Another little pause to deal with an urgent breaking news story: at the extruded office product facility we had a little Mardis Gras potluck. I'm always willing to contribute to these since it's good to show some signs of socialization when my position makes it credible to spend an entire day at the office without actually being sure that it wasn't a paid holiday, plus, hey, free food. The initiating e-mail to this suggested that people bring in appropriately Cajun foods, and I could think of nothing but having Beverly Garland abduct Mike ``Touch'' Connors in a hilariously inept Roger Corman Police Department sting operation. They suggested I bring in two dozen torpedo rolls. Perhaps they sense my vestigial cooking talents. At that I couldn't actually find torpedo rolls on Monday when I figured I should buy them; on consultation with the baked goods department I brought in Portuguese rolls, so that I had by volume the third-biggest contribution, after the guy who brought in bottles of soda and the company owner who had an enormous disposable chafing dish of jambalaya sent in. (Baked, the explained, by a neighbor of his who's a cook --- a chef, he corrected himself, and I refrained from deploying my 
chefmongoose-based understandings at him.)
There were also two other jambalaya dishes brought in, one of them based on spam, as well as macaroni and cheese that the guy who brought it in kept apologizing for (he thought the breading was runny), plus way too many cakes and pies, really. And the consensus on the jambalaya which the owner sent was that it was hot. Extremely hot. Frightfully near what can be safely eaten. I realize my taste buds have been trained to an unusual standard but I couldn't tell it was supposed to be spicy at all.
Today as people came upstairs for the many leftovers, including 21 Portuguese rolls, one of them found the tub the spare sausages had been kept in (a cookie dough carton); as he took it out, he dropped it and sauce went flying over the whole room. Somehow both my book and I were missed, and the tub landed open-end upward so none of the sausage went to waste, but it did mean that since everybody was coming to the lunch room for the free leftover lunch everyone got their chance to see and be amused by the accident. He ended up spending long enough trying vainly to scrub clean the deceased carpet that he wasn't able to heat up lunch until the microwave oven had blown its circuit breaker already.
According to the WiiFit, I, eating more than was truly wise, gained about two pounds on the day. Happily one of them was shed Wednesday between yoga and the aerobic running exercises that I don't like but that do make weight drop off faster than I pass out.
Trivia: In 844, Charles the Bald of France decreed that a bishop could requisition at each stop in his pastoral progress some 50 loaves, ten chickens, fifty eggs, and five suckling pigs. Source: Food In History, Reay Tannahill.
Currently Reading: The World Of Caffeine: The Science and Culture Of The World's Most Popular Drug, Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K Bealer.