Tis the season, and all over the place offices are having their break up parties, Christmas lunches and various whatnots. I was reminded yesterday about the worst meal I ever paid for, which happened to be at a Christmas function.
The year was 2000. I was a new recruit to the library service, having started in early November. The world was younger, a little bit perkier and my new job was sparkling with delightfulness. It was a bit awkward, not knowing these people terribly well, but nevermind, I was a fully fledged person with an adult job and having a meal with my co-workers for Christmas.
The Regional lunches/dinners have been in various places over the years, this one was at a hotel slash restaurant not terribly far from my house. I won’t name it, partly to protect their identity, and partly because I can’t remember what they’re called these days. They have quite wisely changed hands.
In the darkened restaurant, as we gathered and proved that library workers are basically very loud when they meet in a mob, the meals began to be served. All around me at the table were plates of roasted vegetables with whatever the meat was. Myself and one of the managers at the time were waiting for our vegetarian treats. I don’t know about her, but I was rather expecting some delicious roasted vegies.
The first course ended and we still were waiting for our plates, so the manager wandered up and pointed out that the vegetarians at our table had been forgotten. A few moments later, our plates arrived.
In the dim light of the restaurant, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at to begin with. A dark mass of.. something.. with slabs of a white something else. The dark stuff was arranged in a basic pyramid shape, the white slabs – four of them – arranged around the sides to enhance the pointiness of the plating up.
I rummaged around with my fork and brought the stuff to my mouth. Ah, spinach! The white slabs were, on tasting inspection, fetta cheese. Not crumbled as one might expect but cut off the block of cheese and plonked onto the spinach.
There was no sauce, or spices, or anything else other than spinach. A huge, still wet pile of cooked spinach which was on top of everything else ice cold. I’m not talking “Ooops, left on the bench and cooled off” cold, I am talking “This has been in the fridge for a couple of hours” cold. The plate was cold, the water that hadn’t been drained off the spinach after cooking was cold. The fetta was room temperature, so that’s something.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like spinach. I do. I like it raw in salads and I like it cooked, and I like it on pizza and as a hot side dish if it’s cooked. I think the person who first came up with mixing fetta and spinach together and then eating it really should be given a sainthood of some description. Despite my enjoyment of spinach as a food, I had trouble eating a pile of the stuff on it’s own without anything other than fetta to vary the flavours.
As I made my way through the stack of spinach – still too new to these people to say “What the merry bollocks am I supposed to do with a kilo of cold wet spinach?” I realised that not only had the leaves not been drained properly, they had hardly been drained at all and the entire dish was sitting in a pool of iced water.
I’m afraid to say I didn’t finish the plate. As much as I like the stuff, it does get to the stage where another mouthful might actually cause you to die a terrible death from spinach overdose.
I honestly don’t remember much else about the night, apart from discovering Jackie doesn’t like plum pudding and the other vegetarian at the table, the manager, being a bit weird about my long term job prospects. Outlasted her at least.
From the back he’s just leaves, with a tiny little hint of red from his cap to give away his location – I want to be sneaky, not cruel!
