my team at work is pretty awesome, i will admit. i’m on the quality assurance team, which is part of the supply chain department and comprised of 9 girls and 2 guys [the poor gentlemen!]. ;)
in general, we’re best described as a bunch of science nerds with great attention to detail [to a fault], a dry sense of humor, and a love of food. we love to talk about nerdy, science-y, foodie things like partially hydrogenated oils and the effect of chlorine and pH on bacteria in produce wash water and every detail of the flavor, texture, aroma, and color of any given food item. but we’re also always down for a good time, and if there’s fun to be had, we’re not missing out. that’s for sure. and on top of that, our group sure knows how to cook. several of us have graduated from culinary school [or are currently pursuing a culinary degree, in my case], and everyone on our team has a strong food background. which makes sense, considering that that’s what we do for a living!
we have a chili cook-off at work every year, and our team always goes all out with a big pot of a new and unique chili concoction that fits whatever theme we come up with. two years ago, we did a duck dynasty theme [duck dynasty was just becoming very popular], made a rich yet traditional chili that had duck in it [!] – sooo good! – and dressed up like bearded, huntin’ rednecks. this year, we had a black tie affair and served up a fantastic filet mignon chili [which you might remember from this post]. i really couldn’t tell you which year’s chili was better without tasting them side by side, but i will tell you that they were the two best chilis i’ve ever eaten. [and i’m completely convinced that i would say the same thing even if my team and i hadn’t made them!!]
{from our duck dynasty stint! can you even recognize me?? i sure hope not!} ;)
{from this year… at least we clean up nice! although it’s not that hard to look nice when you’re comparing it to the duck dynasty look… haha. here we are as the fine diners with our filet mignon chili. plus cornbread crumpets, as i called them!}
in addition, when our new test kitchen opened up last year, the whole supply chain department scheduled a morning to come tour it, and our team made breakfast for the whole department in our brand new shiny QA kitchen. we had mimosas, coffee, and lots of variations of breakfast skillet pizza which turned out to be very yummy. [i know that i photographed the event, but i can’t for the life of me find any of the pics that i took, so if i manage to dig those up, i will post them.]
we wanted to continue the tradition this year, so we offered to make breakfast before our quarterly supply chain meeting. we decided on a french theme [which was so fun for me since we held it the week i got back from paris!], but being the overachievers that we are [okay, really it was the rest of the group – i can hardly consider myself an overachiever!], we went all out. and i mean ALL OUT. there were two very long identical buffet lines packed with individual quiches and fruit tarts, fruit, freshly whipped cream, bacon, croissants, beignets, and coffee of course, complete with french decor and french outfits for our whole team! we made everything from scratch – down to the doughs, which we delicately crimped by hand on the hundreds of individual tarts and quiches – with the exception of the croissants and the beignets. [many of us have actually made both of these items from scratch in culinary school but we didn’t have time to make laminated dough nor a yeast dough, so pillsbury coil-and-bakes and cafe du monde beignet mix just had to do!]
at one point, when we were in the middle of rolling out dough and crimping hundreds of crusts and our whole kitchen was a complete mess of dirty dishes and people running around frantically, we may have worried that we were a little in over our heads, but amazingly, it all came together and turned out beautifully. i was quite impressed with the way it all looked and tasted, in fact. our department loved it, and it was a great team building experience for our group.
{the menu}
{kelly, who did most of the organizing of the event, even made two identical arrangements using herbs from her garden. so lovely!}
love this group and can’t wait to see what they come up with next time around!