and that made me keep on walking because not only were they kinda yucky looking, they also had a meat of which I’m not fond.
next was some “i forgots” that i passed by, and then a platter of egg roll looking things. and I asked if they were egg rolls and the guy said yes, all vegetables. So i was like ‘okay cool’. i got two — you can’t go wrong with vegetable egg rolls.
next was a platter of green rectangular things that looked like little wrapped tamales but with big green leaves instead of corn husks. they looked familiar as i had eaten something similar at an old job. a philippina woman brought in these things with sweet rice inside. they were okay. so i was like ‘oh, okay, i might be able to do this, i think i’ve had them before’. i ask what they were and the server said that they were ’sticky rice’. i got one.
then I came to a platter of what looked like chow mein. and i was like ‘cool, okay i can do this. chow mein is passable, it’s just noodles with some stuff’. but as i picked it up, it was a little more like Top Ramen noodles, and i noticed grey slivers of weird-looking stuff. i was grossed out by it because it looked like octopus tentacles. but actually i think they were mushroom slivers because musrooms have that weird scaley-fan look underneath the cap. but for all i know, the ‘chow mein’ could have been ‘octopus chow mein’. highly unlikely, but i got two spoonfuls before I saw the slivers, but I managed to get only noodles anyway. and then I saw a platter of what resembled fried rice. okay, that’s another possible passable food item. but no, it had a bunch of pink shrimp in it. it was also yellowish, but that didn’t bother me as much. the shrimp did.
i sit down at a table with our IT guy and another Trend employee. i am trying hard to conceal my displeasement with the foods. i decide to go for the mushroom caps first. i split one with my fork, and lo and behold: a pink shrimp. So much for the mushrooms. I take a few bites of the egg roll — not bad. just cold :( So I finish the egg roll. And then I go for the ‘chow mein’ noodles. ewww. they tasted like dry Cup O’ Noodle noodles but without the flavor. Kindalike squiggly pieces of cardboard. Pass. I unwrapped my ’sticky rice’ tamale. i find that there are squishy pieces of unidentifiable meat with the rice. i take a little piece of the rice…. more cardboard, but just a lil’ more firm and sticky. So i eat the other egg roll, and chat a bit with the folks at the table about Boston weather and prices.
And just when I was about to scream about the lack of ‘delicious desserts’ in the buffet as advertised in the email, I see a woman bringing out a buncha trays full of cookies. The highlight of the lunch hour. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, weird white raisin oatmealish cookies, and some frosting and chocolate dipped sugar cookies. I took a chocochip, a weird white raisin oatmealish kind, and a half-dipped-in-chocolate sugar cookie shaped like an old man’s cane. Not my idea of “delicious desserts” but I suppose it would do. You see, when I think of delicious desserts, I think of like lemon bars, brownies, cheesecake, ice cream, warm berry pie, brownies and other delicious desserts. not boring Costco-looking cookies.
Anyhoo, I sat back down in front of my not-eaten plate of food, and I didn’t want to get up and let everybody know that I didn’t like the food and I was gonna throw it away. So I waited a few minutes while they turned away, and I got up and threw my plate away. I came back to my cookies, wrapped’em up in a napkin and started walking to the car, to get an umbrella. It had begun raining a bit, and I planned to take a walk to get a coffee because I needed to wash the thin film of grossness from my tongue.
I walk to the car, realize I left my keys in the jacket upstairs on the second floor, go back up, leave my cookies at my desk, get the keys, go back down, walk across the street to the place where they give away free coffees for a $1.35 donation and walk back.
I first tasted the weird white raisin oatmealish cookie — slightly gross. Not what I expected. It like had the potential of goodness, but suckiness stabbed it in the back and ruled the cookie. the chocochip one wasn’t so great either. the most pleasing was the old man’s cane cookie. oh well. at least my coffee was hot.
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