People continue to surprise me...

Final MoFo Post and Happy Halloween!

It's an odd thing. People continue to surprise me. Often in ways that leave me breathing a weighty sigh, it must be admitted, but not today. Today, I was pleasantly surprised and here's why....

I brought in the goodies I baked last night and we had a bit of a Halloween binge:




This was the finished cheesecake:



And here's a non-blurry shot of the fingers, complete with their spidery friends:



Thanks for the pix, Laura!

OK, so the other thing that was happening was that one of our 'corporate business partners' was bringing in lunch from Panera. I assumed that there would be nothing for me as Panera tends to use a lot of animals and their secretions as sandwich fillings, soups and the like. Plus, why would anyone think to get something separate for me?

Well, I was blown out of the water by the fact that when Bonnie arived with lunch, she'd brought for me some vegan tomato soup, a sourdough bread bowl, chips and salad. So within the space of 30 seconds, I went from having no lunch (the paninis of last night scarely lent themselves to offering leftovers!) to having a veritable feast. And it transpired that my boss had orchestrated the whole thing by calling her up and mentioning that I am vegan.

Now this is the sort of accommodation that makes me want to bake cookies and cheesecakes and cupcakes and whatever for these people Every Single Day. Because that kind of thoughtfulness and respect of my choices - even though they do not share them - are just a couple of traits that make the folks I work with the best on the face of the planet.

An Interesting Few Days

On Friday last week, My Beloved and I visited a place we don't usually frequent as it involves driving out there and usually we prefer just to walk to one of the myriad cafes and restaurants in Northampton to grab a sandwich or bowl of soup for lunch. However circumstance found us at Spoleto Express, an offshoot of the 'Spoleto empire' which includes the eponymous downtown location, Pizza Paradiso, the Del-Ray, Mama Inguana's and a couple of others whose names escape me. Anyways, trepidently we surveyed the menu boards and discovered no vegan options as such but a couple of dishes that could easily be veganised: grilled vegetable panini with mozzarella and mayo or the hummus and vegetable wrap with cheddar cheese.

Being as it was a chilly day, I plumped for the former but requested they hold the cheese and mayo - a simple concept, one would have imagine. But no! Apparently, they could 'leave the cheese out' but the mayo was already spread and nothing could un-do that. Hmmmm, I thought to myself, OK I'm flexible, I'll just go with the hummus vegetable wrap instead and ensure that the cheese is left out. 

Great, so we paid, grabbed our coffees and sat to await our lunch.

Then the chef came over - a young guy who was very nice but full of remorse that they'd run out of hummus. Would I perhaps like the grilled vegetable panini?, he enquired. Yes, I said, very much so - it being a hot sandwich and it being about 8 degrees below outside and blustery - but I don't eat dairy - being vegan - so I need the cheese and mayo left out.....

No problem, he said, we can always accommodate special requests.

Which left me sipping bemusedly on my coffee and wondering whether I have not yet, in fact, mastered the native tongue after all....????