Look under your file folders, next to the stapler, or in your bottom desk drawer on top of, say, last year's annual report. What are you eating at work and where are you hiding it?
One reader wrote in to tell us she's been to busy at work to stop for a full brown bag lunch. Instead she snacks on food she keeps in her desk drawers. Another reader asked me for recommendations on good desk food. Help!
We're on a hunt for food that will be happy to hang out in a desk drawer for a while. Seems it has to be something that won't be too aromatic, attracting attention or alarm from co-workers. Finger food would be great. We're interested to see if the food will be healthy (home made granola!) or is it really Snickers that satisfies best for that afternoon snack?
There's something funny about the juxtaposition of it all: paper clips, chapstick, tangerines. So we want to see pictures of your food drawer too. Snap a picture of your office snacks in situ and post them on Flickr, tagged with "deskfood" and "atkitchen."
Me? I've got a half eaten pack of almonds, two clementines, pink Bubble Yum (bad habit, I know) and a limoncello cake I snagged from a gift basket last week and keep meaning to bring home. Tell us your desk food picks.
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Snacks at work? I like the quiter kind. I have a mix: a Nutragrain bar, sugarfree gum, Emergen-C packs, a chocolate bar, and toothbrush and toothpaste. One never knows when they have to be minty fresh for a mid-afternoon meeting.
Snacks at work? I like the quieter kind. I have a mix: a Nutragrain bar, sugarfree gum, Emergen-C packs, a chocolate bar, and toothbrush and toothpaste. One never knows when they have to be minty fresh for a mid-afternoon meeting.
Today I have, in a small bag by my desk:
a banana, a container of chopped cantaloupe,
a piece of baguette with sliced veggies (cucumber, radish, lettuce) & cheese
Other days I may have: a muffin (homemade), homemade granola, natural almonds, dark chocolate (I have a square once every couple of days only).
In a cabinet, various teas: jasmine, green, berry zinger, green & black spice chai, Irish breakfast plus a can each of ginger ale and tonic water, 2 cans of tuna, my coffee blend(!)
In office kitchen I have: olive oil, hot sauce, worcestershire sauce.
In office fridge I keep: small containers with mustard & mayo and sometimes milk &/or soya milk.
I've made oatmeal (in a cup)in the microwave at work as breakfast+lots of other snacks & meals. I'm lucky that we have most kitchen appliances here.
I only wish I had a drawer to hide my snacks in (damn open office design!).
Snacks around my desk: a box of granola bars, half-eaten bag of dried pineapple pieces
In the office fridge: milk (for coffee or hot chocolate), half-eaten package of procciuto (I had a craving)
I should follow leeds' lead and bring my own condiments to work...all I have is salt.
I keep the following at work: different kinds of tea, granola bars, trail mix, crackers, dried fruit. Sometimes I keep cheese in the staff fridge.
I only keep "bad" foods at my desk at school:
Carnation Hot Chocolate power
Lemon Herbal Tea
Lila Stars Hazelnuts - unopened, a gift from my Polish boyfriend's Mom
Wawel Double Chocolate - another type of Polish chocolate
Werther's Originals - these I bought to give to kids in my tutorial in case they dropped by for pre-exam help.
Two pieces of toast - for my lunch
And in our office fridge
Broccoli and Lentil Soup - also lunch
Grated Cheese - for on top of soup
I tend to bring healthy lunches, but keep all these sugary foods on hand when I want something sweet. But I only have one candy a day - really.
Oh the absurdity -
In the desk:
1 granola bar
6 packages of instant oatmeal
3 small boxes of raisins
3 cans of soup
4 packs of cup-a-soup
All of the following are provided by the company:
Fridge full of bottled water and sodas, ranch and italian salad dressing, cheeses, salsa, hot sauce, and there are usually some form of ice cream bars in the freezer.
Cupboard with more granola bars and oatmeal.
Cupboard with potato chips, tortilla chips, cheesy chips, crackers, 4 or 5 different teas, honey, coffee, a whole mess of chocolate bite size candy, suckers, gum, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.
The founder of our company regularly brings in garden bounty, so there are often tomatoes, cukes, apples, pears, and various berries up front. And we have a couple women who I think have a running cake competition, so there are at least two cakes every week. And my husband sends me in with cookies a few times a month. Our company is obscenely generous and likes to have us eat lunch here - we can almost always scrape together a meal from stuff that is on hand.
Maybe they should really be buying us all memberships to the gym!
I keep a delonghi moka maker and bag of espresso in my desk drawer. Yummmm! It's better than starbucks!!
Hmm, aside from the Tums, family-size ibuprofen, and half a bottle of Jack? (Kidding! We finished the whisky last week.)
- tamari almonds (for visitors to the cube)
- a small piece of cheese
- dried figs
- an apple
- assorted teas
- grape tomatoes and hummus in the fridge
In my desk-- I keep nuts, dry fruit, granola, trail mix, crackers and peanut butter.... ramen-type noodle lunch... also keep some Stouffers in the freezer for a rainy day... Stay away from Snickers and such...
My coworker's stash/drawer is divided into sweet & savory
SWEETS
cocoa mix (her mom's secret recipe)
single serving pineapple chunk
Emer'genc C (big box)
Toberlone
ginger candy
ginger cookies
SAVORY
Leek soup
Butternut squash soup
tons of oatmeal packets (she just gave me 7)
imported tuna salad
green, black & earl tea mix
pearl jasmine tea
green tea
in another drawer she has a box of condiments including low sodium salt and hot sauce.
And we have the most unbelievable huge basket of treats from the printer. Too many things to mention even tho' we've been eating a bunch every day for 3 or 4 days.
And I have clementines on my desk and edamame in the freezer.
