There was much joy in Mudville on Friday morning, as it was Kilgore Trout's turn to bring breakfast for the Finance Department. Most of my coworkers just bring donuts on their breakfast days, but when your life consists of trying to win approval and admiration through extreme feats of endurance and extravagant feats of cookery, donuts simply won't do. So I brought the usual Cheesy Chorizo Egg Bake, plus an extra treat -- Strawberries & Cream, to honor Wimbledon starting this week.

As I was setting the food down, the controller came around. "Strawberries? And yogurt?" he said, his eyes wide and happy.

"That's cream -- real cream," I said. "We don't do yogurt on man-breakfast day."

The food disappeared in about thirty minutes. The delectables earned me the usual round of excited ooohs and aaahs and requests for recipes and very nice compliments and tongue-in-cheek proposals that I should cook breakfast every Friday. To which I responded by mumbling thanks and staring at my monitor. I'm surprisingly clumsy at accepting praise, considering how much effort I expend to reel it in.

I do have one good reason to go overboard on breakfast: it might help me keep my job. My department has fired several people in the two years I've been working there, and nearly all of them were truly antisocial people who never talked to anybody around the office or took part in the Friday breakfasts, or joined the birthday cake club, or showed up for drinks after work. One lady refused to attend the fall picnic, which was a free (and very tasty) lunch served on company property during working hours, meaning she would have gotten paid to go.

Hiring and firing decisions shouldn't be made based on who brought the chocolate crullers and the yummy bear claws, but you're a fool if you think they aren't. My boss even admitted as much after one accounts payable girl cleaned out her desk. "It's sad," she said, looking at the empty chair. "But, you know, she just never talked to anyone."

Failing to mesh with your office's social culture leaves you little room for error. The lady who skipped the fall picnic got fired after making a few clerical mistakes. Granted, these mistakes were magnified because she worked in Payroll, but I bet I would have gotten away with it -- I have too large a reservoir of goodwill built up. But she had none, and nobody wanted to stick up for her. Don't be that guy.

Cheesy Chorizo Egg Bake
12 eggs
1 bag frozen Southern-style hash browns
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 lb chorizo
1-2 bags shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Fry hash browns and cook chorizo. Mix eggs and cream. Layer hash browns in 13x9 baking pan and spread chorizo on top. Pour egg/cream mixture over top, then half of the cheese. Bake 30 minutes, then add the rest of the cheese and bake 20 more minutes. Cheese should be melted and slightly brown around the edges. Total preparation time: 1.5 to 2 hours.

Strawberries & Cream
1 C. (1/2 pint) heavy whipping cream.
2 T. sugar
1/2 C. sour cream
1 T. Grand Marnier, Amaretto liqueur, or orange juice
About 2 pints fresh strawberries, washed, hulled, and sliced

Whip the cream and sugar together until thick but not stiff. (Do this by hand unless you're a pussy and/or too cheap to buy a mixer.) Add the sour cream and beat until mixture is thoroughly combined. Continue to beat while gradually pouring in the liqueur or juice. To serve: put the strawberries in bowls and slap the cream on top. Duh. Preparation time: depends how fast you can move your hand back and forth. Skippy could probably finish in less time than it took you to read the recipe.

+posted by Lawrence @ 6/26/2004 09:31:00 PM