the stolen mince pies, the foraged grapes, and other food stories from work

All this week to get us in the holiday spirit, I’m going to be featuring holiday work stories readers have shared here in the past … and then updates season will start next week!

To kick us off, here are 12 of my favorite stories you shared about potlucks and other food gatherings at work earlier this month.

1. The mince pies

During a Christmas potluck, our CEO made a surprise appearance at our small branch to chat, exchange wishes, and so on. While everyone moved to the main floor for some games and quizzes, I had to go back to the canteen to retrieve my forgotten jacket. I caught the CEO stuffing the pockets of his very expensive, very Armani suit with our mince pies. He stuttered something about wanting to bring them to kids in need (?!), and then stuffed one more in his mouth and literally ran away.

We didn’t see him for the rest of the year.

2. The stained lips

One year I made cupcakes for our Halloween potluck and had used powdered charcoal in the icing so it looked black*, and filled the center with a strawberry jelly I had added a ton of extra red food dye to so it looked like blood. I was really proud of them.

The problem was, between the charcoal and the red food dye, it dyed everyone’s lips and mouths black and red. Everyone’s mouths looked like they had been living in the 16th century when scurvy was a thing and brushing your teeth was not. It would have been funny, had we not had a live client meeting an hour or so later in which everyone tried desperately to talk without opening their mouth too much.

* Side note, do not do this if you want your food to be black, because charcoal can flush your system of any medications you’ve taken (it’s used for this purpose in hospitals). Go with black cocoa powder instead!

3. The voice of god

One year at my husband’s work holiday party there were, quite frankly, too many people for the venue. Which meant that although there was plenty of food, the caterers were having a hard time shoving through the crowd to get it out on the tables.
Then they started bringing out boxes of dumplings from Din Tai Fung (the famous soup dumpling place), and the people at the front of the line just grabbed whole boxes (not huge, maybe the size of 2 coffee cups).

One of the caterers, on seeing this, said in a voice that cut through all the chatter, “You DO NOT get a whole box! Put that back and take ONE!”

It was like the voice of god and, by golly, did everyone behave after that.

4. The roasted carrots

I was new around the time our office announced a Thanksgiving potluck for our administration building. I decided to bring brown sugar roasted carrots, because I like them and figured it would be simple enough to make and bring. However, I realized the morning of after chopping the carrots that I didn’t have enough time to get them all done, and my very sweet husband offered to finish them and drop them off before lunch. I sent him a link to the recipe and thought nothing of it.

Friends, they were inedible. Overly sweet and cooked to mush, swimming in a pool of butter. No one would eat them, nor should they have tried. I asked my husband, very nicely, what happened with the recipe, did he accidentally double the sugar? He told me that the recipe I sent wasn’t very helpful, it didn’t even have measurements. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that some people, specifically those who don’t cook/bake from recipes, don’t know about the wall of text authors often use and he missed the “jump to recipe” button. Poor guy was trying to cook by following the blog pictures and eyeballing every single thing. The look on his face when I scrolled down was priceless, and he’s never missed a recipe since.

5. The chili cook-off

Someone had the bright idea to spice up the annual chili cook-off with a hot pepper–eating contest, complete with prizes. The contest soon became a gruesome display of self-torture. Within hours, ALL participants went home with severe indigestion and many missed work the next day, including the “winner.”

6. The healthiest ever cinnamon rolls

We had a health fair with potluck. The rule was that every food had to be healthy. Overarching descriptions of what it DID have to have, but nothing about what it COULDN’T have.

So “Florinda, the Queen of Snark” brought her most delicious cinnamon rolls.

“BUT THE BREAD HAS TO BE MULTI-GRAIN!!” Pearl clutching ensued.

Florinda responded that wheat was a grain, and the sugar was pure cane, which comes from sugar cane, which is a grass-family product like oats or barley or wheat. The corn syrup is from corn, which is also a grain. She commented that whisky is also a grain food, so go away!

She also said that if maybe the sugar was made with sugar beets? Beets are a very healthy vegetable.

Sadly, the rules were tightened (until Health Nut moved on to another job.)

When Florinda retired, she left her recipe for “Flo’s Most Healthiest Ever Cinnamon Rolls.”

The first instruction is to have a glass of aged grain drink, to sanitize the palate before tasting what you cook.

7. The gravy

Last year my organization held a Thanksgiving potluck, they provided the turkey and everyone else brought sides and desserts. A coworker on my team realized no one was bringing gravy so she signed up for that. She wanted it to be fresh so made it on her stovetop day-of, then realized she had no plan for transporting it. She didn’t even have any Tupperware! (She was living in her first solo apartment.)

It was getting close to potluck time so she put the hot pot of gravy, uncovered, in a flimsy plastic bag and sat it in the front seat of her car. She started driving and the pot immediately fell over and spilled hot gravy everywhere. She had to get her car detailed twice. This year she’s planning to come to the potluck as a guest rather than a contributor.

8. The band-aid

I work in a job where we sometimes host outreach events in partnership with a cooperator on their private property, usually with a complimentary meal attached to it. Most of the time, we will bring in a caterer, but this time the cooperator insisted we use his friend who sometimes catered meals as a private chef. I went through the buffet line after everyone else, and as he dishes up a serving of the meat, there is a USED BAND-AID in the sauce. I am aghast but trying to play it cool and then the man’s wife says, “Oh, I was wondering where that went, I cut my finger earlier today!” and just picks it up off of my plate like it’s no big deal. I did not want to offend the host or his friend, so I just walked to my seat with this plate of band aid food.

…I did not eat it.

9. The chicken

My softball team where I work was planning a BBQ for all of us and our families. We all were doing something to help with food, organizing, etc. One of the people who was organizing part of the food asked if he could put the frozen chicken in the hatchback of my car, since he didn’t have a car. So I gladly lent him my car to pick the chicken up. He said it was going to be packed in cardboard, wax lined boxes. Except the chicken parts were “on ice” and not frozen. It was July. I opened my car door about 4 hours later and fell on the ground from the smell. I had to have the carpet cut out of the hatchback because the smell just wouldn’t come out.

10. The grapes

I watched three coworkers get sick from grapes. My coworker was very insulted when we suggested the grapes were making people sick. She pointed out that after she had picked them she’d even washed them. Further questions revealed she’d found them randomly growing along a fence.

11. The black eggs

The only potluck I participated in for the job in question.

I was experimenting with ingredients and discovered molasses made a nice addition to my deviled egg recipe. I made the batch up in the evening and refrigerated them overnight, and they arrived at the potluck in perfect condition – but the yolk mixture turned jet black overnight.

After no one touched any of them for an hour, I took a few — I wasn’t going to let them all go to waste! The looks I got when I took the first bite of the first one.

(I would recommend it if you like deviled eggs, despite the optics).

12. The covered dish

Note: “covered dish” is a southern term for a potluck contribution.

A coworker I worked with had a large family gathering and invited another coworker who was basically a shut-in. They told the coworker to bring a “covered dish.” Well, he showed up with a covered dish. That was empty. For leftovers. I always fall over laughing when I think of this!

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