Where the Fuck is Portneuf Anyways?

This morning I had an omelet with a side of La Sauvagine cheese on toast. 

La Sauvagine is made by Alexis-de-Portneuf.  This morning my Spousal Unit asked me, "Where the fuck is Portneuf, anyway?"  I had no idea.  But my guess is that it doesn't matter because Alexis-de-Portneuf is a subsidiary of Saputo, the Giant Cheese Machine.

Alexis-de-Portneuf also makes Brie de Portneuf. One time I was watching a pretentious cooking show where they were discussing artisanal cheeses.  The guest (because it was one of those cooking shows where there's a different guest each show prattling on about one thing or another) was going on about how sometimes cheeses look artisanal, but aren't.   As an example, he said, "If I buy a brie that says it's from Portneuf, I want it to be from Portneuf and not some industrial fromage."

And hence, it doesn't matter at all where Portneuf is as this cheese is made in some factory in Laval or Brampton.

Last Week, Nobody Ate

Last week, no one ate. Or at least no one took pictures of anything they weren't ashamed of saying they ate.

Of course, you don't care because you, dear reader, are a figment of my imagination. No one has looked at any of the latest posts. So I'm basically talking to myself. Which is awesome. But also slightly crazy.

Anyways.

Last week was the week where I ate so much take-out crap that I started thinking that I was getting high cholesterol and diabetes. I took pictures of some of it, but I didn't want to publish the pictures because I don't want this blog to turn into "This is Why I'm Fat". So I called Irene hoping she had taken some pictures. Unfortunately, she hadn't.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I've been swamped this week! I've been eating little things here and there. And then when I finally sat down for lunch on Friday, my iPhone memory was full and I couldn't even take pictures of it. Didn't you take any pictures at all?"


"I took some pictures, but they were all of fast food. It's all the fault of those stupid Hostess cupcakes. They're a gateway drug!"

"Hostess cupcakes?"

Bless Irene's innocent stomach! She's been in Canada over 20 years yet she's somehow managed to avoid all disgusting snacky cakes to the point of being totally unaware of their branding. I don't know how she does it. Then again, she also drinks a fantastic amount of guarana soda that she gets from this shady convenience store in some random part of town.

I'll leave you with the picture of an empty Cinnabon box. I brought Cinnabon cinnamon buns to work and within two seconds of placing them in the break room a swarm of engineers descended upon them like a pack of piranhas. They were all gone in 5 minutes.

Revenge of The Office Snack Closet

Oh dear.

The office snack closet had been bare for so many days that I had forgotten about its usual bounty. This morning I opened it expecting some stale social tea cookies and maybe a Ritz cracker or two. I was not at all prepared for what I found: Hostess Vanilla Cupcakes! I had never had a Hostess Cupcake, vanilla or otherwise, before. I had heard of them, but never bought one because, you know, snacky cakes are bad for you. Today, though, those vanilla cupcakes were in the snack closet, so they were provided by the God of the Snack Closet (i.e. our office manager, Linda) for me to consume. It was a sign.

Today, as an exception, there is a picture of food. It is the picture of the uneaten Hostess cupcakes. I took one bite and spit it out. That was a vile, vile piece of edible food-like substance!

I didn't know what I had done to offend the God of the Snack Closet, but I promised to atone! I promised to clean the sink and put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Anything for the God of the Snack Closet to never tempt me with anymore facsimiles of food ever again!

Then one of my coworkers popped by my desk and scarfed down my untouched cupcake and asked me if there were any more in the snack closet.

Pancakes, Or Memories of Home Ec Class

Every time I make pancakes, I think of Home Ec class. You may be too young (or too imaginary) to have ever had to endure Home Economics class in High School, but once upon a time they gave you credits for sewing a pillow case.  

It wasn't always this way:  At one point Home Ec was a class that taught teen girls how to manage a household so that their families wouldn't go broke or all die of scurvy.  While the girls were learning to balance budgets and meals, the boys were in shop class, learning how to best sever their limbs.  

By the time I hit High School, though, Home Ec and shop were both co-ed affairs, where everyone learned the absolutely useless skills of building a bird house and making pancakes.

OK, fine, making pancakes is not a useless skill as the proper preparation of morning-after pancakes is an important part of the courtship process.  But the pancakes we made that fateful, random day in Home Ec were never going to get anyone laid a second time.  They were made with margarine instead of butter, for one thing.  At the time everyone thought that trans-fatty margarine was better for you than butter and it was the duty of our Home Ec teacher -- a woman who had once taught Canadian Pop Sensation, Luba -- to teach us about healthy choices.  For another thing, the pancakes we made were about 3 inches thick and never fully cooked in the middle.  They were a revolting, gooey mess and we all got As for them even though none of us agreed to eat them.  

