Had a Thanksgiving potluck lunch at work today — it was my idea!! I did this at my other agency too. The trick is to plant the idea into someone else’s head so they think it was their idea and totally not the resident food hoarder’s idea. Last year it worked like magic and I even somehow convinced my managers to pay for it all, when the original suggestion was for all of us to pitch in $5 each.
This year it was a new set of people at a new job so I knew the chances of this working again were high. Last Friday as we were all sitting around drinking during happy hour at the office, I casually asked the social committee lead, “Heyyyyyy, so are we having a party for Thanksgiving or what?!?!?!”
Coworker L: Oh, I didn’t even think of that! That might be fun. What would we do though.
Me: Yes!! It would be SO fun. So, I know we’ve been having a lot of office happy hours lately, so if we’re low on alcohol budget then another fun party idea we could do is a potluck lunch. We did this at my other agency and it worked out great and it was so fun!!
Coworker L: Ohhhhhhhhhh potluckkkkkk hmmmmm……..!!!!
Five minutes later all-office email goes out about a potluck lunch on Tuesday with the company providing the turkey and everyone else responsible for bringing sides or dessert. Yessssssssssssss. I am genius.
So yesterday I went to Gracefully on my way home from work to find the cheapest and easiest sides I could find, which actually turned out to be a lot more challenging than I had anticipated. Since I never go grocery shopping, I never realized how hard it is to find a cheap savory food item that is microwavable. Literally everything good I found was OVEN BAKE ONLY. What is that about?!?!??! What is oven bake?!?!??! Why can’t I microwave popcorn chicken!??!?!? So inconsiderate. These frozen food makers are clearly not thinking of their target audience. Obviously not everyone knows how to use an oven. But everyone DOES know how to use a microwave. So why wouldn’t they just make all frozen foods microwavable.
It took me like 45 minutes to find a microwavable option within my budget — finally I found these vegetable souffle things, so I got a butternut squash souffle and spinach souffle, each for $4.99. I was pretty proud of my discovery until I arrived to work the next day and see that literally everyone else has brought in homemade really impressive full-on sides and desserts made with love. My office buddy J brought in a humongous Whole Foods bag and whipped out like 6 containers full of legit Thanksgiving sides. I mean, that must have cost him a fortune. I wonder how much his salary is.
Whatever, I still win. Out of the entire office I definitely brought in the least amount of food and consumed by far the most amount of food. And by most amount of food I specifically mean 3 plates of turkey and sides including green beans, yam, mashed potatoes, mac ‘n’ cheese, stuffing, roasted potatoes, couscous, penne pasta, roasted squash, cheese and crackers, cornbread, salad, as well as 2 plates of desserts including pecan pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin mousse and brownie cake.
The best part is I think there’s more leftovers for tomorrow, which means I will have Thanksgiving feasts for pretty much one week straight — Tues/Wed at the office, Thurs at B’s house in Strong Island, and then Fri-Sun at S’s apartment eating all his leftovers while rewatching episodes of South Park (my post-college Thanksgiving tradition). GOBBLES!!!
Poverexic in NYC 