4/25/07 For Women Everywhere!

Today was Administrative Assistant Appreciation Day. (If you are old, you may remember that it used to be called Secretary's Day. Not so anymore. Now, they are Administrative Assistants. And calling them secretaries just proves how old you are). Anyway, my co-workers and I decided to celebrate our Administrative assistant the best way we know how. EAT! So we all brought in a food item for the Annual Administrative Assistant Appreciation Day Breakfast Buffet.

There is a strange phenomenon on my team that would probably shock the feminists more than even calling the Administrative Assistants Secretaries. No one has ever formally acknowledged it, but it's there, every time we have an eating party. The guys on the team will bring ready made items such as juice, or forks, or plates, or Richie Kreme doughnuts. And that is great, because you need all of that stuff. But the women on the team will bring elaborate homemade dishes, like sausage pinwheels, and hash brown casserole, and the best darn banana bread ever. And not only is all the stuff painstakingly homemade with real ingredients, but it shows up in matching pampered chef casserole dishes and covers and warmers and carriers. And it sits out on our buffet area in the Rachel Ray bowls, and Pyrex pans that probably cost more than the national debt. (I would like to claim that I'm kitchen savvy enough to recognize the good stuff, but I only know it because I peaked at its little casserole pan bottom, and in tiny print it said, "Put me down carefully, because I'm the good stuff, and I cost more than the national debt"). And I sigh, because obviously this matching set of Rachel Ray cook wear knows my little secret: I'm a total kitchen Neanderthal. The only reason I know who Rachel Ray is is because she's on that Ritz commercial where the cameramen were eating her crackers. Emeril could walk up and kick me in the kneecaps and I wouldn't be able to identify him. My baking pans are the ones that my grandmother found in a garage sale in 1942 (just old enough to be out of date...not old enough to be classic) and gave to me when I first moved out on my own. That was good in college...everybody had ratty grandma garage sale pans. But somewhere between then and now, everyone else bought good expensive pans and learned to cook. What was I doing during this time? Probably busy reading the microwave instructions on the back of the frozen lasagna. (Now THATs my kind of cook wear...the paper pan that comes with the lasagna already in it, doubles as a plate, and can be tossed away in the trashcan when you're finished...no washing required). I could be intimidated by all this homemade food in the fancy designer dishes, but I've decided not to be. Instead, I'm choosing to take a stand for women! (Patriotic music here). I'm getting out of the kitchen and fighting for feminism! I'm bringing ready made mini danishes from the Food City bakery...and not even taking them out of their plastic container!