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On reflection, our ninja tenants don’t quite live with us so much as they’ve infiltrated our home. One appears to have simple preferences as witnessed by the food that’s magically appeared consisting of:

  • 8 jars of self-canned peach preserves
  • 4 bags of Easter candy
  • 24 bottles of some protein drink
  • 4 3-packs of egg substitute
  • 6 8-oz bottles of Canada Dry Seltzer Water
  • A small plastic canister of cloves

Maybe if combined properly they form the ninja equivalent of the Philosopher’s Stone.  If I ever actually see one of our tenants, I will ask.  Assuming I’m not hit with a poison dart or the Vulcan nerve pinch first.

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Sometimes I embellish dialog to make a narrative clear. Today, I have no need.
Woman: Are you, Terry?
Me: I am.
Woman: And are these where the muffins are?
Me: Were, they’re gone.
Woman: So you do bake. So do I, I’m here to challenge you.
Me: Oh, ok.
Woman: I brought in brownies Friday, and they’re still here. (That’s a display of prowess?)
Me: And you’re challenging me to?
Woman: Bake.
Me: I do, we just talked about muffins.
Woman: I am the queen of baking, and it I will remain. I’m not going to lose my crown to an upstart.
Me: Persuant to my statement of sex in HR, I am fine with you being the queen of baking. (Also, I’ve been here longer)
Woman: *Scowl* One day, I will challenge you.
Me: Ok.
Somehow, this has been spreading around and I’ve randomly stopped in the hall-

Coworker #1: Don’t worry, Terry. She makes a fine cupcake, but she couldn’t match you in muffins.
Coworker #2: I have a faith in you. I have tasted your bacon cookies, and I became a better person.
Coworker #2: Don’t fucking worry, she fucking burns every fucking thing she’s ever fucked *awkward moment* up making.

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Marketing’s recent return to our office clime has resulted in some odd collisions.  As a thank you to engineering, they left out donut holes for us assumably the night before as I saw no marketing folk in when I arrived at 5 AM.  There was a box on each photo copier and the coffee area and each of my passes about those areas netted two more donut holes, a habit some other early risers also picked up.  When the first marketing person did arrive the donut holes were largely gone and consolidated into one box that I wound up finishing the next day as no one wanted to take the last one,  despite having no qualms with consuming this lone survivor’s numerous kin.

I briefly convinced myself I’d not consumed in excess until I calculated that each box would have had to have been about 1/4 mile away from each other to create sufficient calorie expenditure to equilibrate input with output.  At least if I stuck to the two furthest boxes I could be fine within an order of magnitude.  That’s good enough in many sciences, I hope nutrition’s one of them.

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I brought in oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and despite it being around 8:30 AM I saw about 1/2 were gone.  I poked around to see who was in and asked a coworker how many cookies he’d had to which he responded “six”.  “Really?” I asked, “I guess you really like them, then” I chuckled passive-aggressively. “No” he responded “I was just eating all the burnt ones so no one else would have to”.  Good idea, I should volunteer to eat all his steaks that I deem to have insufficient marbling and deem myself a public servant.

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A byproduct of having people hunt on your property is the unavoidable gift basket of dear parts that appear sporadically in the freezer. I’d whittled away at the chuck roast, the ground various and the burger through the cooking axiom of “that which should not be identified can not be identified in chili” but this paper-wrapped timebomb would not go so quietly. So, I salted it, rubbed it with Mrs. Dash and roasted it over low heat until the core hit 160°F. It tasted… of meat. Dave said it reminded him of lamb, although I think he used the term “reminded” like one sees a piece of toast that “reminds” the observer of the Virgin Mary.

Next time I’m going to go with the newest entrant to my culinary toolbox: Add 1 cup chicken broth, 1 can mushroom soup, and 1 packet of any Lipton Cup-a-Soup. Later I discovered that “venison roast” is butcher code for “deer neck”. I wonder what type of soup best goes with neck.

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I bring in brownies on Monday, and as coincidence would have it another coworker brought in massive muffins. My too polite coworkers would see one, and take one, then see the other and not wanting to insult the provider, would take one as well. At about 11:30 this morning most of the too polite coworkers were stumbling around in insulin shock and the number of random requests for computer aid dropped precipitously. I should try to coordinate this “coincidence” more often.

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I ran short on time to prepare Monday baked goods for work and was forced to use the boxed stuff.  I felt dirty at first and compromised by using the box brownie mix in a novel way.  I’d switch from oil to butter, add water and make cookies instead of brownies.  I even had a packet of caramel to add to the top to make them look like those adorable (type of cookie where there’s stuff in the center) that everyone likes.  I made thumb depressions in the cookie blanks, added the caramel, threw it in the oven at 350°F for 14 minutes and celebrated my victory by going to town on the beaters.

I pulled them from the oven left them to cool for an hour and came back to…. donuts.   Apparently, the caramel prevented the centers from cooking and with additional weight of the sauce the centers dropped through the grating of the cooling rack.  So, tomorrow I will go to work with not one but two goodies.  First, the donut cookies with their hole slightly creamed with caramel, and second the slightly under cooked centers that I’ve come to call caramel hats.

Stupid like a fox.

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Joe’s Pizza on 206 serves mediocre pizza at high prices of around $3.25 a slice for a sixth of a 16″ pie topped with at least 3 meats. Three of us went to lunch today and thinking ourselves sneaky purchased a polymeat pizza while rubbing our hands greedily thinking of the ensuing savings. Instead of a fresh pie at a more reasonable price, we got six reheated slices at a cost of $24.00. Yep, it would have been cheaper to purchase six single slices (19.50) rather than the whole pie. Is there some sort of pizza gestalt such that the whole pie is much more valuable than the pieces? Is this his passive aggressive way of saying “stop eating my food, panda jerk”? Did he see our sneaky handrubbing?

Time to go back to jerky cured in a 40°C environmental chamber. Where else can you get ISO 9000-certified dried beef?

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It’s been a bit of an office ritual that a coworker of mine would scan my clothing for food stains.  Most have some sort of culinary christening as despite my best efforts I usually get hit with something.  Recently, I somehow got a bit of egg under my dunlop.  The next day, I somehow managed to get a blot of ketchup on my shirt and pants positioned symmetrically about my waist like I’d dropped the Heinz bottle and caught it by kneeing myself in the bosom.

But something magical happens when I’m driving.  While eating while driving lies somewhere between road-head and the radio in terms of lethality I can safely consume an entire chicken cheese steak while driving.  Today I stunned my coworkers by eating a Chipotle steak, rice and pepper burrito one-handed with not a blot show.  Maybe if I got a MarioKart wheel or simply played Radar Love I could emulate this road-borne success at the work desk.

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My G15 keyboard probably isn’t dishwasher-safe because of the LCD screen so I opted to pop off the keys, put them in a mesh bag and send them through the dishwasher.  This worked quite well as all my keys are now shiny and clean again.  I wondered how my keys got so dirty, not just scummy but dirty having a literal coating of dirt on the 1-5 keys and the Q key.  The answer became apparent when I had to put down the barbeque sauce-coated ribs to do the first draft of this post.  Maybe it’s time to get some Wet-naps.