An Office Cooking Space Conundrum

MATTHEW0 COMMENTSFROM THE LUNCH BOX, REVOLUTION

Mar 15

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Salad on a Chair in the sun Because the 'Fridge Froze my Salad

Offices make lunches a tricky business. You never know what you’re going to get coming into a new job. And in the 18 months I’ve been working here, we have been blessed with both a new toaster oven and a new microwave.

How lucky can you get?

And so I was reveling in my good fortune when then it happened. I pulled out a perfectly plated frozen green salad that I’d prepared in the morning, which by 1 p.m. had frozen solid. Blech.

I don’t about you, but in my experience, usually when salad freezes and then thaws, it turns into something that will favor you with the aroma of wet fish food. Yeesh!

So, I find myself writing to you thinking…time to review office equipment and how we eat at the office. Let me introduce you to the daily obstacle course that is me and my officemate’s lunchtime conundrum. How on earth can you make a decent meal in the workplace when you have such cooking resources? For the record, our office cooking resources have all been recently upgraded, but when you look at the amalgam of old and new equipment, it’s a wonder anyone cooks food at the office at all. I think most people would rather not put good food in filthy place just to warm up.

First: say hello to the ‘fridge, the culprit that froze my perfectly lovely green salad.

The Culprit Sits in the Corner

What do you do? I am using the most hidden, tucked away ‘fridge in the joint. This one is sequestered in the room where all the nursing moms at work pump their breasts and store their baby’s high-fat-content dinners.

Then there is the place where my warm meal will find it’s eventual home, either the toaster oven or los microwaves. You have to see this to believe it, but because some of you (You know who you are!) refuse to cover your food, Naomi at the front decided to make one of them off-limits to the filthy people. Check out this photo:

Naomi's Rules, Follow Them or Be Banned

It’s just a hilarious set of emails, notes, and other communications from my guardian angel from the front. The notes on these microwaves say something like “Clean People Only” and “Cover Your Food!” Not requests. Imperatives.

My favorite message from our fearless front desk leader came through the intercom system–a system that resounds through the entire office and one which you cannot mute even if you are on the phone with a customer–she announced that she’d appreciate it if someone would come clean up the mess of soup that had blasted all over the inside of the microwave. Or was that an item that had spilled throughout the freezer and was turning into an oozey fast hardening goo? I cannot recall precisely. Mmmmmm…delicious!

So yes, aaaah! Yes, on the right day, at my office, if you act quickly enough, you too can eat someone else’s lunch off the insides of our microwave.

Having said all of that, Naomi does protect the rest of us and has provided us access to a clean microwave, a lovely white one that sits to the right of the lousy old one.

Our Gleaming, New Spaceship from Cuisinart. Thank you, Ginny!

And then there is the magic spaceship of a toaster oven that landed in our kitchen mysteriously one day. We certainly didn’t deserve it, so I was a little taken aback. But like the filthy, mildewed sponges “they” keep replacing, one appears even when all it might take is a little more appropriate use.

To wit, here’s my hint from Heloise for the day:

To get rid of mildew from a nasty sponge, do not discard the sponge and open up a new plastic-wrapped replacement. Instead, just wet it, plop it in the microwave for :30 seconds and then re-rinse. It will retain the mildew smell momentarily, but a little soap and water, and it’ll be fresh as a daisy in no time.

Stop pitching; start poaching on high for :30 seconds. Hot sponges are clean sponges. Microwaves can be great sterilizers.

Microwaved Sponge

And cleaning up your dishes doesn’t have to leave you with hands that reek of filth or worse!

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