08 October 2008

Salad Bar (=staff meal for non staff)

I find myself at the New Seasons salad bar very, very frequently. Which is to say, I got sick of the sandwich bar after eating the same sandwich 2000 times last summer and was forced to switch teams. I get the biggest to-go box they offer and fill it to the brim with almost everything they offer. Today, as I piled baby corns (I can never say no to tiny versions of normal sized things) atop cold noodles, a hard boiled egg, raisins, paramsean cheese shreds, water chestnuts, peppers, edamame, and some spinach, I realized that I was creating a staff meal on my own time!!!
There I was, a world of fine prepared foods at my hands, and I was making a creepy combination of unlikely ingredients... and mixing them up in a box, out of which I ate like my life depended on it (which it did- I was starving.) Just like work! And I do this for most of my out of work lunches! Maybe some people go to the salad bar and think, I'll make a salad out of ingredients that work together- like say, a garden salad with carrots, tomatoes and peppers. They don't think, 'but I also like cheesecake- why not stir that in?!' the way I do. I have no self control, I get overwhelmed, and suddenly I'm taking a bite that includes cottage cheese, parmasean cheese, raisins, raw garlic and some balsamic vinegar... and liking it. Liking it to the point that I go back and make the same mash up all over again, every time! I have made this bizzare pairing of salad bar offerings so many times now that I am almost sick of it and ready to go back to that predictable sandwich of last year. At this point, I can't fathom eating edamame without raisins- that's how fucked up the salad bar has made me.

If I was an animal I would be a bottom feeder.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

my jenny salad bar empathy is born from buffets. i never make a pass of the buffet, i just stack and mash and fold things onto an impossibly large plate from the get go. this invariably leads to me never arriving at, say, principal proteins; instead wolfing down cold noodle salad, "potato" salad, "salad" salad, and rolls with butter and honey. then i go back to make a run at turkey or whatever, and i collapse halfway there from the thin blood and the stupidity.

p.s. megan made a fuck-off awesome carrot cake for her co-worker's birthday, and i just ate a piece when i should have been not eating a piece.

also, can you BELIEVE that asshole? what an asshole!

the feeb said...

you eat like i drink!