 

The pancakes I made today, though, were fluffy, tasty, and made with butter.  We ran out of maple syrup, so we ate them with blueberry yogourt.  I think Luba would have approved.

Food: Real and Faux, But Mostly Faux

This morning I woke up early and made myself a healthy breakfast of pocket eggs (eggs in a basket?) and orange-and-peach juice.  It was tasty.  It was nutritious.  It was healthy.  It filled me up and made me ready for the day.  Alls I really wanted was a nice hot chocolate to go with it, but alas, I forgot that I had Ghirardelli instant hot chocolate in the house.

I also totally forgot to take a picture of the empty plate til I was halfway to work.  *sigh*

That was prettymuch it for real food for the day.  

Because I didn't feel like making myself a tuna sandwich for lunch, I ended up not bringing a lunch.  When noontime came around, I had the choice between eating  the Uncle Ben's microwavable rice'n'sauce I keep in the office for emergencies or going out to eat.  I didn't want to get in my car, so I ended up taking out from the greasy spoon cafeteria in the next office building over. 

As today was Friday, they had their usual fish'n'chips.  I've had their fish'n'chips.  It's white fish in a really thick, greasy batter.  The whole thing is fried to death so that the fish is a tough, tasteless wafer.   However, today they also had quesadillas on the menu.  All the guys in the office keep going on about the quesadillas, so I decided to order 'em.  They were...OK?  It was basically chicken, red peppers, onions and cheese between two tortillas.  It was edible.  They gave me two squares of banana bread free (they were in that little baggy at the back).  For a beverage, I chose an A&W Root Beer from the drink fridge in the office.  I figured if I was going to have something revolting for lunch, I might as well also have some high fructose corn syrup to go with it.

 

After lunch, a couple of coworkers and I went to Starbucks.  I should have had the hot chocolate, but I had an espresso.  And I ordered a rice krispy square to go with it.  The rice krispy square was incredibly sweet, so I couldn't finish it.  I finished it at the office with the help of some water (blue cup) and leftover instant Starbucks VIA Xmas Bleuch coffee from the morning (chartreuse mug).  You can see my espresso cup (unwashed from yesterday) in the background,  feeling rejected.

Eating From Home

So you know what's awesome about working from home?  You can eat whatever the hell you want, whenever you want.  Though I do miss the office snack cupboard when I'm working from home, the fact that I can make warm food or make messy food totally makes up for it.

For example, this morning I started my day with a traditional Italian breakfast of hard bread, soaked in water and then smothered in balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt.  It sounds much more revolting than it is.  It's actually rather tasty.   Oh, and it's finger food.  There is no elegant way to eat it.  Your hands will get covered in oil and you may have balsamic dribbling down your chin.   You can't make this for yourself at work.  I mean, fine, you could bring in all the fixins and make it, but then you'd have oily hands and balsamic running down your chin when you'd run into your boss in the lunchroom.

The one thing you can do at home that you totally can't do at work is make yourself a nice, warm meal.  I made myself omurice with some leftover rice.  OK, so I could always go get an omelet from the cafeteria in the tower next door and have a warm omelet for lunch at work, but... But that cafeteria really sucks.  It makes greasy spoon food and smells like oil and their omelets are rubbery and not served on fried rice.   And I wouldn't have been able to wash the whole thing down with Chardonnay if I was at the office.

Of course the downside of working from home is that you have to do the dishes. 

The Acid Burn of Tomato Soup

Occasionally a tech writer has to get together with another tech writer to bitch about tech writer things.  Things like, "How was I supposed to know that I had to document that pressing F2 in Workspace Mode would cause a fire if nobody bothered telling me?!"  

In a totally unrelated note, I'm glad we had our office fire safety training last week.

Anyhoo.

When tech writers need to bitch, they need appropriate food.  They need a food that will enhance their acid tongues.  Foods like tomato and chickpea soup:  red, acidic, hot.  They then need to regain their strength with tasty sandwiches of roast beef and chicken with garlic aïoli and lime avocado sauce.  Sometimes they need to cool down with a light, crisp salad.  

In any case, once they're done their lunch, they have renewed energy and will postpone their plans to quit it all and move to Whitehorse, where they can sit with other writers in midnight sun cafés.

Instead, they'll go back to the office, make themselves an espresso and chase it with a chocolate chip cookie from the snack cupboard.