Sooooo, I’m aware that I’m like 10 years behind on the blogging. Please forgive me. Between the school and the work and the boys and the need for mental health, spare blogging time is pretty elusive. Despite all of these other obligations, however, I am still eating more than enough, so please don’t worry about me or about my caloric intake 😛 (Unless you are Erin Gunn, in which case you can worry about my caloric intake and the diminishing likelihood that I will fit into the bridesmaid dress for your wedding. JOKE. sort of.)

While I am contemplating the most appropriate theme for this post, my computer is in the process of uploading 200+ photos. I think the best way to go is to do a rundown of work food first. Ummmmm, I’m not sure I can fit all of this in one post. Let’s see how we do, since iPhoto keeps quitting on me due to photo upload overload. Onto the food …

This seems like ancient history now, but many many many work lunches ago, Mildred presented me with some beautiful beet-and-potato salad and her famous arroz con gandules:

You know I’m not into potatoes, but I love beets, and they managed to camouflage the potatoes quite effectively. I had a little of each and saved the rest for future creations.

Deborah gave me a bite of her toasty english muffin with melted swiss cheese. Mmmmm, this tasted like being five years old.

Jessica had a birthday, and she brought in some of the best leftover cake ever. Can you recognize it???

Ta daaaaaaaaa!

Junior’s cheesecake, OMG. If you’re not from New York, you might not understand what the big deal is. So let me educate you. Junior’s has been the official home of the world’s. best. cheesecake. since it was founded in Brooklyn (love my borough!) in 1950. If you’re ever in the market to try authentic New York cheesecake, Junior’s is the place to go — there’s really no other option. Dear Jessica: Thank you for sharing!

There was another day when I walked into work and found this conference room table sight patiently waiting to taunt me:

There was a board meeting in the conference room right next to my desk, and I literally watched for approximately three hours as none of the board members touched these beautiful platters of cheese, crackers, and fruit. How could they just sit there and ignore the bounty in front of them?? At the end of the meeting, the untouched platters were offered up to the rest of us but, sadly, I had to skedaddle for class. Luckily, Jessica and Deborah saved me a little package for the next day:

And somewhere along the way, Lillian whipped out her all natural macaroons from the health food store:

Mmmm, these are just INSANELY delicious.

I had more than one 😛

Deborah shared her raspberries, and Jennifer shared her Brazil nuts:

These cream-filled sandwich cookies somehow made their way into my line of sight as well:

As did this piece of yuca, homemade by Deborah’s mom, and this caramel bulls-eye candy I found sitting on the conference room table (where else??):

And a banana that came my way from the food pantry via Jessica with office peanut butter, a Nature’s Path cranberry ginger granola bar from Belkis, and avena from Nydia:

As the weather has gotten colder the past few weeks, the ladies have all been enjoying freshly brewed coffee each morning. One day, they decided to enhance their coffee with these:

I managed to ignore them for an entire day … but day #2 came and I had no choice but to heat up a plain donut with my CSA pear and sugar cookie sleigh ride tea for a second breakfast 😀

Seriously, this was the perfect fall snack: warm pear and warm old-fashioned donut. I took my time with this platter.

(Or maybe I inhaled it.)

Lillian made a donation to Belkis’ candy jar:

Those little lollipops have been keeping me quite entertained! Especially the cotton candy and blue raspberry flavors. I love eating things that are blue!

I also do a lot of healthy snacking at work. (I had to throw that in there because my dad has been reading the blog and getting worried about my blood sugar levels). I had a lunchtime meeting with these goodies:

(In the background are Dunkin Donuts muffins left from a morning meeting of which I was a part and during which I ate little bits of each flavor — blueberry (DD makes the best blueberry muffins in the world!), coffee cake, pumpkin, and chocolate chip — to equal at least one full muffin.)

After all of the muffins, I decided to save my packed lunch for another day and loaded up on the produce from this meeting in an effort to give my body something useful to digest:

I also had some (ummmm, like three bowls) of this gorgeous chickpea salad that Inginia made:

And a couple pieces of fresh coconut straight from the juice bar, courtesy of Belkis:

And, on another day, I ate some edamame left from Lillian and Nydia’s lunch:

And there was one brilliant lunch when Deborah showed up at the tail end and whipped out this package with a very mischievous look on her face:

CRAB LEGS!!!!! She let me eat two 😀

OMG, and then there was another phenomenal cake adventure! I love looking through these pictures — it’s such an excellent way to skip down memory lane and relive the greatest food moments of September 2009. I was walking by Erik’s desk on my way to fill up the Brita pitcher when he reached for a neatly wrapped foil package and raised an eyebrow at me. I stopped in my tracks immediately as he revealed to me one of the most breathtaking visions of the year:

Homemade, just baked, just frosted red velvet cake! He had helped a mom asthma-proof her apartment, and she showed her gratitude by gifting him this little chunk of heaven.

I pretty much let the Brita pitcher tumble to the floor while Erik, Ray, and I enjoyed several silent moments of total cake ecstasy:

I needed to take another moment after that cake to quell my palpitating heart, so I took a field trip to one of our little conference rooms that had been freshly re-painted and admired Ibrahim’s skillful application of these sweet animal wall decals:

I actually can’t wait to have a meeting in there this week so that I can hang out with these new friends some more.

What were your greatest food hits for September?