Work Potluck Weeks Eight and Nine: Eat Your Feelings and Under the Sea

Week Eight: Eat Your Feelings

For this potluck, each participant drew from a random assortment of emotions and was tasked to create a dish that conveys the emotion drawn. Each participant's course assignment was chosen before the emotions were drawn.

My assignment was a passionate appetizer. Food and sexuality possess strong ties throughout human history, and the first thought I had was to look up a list of food that were supposedly aphrodisiacs. However, in my infinite wisdom, the google search string I came up with was "sexually charged appetizers." I urge you, dear readers, to run that search string and see what you get. Google tailors top search results based on your browsing history, but even for someone like me, who reads a lot of food blogs, none of my Page 1 results were remotely food-related. The only one that came close was a pun about a historical study of American sexual activities. Too much missionary, not enough Mission Street. Moving on.

In the end, I decided to create a cheese pairing. The non-cheese bits were homemade chocolate graham crackers (phenylethylamine yo) and vanilla candied cherries (According to the reputable food science journal Cosmopolitan, vanilla "mildly stimulates nerves, making sexual sensations feel even better." I don't think I need to explain the sexual connotations of cherries.)

The cheese on the left is the Robiola Rochetta. Made in northern Italy, this soft cow-goat-sheep milk blend has a great tangy finish. The cheese on the right is the Bay Blue cheese from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co. It's a fairly mellow blue cheese that's modeled after English Stilton. It's not nearly as pungent as some of the other blue cheeses I taste tested, but it possesses enough earthiness and saltiness to balance the sweet cherries and chocolate crackers. 

I was very apprehensive about coming up my own cheese pairing at first, but after about 2 hours of online and in-person research, the conclusion I arrived at is this: it's very hard to get a cheese pairing wrong. Much like the subject of passion, cheese pairing is not a hard science. Sometimes, when you taste two things together, you just know they go well together. It's like making eye contact with someone across Intelligentsia and feeling an instant connection, only to realize later that she was reading one of your favorite novels.

Amber made a happy main dish: homemade mac n' cheese. It's traditional comfort food.

Amanda made a giddy dessert: 3-berry medley topped with mango sorbet and fizzy soda. Pinkie Pie would be proud.

Greg made a bitter salad: strawberry almond apricot salad with lemon honey vinaigrette and aromatic bitters.

Sam made a fearful side: spinach balls. The dish itself isn't very fear-inducing, but the story behind it was great. It's a family recipe, and once upon a time Sam successfully convinced one of her teammates that it was in fact cat poop, which most definitely scared the poor girl. As someone who enjoys food-based scares and psych-outs, these cat poop nuggets (actually made with onion, thyme, spinach, stuffing mix, and garlic salt) are greatly appreciated.

Jaycie made a snarky beverage. Snarky is a difficult emotion to put into food, so Jaycie channeled the great snarky role models of pop culture. Who is snarkier than Severus Snape? Drawing inspiration from the potions professor, Jaycie made an Arnold Palmer, a drink that is part sweet, part sour, and a little bitter. We also had some gummy frogs encased in ice cubes left over from Week Three, which made the drinks even more wizard-like.

Snape... approves?

My personal favorite dishes came from Sarah, who was tasked with making a sneaky salad. What better way to sneak vegetables into someone's diet than to disguise them as other food? Take a look at the picture below and tell me what you see. 

Did you guess cat poop, bitter salad, mashed cauliflowers, and mashed avocados? Why, what an astute observer you are. Cheesy mashed cauliflowers were disguised as mashed potatoes, and chocolate mashed avocados were disguised as chocolate pudding. Both were delicious.

Week Nine: Under the Sea

We were short a few people for Week Nine, which meant we had less dishes but more latitude: our dietary restrictions were downgraded from vegetarian to pescetarian. Not as much hyper-creative thinking went into the meal (at least not compared to Week Eight), but everything tasted superb.

The week's theme had Sarah thinking about relaxing on the beach, so she made (virgin) piña coladas.

Sam made SeaMonkey bread. It was loaded with butter, Parmesan cheese, and garlic. 

