I blew off my company's big regional gala Saturday night, so today's luncheon with my directorate at work was the first holiday party of the year. It struck me as remarkably early in the season, but there's something to be said for getting things over with. And this was pretty much obligatory, short of being out of town or deathly ill.
The event was a luncheon at Maggiano's over in Tyson's. That isn't particularly convenient to the office, nor is it particularly exciting food-wise, but I suppose you can't really do exciting when it comes to large groups. Inoffensive is the best you can hope for and they picked a menu with sufficient variety that nobody felt deprived. Two salads (house salad and Caesar), focaccia, and fried mozzarella to start. Main courses were cheese ravioli, chicken parmesan, salmon, and lasagne. Finally, there was chocolate cake and cheesecake. It wasn't terrible, but it was basically relatively bland corporate food. What's ironic is that our office is two blocks from a truly excellent Italian restaurant, though admittedly one that has opened only recently.
For these sorts of things, the company is more important than the food, anyway. The long table made that somewhat awkard, as I couldn't even see the people who were at the other end of it. At least nobody was talking about work, which is a plus.
One party down, three to go.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel