Every Wednesday at work, we have a coffee hour where different departments/groups host and provide goodies. Once in a while I'll pool together a themed event, like the one we did yesterday: a valentine themed coffee hour!
So many people brought in such yummy treats. It always makes me happy to see coworkers working together to pull off such a great event. That people take the time to make things - or even stop off at the store in order to contribute something - means a lot to me, and always makes my day. It's not even just the contributions that are awesome, but how people help set things up or help to clean up afterwards. Things like this really helps build team spirit and morale.
And I work with some extremely talented bakers and cooks, let me just say that. I mean, extremely talented! And they are very serious about their creations, taking the time to add meticulous little details. For instance, one of my coworkers brought the frosting for her vanilla cupcakes in so that she could pipe it onto each one when plating them. And they turned out beautifully!
We had quite a spread of food from savory things like spinach quiche bars and olive bread with cheese; and a huge turnout of sweet things like espresso marscapone cupcakes (homemade!), chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, chocolate and cardamom cookies, chocolate apple cake, apple pie, and tons of candies all around. We even had a mini fondue station full of marshmallows, strawberries, and bread for dipping!
It's a couple of days early but here's wishing all of you a Happy Valentine's Day!
Tony, Renee, and I attended the Greater Boston Food Bank's open house event yesterday morning. It was quite a moving experience to be able to see the enormity of their new distribution center and to pair that with the fact that there are so many people in need of food. It was, as one of the volunteers that day said, "... good that we can do this [build such a large facility], but sad that we have to."
"How did you hear about this place?" Renee asked me, "How do you hear about things like this [the open house event]?"
And this is where I tried to explain to her one of the beauties of this magical thing called Twitter. (Okay, so it's not so magical, but ...) About a month ago, I saw a retweet (RT) from one of the people that I follow where the GBFB had a donor that would give them $5 for each new follower they could attract by a certain day. So naturally, I started following them and retweeted (is that even a legit word??!) so that the 97 people following me could do the same. And so on and so on ... such an easy way to raise funds.
And then I had an idea for a fundraiser: I tweeted that if I (under the ShortcakeScraps ID) could reach 200 followers, Tony and I would donate $200 to GBFB. After a couple of days and lots of retweeting on my and GBFB's part, we reached 200+ followers. Then as a GBFB follower after that, I found out about the open house event through their tweets and thought it would be the perfect way to hand-deliver our donation.
I did not take this photo (although I wish I could've!) - it is posted here.
Another great thing about Twitter is how I've met or connected with some people that I may not have ordinarily been able to (this will get a whole post dedicated to the topic soon). When we showed up to the building, Caitlin - the woman behind the tweets - was looking out for me to greet us and formally meet. We had been tweeting back and forth for a couple of weeks and it was so nice to be able to actually meet her in person. (Note: these are the times when my husband thinks I'm a local celebrity - lol!)
The open house was great! They coordinated a well-marked path for us to follow and we learned about so many aspects of the food bank. One of the most breathtaking parts of our visit was seeing the size and vastness of their storage shelves. It looked like Costco times a hundred.
We also spent some time in the food sorting area where volunteers help package up boxes according to specific groups (i.e. juice, cereals, etc.). We spoke with the volunteer coordinator about how people can stop by and help with the sorting, and she said that various groups around Boston (including Harvard) have already committed to volunteering until next spring. Nick Lachey also helped out here in October!
It was quite a scene in the sorting area and it looked like a lot of hard work. Tony and Renee were joking about how each person had two categories to look out for and fill boxes with, but that I could probably take on six. (A sign of how much of an over-achiever I can be?!) Here's a little video of the conveyor belt and that day's volunteers (if you can't see it below, click on the link here):
We also got to see inside the refrigerators on the premises which were enormous. The one that (there were three) really blew us away (no pun intended!) was the freezer chamber that houses things like meat. It was ginormous and so cold inside that you could make snow!
It was also great to see the GBFB's CEO, Catherine D'Amato, out and about the entire time we were there, mingling with visitors and answering questions. We also met Gail at the end of our tour, the woman that drives around to the every town in Eastern Massachusetts to check on things. She, and the other people we met throughout the day, really made us laugh and made me say, "I think she really loves her job."
We left feeling very happy that we had picked a great charity to donate to, and glad that we could see where our money was going to in the end. We are going to have a food drive in our office to help the Harvard students' drive to reach 1,000 non-perishable items, which will also benefit the GBFB.
I hope that all of you reading this post will also consider donating something - even if it's just one can! - to your local food bank. Due to the recession, local food pantries and women's shelters are desperately low on supplies that support their clientele, especially as we enter the colder months. By bringing in just one item each week, you will make a difference.
I wasn't sure if I should post this here on this blog or on that blog, but anyway, I want to let the world know that I have a Pocky friend. Yes, world! I have a Pocky friend.
My coworker, who will be known from here on out as EK, and I started chatting one day at work about a local Korean store near our office that he and I both frequent and then somehow we got on the topic of Pocky. I think I was complaining about how they don't have very many kinds at said store and that they're usually pretty low in inventory whenever I go (which isn't all that often even though, yes, I am half Korean - go figure!).
And then I remember telling him about our discovery in Vancouver during our honeymoon:
We were just walking along aimlessly in Vancouver when we stumbled upon this Asian market that apparently sold Pocky (can you tell by the signage?!). So of course we peeked inside and then found a huge section full of all sorts of Pocky variations. Incredible!
Ladies and gentlemen, this photo doesn't even really show you the vastness of Pocky supply in this store. I simply couldn't back up far enough to capture it all. Insane.
Anyway, back to the story at the beginning of this post. One day, I went to the market and actually saw that they had Pocky in stock. Not only did they have Pocky in the regular size in stock, but in the jumbo box size. So as a joke, I bought a box for EK and gave it to him the next day.
So fast forward to a little over a week ago (yes, I know, I'm a little behind in posting) and in walks EK. He hands me a plastic grocery bag. And what's inside? Four boxes of Pocky! Four!
He gave me a box of almond and chocolate ...
... strawberry ... ... men's bitter chocolate ... ... and almond crush. The "men's bitter chocolate" box cracked me up - what the heck?! Anyway, it was a really nice gesture and it brightened my day to think that finding different flavors of Pocky in a store was equally exciting for someone else in this world. So there you have it folks, I have a Pocky friend!
The irony is that I can't eat Pocky because of my food allergies. Luckily, husband can. :) I mean, I do sneak one stick of the regular kind every once in a while but I wish I could divulge in the other yummy flavors once in a while. (I think we had the coconut kind back in Vancouver and that was pretty fricken good.)
And yesterday when EK brought his wife and two kids into the office, I shook his wife's hand and for some stupidly geeky reason blurted out, "I'm his Pocky buddy!" and stood there as she looked at me like I had four heads. Come to find out after he walked them out of the office to the car, I wasn't supposed to reveal that to her. Ooopsies! Talk about being too excited! :-\
So what other flavors will we discover out there? I wish I could go back to that store in Vancouver to buy a box of every single kind. Till then, I'll have to see if I can find a box of a Tiramisu flavor that EK supposedly found the other day.
We had quite a spread of food from savory things like spinach quiche bars and olive bread with cheese; and a huge turnout of sweet things like espresso marscapone cupcakes (homemade!), chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, chocolate and cardamom cookies, chocolate apple cake, apple pie, and tons of candies all around. We even had a mini fondue station full of marshmallows, strawberries, and bread for dipping!