I'm too disorganized to remember to bring food. I graze on the snacks that are on offer by other people! Ha!
I didn't think I had that much in the way of office eats, but upon closer inspection of my various desk drawers and file cabinets, I found:
Half a dozen packets of Kashi Heart-to-Heart oatmeal (apple cinnamon and raisin spice)
Tea: various Revolution types, Dong Quai, green, black, mint, ginseng
A nice bottle of merlot a colleague gave me (hey, you never know when an informal party will start late on Friday afternoon!)
Some gross Quaker granola bars handed to me at the subway station by evangelicals -- I really should get rid of those, as they're way too sweet and and artificial for my taste.
Kashi Nuggets cereal
Soup cups: Fantastic Foods minestrone, Dr. McDougall's Pad Thai
A can of vegetarian minestrone
Baby carrots
Small container of salsa
Tamari almonds
Clementines
An apple
Emergen-C, cough drops, calcium chews
Two Lindt dark chocolate bonbons
Bawls caffeinated mints (impulse buy at 7-11)
A strawberry Jolly Rancher
Water
A fun-size packet of Swee-Tarts left over from a couple of Halloweens ago
Packets of Parmesan cheese and hot pepper flakes from a now-defunct pizzaria near my office
Hot sauce from Belize
Some badly crystallized honey (better throw that out!)
An ancient blueberry energy bar (ditto)
Peanut butter
Amy -- you had me rolling around laughing. There's nothing like posting a comprehensive list of the edibles kicking around in your office to initiate some deep-cleaning. I wonder if that could work for clutter in general...
i have:
* a mixed box of lara bars (apple and cherry pie flavors)
* 10 boxes of non-caf tea
* 2 bananas
* several packets of emergenC
* tiny salt packets
* a bit of sugar in a tupperware
* some hoarded coffee pods
* 1% milk in communal fridge
* vanila yogurt in fridge
i have one of those metal overhead bins that i use for all my food. it helps keep the critters away. i usually bring a week's worth of fruit into the office on monday, as well as my milk. i just can't stand those little creamers. ew!
i have been thinking of asking the kitchen for brown-bag lunch suggestions. a cold sandwich is just not working for me at this time of year, and i don't prefer to eat too much canned stuff.
michelle, you scared me into cleaning out my desk. okay what do i have here? (mind you, there's an overflow because it's the holidays) but here's the food available around the office:
in my desk:
a box of kron chocolate truffles that a colleague gave me -- i'm a registered chocoholic.
power bars, 1 box of every kind (a client sent these to my boss -- i won't eat them but i did swipe a box of the nut naturals for my earthquake kit, not that i think there's probably anything natural about them)
assorted teas
stroopwaffles (the guys at starbucks gave me a giant box of these.)
wasa crackers
condiments
in my vicinity:
cup of soups are always around the office
we do a starbucks run twice a day.
my boss keeps a giant jar of tj's peanut butter pretzels on his desk
the comptroller keeps a bowl of m&ms on her desk; i pick out the peanut ones.
food routines:
- there's always at least one birthday a month -- so besides cake day, there's a woman here who bakes everyone cakes on their birthday.
- thursdays is turkey meatball soup day from the truck.
- on fridays there's bagels, lox, donuts and fruit.
then because it's the holidays, food is coming in at an alarming rate:
somebody just delivered a basket with amaretti cookies and moose crunch which is kind of like grown up cracker jacks with cashews and almonds...not bad...and chocolate covered nuts.
and a giant can of walker's shortbread.
a tin of chocolate chip cookies.
mrs beasley's lemon cakes.
and her muffins (i think i'll skip those).
bars of black cat chocolate (mmm...espresso nibs. i had a whole bar myself).
rum cakes from australia.
more cookies...
and now it's lunchtime.
Carlyf, thanks for the pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/deskfood/
Anyone else have photos of their desk snacks?
And the girls I work with think I'm crazy for this stash, but looking here it seems close to normal! Here's my list:
* peanuts (in their shell - more work means less snacking!)
* applesauce snack cups
* Campbell's Tomato Soup
* chopped walnuts (eaten w/ yogurt brought from home every morning)
* blueberry Nutrigrain bars
* roasted almonds
* Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa packets
* Green Tea bags
* Stash Morrocan Mint Green Tea bags
* raisins
* Bowl Appetite Pasta Alfredo
* cans of Coke
* cans of Sprite
* packages of salt, ketchup, pepper, and sugar
* also in the kitchen fridge: string cheese!
The Emer'gen-C seems to be a trend here, just curious, what does everyone take it for? I've seen it in the store but never really knew what it was all about. I kind of feel like I need to pick some up next time I'm at TJ's.
christina, i keep the emergenC around for hangovers and suspected colds. i take them when i feel as though i'm getting run-down. they're small and easy to use. god knows if they help but they make me feel better.
mfm, good to know...i think i'll pick up a box next time i'm at the store and give them a try. another friend of mine swears by them as well after a night of too much wine!
I thought I was the only one who stashed EmergenCs in my desk...
Evangelicals are handing out GRANOLA BARS?
I don't even know how I came across this site.
huh.
Well in the way of desk goodies..
Cream of wheat, strawberry jam and almonds... they actually make a really decent breakfast when I don't have time in the morning... which seems like every day.
I have hummus that is dehydrated so I just add some water and I have some 12 grain flat breads
I have some soups and stews with a pop off lid so I can just pour them into a bowl and microwave
granola
veggie juice
soy milk tetra packs
apple sauce cups
peanut butter and crackers
fruit cups
and some latte caramel coffee pouches (for instant coffee it's actually pretty decent.
I'm pretty well equipped for the long hours I spend at my desk