It’s incredibly easy for just about any associate to subsist on a diet of pure unadulterated crap. Aside from the copious free food opportunities - cheese and sandwich plates left over from catered meetings, pastries and ice cream cakes from engagement or baby showers, the extreme king-size food orgy that is summer at a law firm - our meals tend to revolve around grabbing whatever we can based on maximum decadence and closest proximity. The fact is, working these hours restricts access to the sensual pleasures - shut up in an office building for 14 hours a day, we don’t feel sun on our faces, hear poignant music (blasting your Ipod on the morning subway ride to momentarily forget your extreme exhaustion doesn’t count), see the beauty of Manhattan in early fall, and most of us don’t have the time or energy (or available partner) to fit sex in on a regular basis. So what’s left to feed the hollow cavern expanding inside our collective consciousness? Buttery, oil-soaked, lard-ridden food. The richer, creamier, saltier and more saturated the better.
Firms know that food quickly becomes the main source of physical pleasure in your day, plus they want you filled to overflowing with calories to power you through limitless billable hours. So they make food acquisition ridiculously easy. The large juggernauts usually have cafeterias in the building, shoveling out heaping slats of pasta, flank steak, chicken a la king (whatever that is, I’ve never been brave enough to order it) and gooey creme brulee. If you’re working late, the firm is more than happy to pay for your take-out meal (or charge it to a client), so why not order the double side of cheddar mashed potatoes with extra gravy on the already-grease-slathered pork chop. Chinese, Thai, barbeque, Mexican, every night you can gorge yourself on another unhealthy cuisine without spending a dime or leaving your chair. Consequently, on any given evening my plasma will contain enough salt, MSG and partially-hydrogenated oil to make a lab rat explode. Not to mention the sugar - we’ll down it in any form to stay awake and alert, and it’s rarely in short supply. Reeses, Soft Baked, Sweet Tarts, Twizzlers. And of course, the caffeine. We’ll suck it down in bulk, at any point in the day - though mixing it with extreme amounts of sugar brings that perfect jittery fix. One associate I know even keeps an espresso machine in his office, and serves up doses to the firing line of vacant-eyed, needy associates at 4 pm every day. As a result of all this, we walk around the office in a constant state of queasy hyper-angst, our systems desperately pumping a toxic mix of sugar, caffeine and lard.
Contemplating all this, I’ve been trying to up the health factor in my eating habits. I won’t diet, the word is no longer in my vocabulary, but I’ll at least try to occasionally eat something green that isn’t an M&M. Realizing the need for reinforcements, I’ve called in another associate, the only vegetarian lawyer I know. We made a lunch date months ago - the average lunch date with another associate will required rescheduling a minimum of 3 to 4 times due to last minute work leaping up for one party or the other, but this one miraculously happened after only 2 cancellations. I met her in the lobby, ready to start my new veggie-filled life.
“Ok, ready for lunch today?”
“No chance we’re doing Rays or Burritoville, I’m guessing.”
“Nope. We’re taking a little walk. Today we’re going full out, all-vegetable - and no Chinese.”
I groan inwardly - what could have been a lunch filled with savory vegetarian dumplings and deep fried spring rolls has gone terribly awry. But it’s too late, I’m committed. Adding insult to injury, not only are we apparently eating sauteed weeds for lunch, now we have to engage in actual physical exertion to get there. But the city is somehow holding on to the perfect weather, so we enjoy the stroll.
“Here we are, this is it!”
“Uhh, what type of food is this exactly?”
“This, my dear, is a vegan restaurant.”
“Remind me again - vegan means no dairy?”
“No animal products of any kind.”
Ok, no problem, I can roll with this. I know an associate down the hall who keeps a bag of Cracker Barrel chedder chunks in the pantry, I can always hit him up for a cheese fix later this afternoon. We walk inside the brightly-lit, soothing room and get in line. Before me is a vast array of unfamiliar flora and fauna to choose from. Is this stuff actually edible? I glance back at the customers behind me in line, they have drawn, feral features, as if living entirely on nuts and berries has morphed them into human squirrels. They’re staring at me with beady eyes, I can practically hear their projected throughts: “Hurry the hell up you wretched flesh-chewing murderer! Order your herbage and tubers of choice and move down the line!”
“Miss, can I help you?” The girl behind the counter is frighteningly perky.
My friend is looking at me expectantly. This is far too stressful, the pressure to order something I can stomach is intense. I point to a pile of brown discs that somewhat resemble burgers, the only familiar-looking objects in the counter spread.
“I’ll have one of those.”
“One Mixed Veggie Nut Patty coming up. Would you like Organic Tomato Carrot Pesto with that?”
“Is that like ketchup?”
“Well it’s vegan, so it has no high fructose corn syrup.”
“Sure, whatever, I’ll take it, thanks.”
She picks up a spoon and dabs a glop of fire-engine red goo on top of my allegedly-edible nut patty.
“And would you like that plain, or on a stone-baked sesame cracker?”
“Uh, I don’t get a bun?”
“We don’t have buns, they contain hydrogenated flour.”
“Ok well give me the cracker then.”
“Would you like a Young Thai Coconut milk with fresh nuts and seeds to drink with that?”
“Uhhh, I’ll just take a water, thanks.”
We pay for our food (twenty bucks for a few nuts and berries! You’ve got to be kidding me) and sit down at a table in the back. I briefly survey the surrounding vegan crowd, a few peasant skirt-clad college students buried in Proust or Edward Abbey, interspersed with members of the corporate crowd. A couple of women glare bitterly at their cauliflower-laden plates as if the entire Third Reich was hiding in the florettes. Thus the reason “diet” has been removed from my vocabulary.
Ok this is it, I’ve made it through the assembly line, now the moment of animal-free truth. I take a bite of my cracker-lined pseudoburger. It tastes like ground acorns mixed with wire and cedar shavings. I manage to swallow and look up - my friend is happily munching on her fennel sprouts with tahini concoction. I realize that I’m starving, but the thought of shoving this vile nut creation down my throat is not appealing in any way shape or form. In a flash of desperation, I reach for my Blackberry.
“Oh crap! Friend I’m so sorry, I just got an emergency email from X Partner demanding that I be there in 10 minutes, I have to jump in a cab back to the office.”
“Oh no, that sucks! Go ahead, don’t worry -I’ll have them wrap up your leftovers.”
“Uhh, great! Thanks. I’m so sorry to have to leave you, see you back at the office, thanks again.”
Ok so it was a white lie, I’m in the express lane to Hell anyway, just add this one to my tab. Desperate times and measures and all. I race out of the pristine vegetable shrine and pretend to hail a cab outside, then make a mad dash across the street and sneak through a grimy, unwashed door. Thank you Wendys, for being there in my time of need.
“Cheeseburger, small fries and a medium frosty, please.”
Hey, at least it’s protein. I’ll eat a carrot stick on my way home.