Seizing the opportunity to serve meat, Amanda made a delicious salmon pizza loaded with herbs, goat cheese, and smoked salmon.

I made a seaweed salad out of 4 different kinds of seaweed. The dressing is a pretty standard Asian dressing with soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar. Roasted sesame seeds served as garnish.

Jaycie once again delivered. She adapted one of her favorite desserts from her childhood and to this week's theme. She made a delectable icebox cake using Nabisco chocolate wafers and whipped cream filling. Because the cake is black and white, she shaped the topping into whale tails and called her creation... the Orca-reo cake.

Admit it. It's pretty punny.

Next week, we welcome another new member to the potluck. She just started this Wednesday, and we made it adequately clearly to her that weekly potlucks are kind of a big deal.

Work Potluck Week Seven: Welcome Jaycie!

This week, the amazing Jaycie joined us on the 3rd floor. Since she was born and raised in Tucson, AZ, we decided on a Southwest theme.

Once again, I drew dessert. Researching Southwestern desserts online has led me to some awful atrocities that rival Sandra Lee in terms of half-assed awfulness. So, I decided to head south of the border and made dark chocolate truffles with cayenne peppers and cinnamon. Think of the truffles as tiny balls of Mexican chocolate. Well, they're missing cloves, but I didn't think to infuse the heavy cream with cloves at the time I was making the ganache.

I didn't spare any spices, so the truffles packed a punch. The cinnamon was immediately noticeable, but the cayenne peppers insidiously encroached upon one's taste buds. Sorry Amanda!

Other dishes include:

Blueberry lemonade. The lemonade was super tart and super refreshing. It complemented the cheese-heavy potluck and the sweet truffles very well.

Beer guacamole. I love avocados, and the guacamole was amazing. Unfortunately, because I'm such an observant person, I mistook the avocado pits for heirloom tomatoes and almost swallowed one! In my defense, they were very small pits.

Nachos! You can't go wrong with plain melted cheese on tortilla, but the one with black beans and jalapenos were extra tasty.

Strawberry salsa to go with, well, everything! Normally I up the contrast and saturation a bit because the photos I take usually look washed out, but this salsa was so vibrant that no contrast/saturation adjustments were needed.

Quesadillas! We had both chicken and cheese quesadillas, and they were both delicious.

Speaking of quesadillas, we pronounce the word really weirdly at the office. Amanda pronounces it as "kay-sa-dyllahs," and we snowballed from there. "Kway-sa-diyas," "kray-so-dealahs," and my contribution, "kay-so-dillos."

And then we discussed the recent research on how to pronounce "Taco Bell" based on this article, because apparently people from Arizona pronounce it completely differently from the rest of the country. Yep, we're the best.

Work Potluck Week Six: Sarah's Birthday!

This week, we made dishes that we think would make our birthday girl Sarah happy. A self-described regular twenty-somethings girl, Sarah claims her diet consists mostly of coffee and dessert. When she's not destroying her body with aforementioned deliciousness, she likes to eat "healthy" food (ah, the eternal struggle). However, her mention of quinoa as one of her favorites foods raised a few eyebrows.

One of the healthy foods Sarah said she liked was avocados, so I made some avocado ice cream. I had originally planned to make beautiful lime zest tuile cookies, but I botched the batch horribly last night. Next time, I'll use bigger pans and nonstick spray.

Instead, I fried up some flour tortillas and coated them in sugar, which served nicely as substitute garnish. Add some lime zest to top the ice cream and I've got the whole "dessert guacamole and chips" thing going on. Surprisingly, the extra tortilla garnishes became a huge hit in the office as no one can resist the siren call of fried carbs topped with more carbs.

Yes, the plate says "Twinkle." No, you shut your mouth, it's awesome.

Speaking of awesome, everyone stepped up their game this week for Sarah's birthday. Here's the rest of the menu.

Avocado bruschetta. Apparently I was not the only one who thought avocados were a good idea.

Strawberry rosemary punch. This delicious beverage contains pureed strawberries sweetened with honey and infused with rosemary, lemon and lime juices, and a base of sparkling cider.

Strawberry caprese salad. Fresh strawberries, basil, mint, and buffalo mozzarella balls.

Sarah's sandwich. Prosciutto and herb cream cheese (parsley, basil, chives, and scallions) sandwich on pretzel roll, topped with cucumber, green pepper, red onion, and arugula.

Next week, the potluck group welcomes a new member. Oh, we have such tastes to entice her.

Sitting Down with a Stranger for Lunch

Last Sunday, as I was waiting in line for June's installment of Here's the Story, I was approached by Makiko.

"Duo! Can I talk to you after the show?"
"Yes!"

I talked to her before the show, and that's how I learned about the audition for A Month of..., a new storytelling show masterminded by the folks behind Here's the Story. My audition task was to "sit with a stranger for lunch." Easy enough, I thought, my mind already turning.

At the show, Megan sat next to me. After the show, I asked her to eat lunch with me, sitting. Surprisingly, she agreed. We planned to meet on Tuesday, and I walked away feeling accomplished. The engineer bro part of my brain is high-fiving itself on arriving at the simplest and therefore most elegant solution.

On my way out, I ran into Dan, co-host of Here's the Story and general person-in-charge. I wanted to talk to him a bit more about the audition, and he happily obliged. So we walked and talked about the new show, and he gave me several examples of the ingenious ways people are performing the task.

We parted ways. As I was walking back to my apartment from the theater, I edged closer and closer to freak-the-fuck-out mode.

"The simplest way is most certainly NOT the best way!" the entertainer part of my brain exclaimed as it punched engineer bro in the kidney. "Life on easy mode? What is wrong with you? You call yourself a try-hard? Do you even want to get the part bro?"

And so, plagued with the nagging thought that playing the part of the straight man is for underachieving suckers, I went to bed and promptly failed to sleep. By the time 6 AM rolled around and the light of dawn diffused into my room, I had a handful of new ideas in my head:

• Sit down for lunch with my roommate and talk about the saddest, creepiest, most bizarre shit until he doesn't know who I am anymore. I would start the lunch as a friend and end the lunch as a stranger.

• Sit down for lunch with the people who work at the restaurants I frequent. I love talking to people in the food industry, and this would be right up my alley.

And so on. By this point I've calmed down a bit, and started planning something more elaborate than what I've set up with Megan. I started planning multiple lunch excursions for the week.

But then, as I was aiming for the fences of insanity, another part of my brain spoke up. It  was neither hyper-practical nor flamboyant. It was quiet and composed.

"Why do you invite people to dinner parties?" it asked.

"Because I love meeting new people." the answer came out without a moment's hesitation.

"Well then, I'll leave you with that."

And in that moment, clarity washed over me: the reason I dine with strangers is to learn about them, to share myself with them, and to turn them into friends. Megan was not merely the most elegant solution to the problem posed to me: she was someone I wanted to know better. I didn't need to deconstruct the task of "sit" "with" "a" "stranger" "for" "lunch" to complete the task. In fact, I'd probably hate myself if I did something stupid in the name of entertainment.

Megan and I met at Vegetarian Express on Tuesday. She ordered the lentil soup and a juice cocktail ("it tastes like health!" ~ Megan). I ordered a tofu sandwich and a shake. We talked about everything and nothing. 

Megan was born in Michigan and went to college in DePaul. There, she studied psychology. She is working two unpaid internships right now. She guides visitors and performs a multitude of administrative and clerical tasks at Illinois Masonic, and she works with cancer patients downtown as a counselor of sorts.

Did I mention she is a three-time cancer survivor?

She owns a beagle-husky mix (she calls it a busky), which looks like a beagle with stunning husky eyes. She had just started to bake, and brought her first batch of cookies to her first Here's the Story potluck. She loves her job and wants to help as many people as possible (though getting paid for it would certainly be nice). The conversation went on. Family. Vegetarianism. Restaurants. 

The encounter reinforced my belief that the task required no gimmicks on my part to make it interesting. Good food and good conversation go a long way.

As we parted ways, I knew I will see Megan again soon. However, the next time we meet, we will no longer be strangers — not really.

Bonus: my delicious tofu sandwich with sweet potato fries.