Got Peaches?

Vmeals stands at the intersection of food and work. We try to offer some helpful tips on time management, productivity and navigating the waters of office life, but on Fridays I like to talk about my very favorite subject: food!

Summer arrived officially on Monday, and there aren’t many summer pleasures sweeter than fresh peaches. Last weekend I was at our local farmers market, and there was a new popsicle vendor. I went for the peach popsicle. Made with locally grown pureed peaches and not too much sugar, this was a perfect treat on a hot day, and I confidently counted this among my 5-A-Day fresh fruit and veggie requirement.

Peach picking is a popular family activity in these parts, and my neighbor and his two small boys brought me a big bag of peaches they harvested last weekend. Peaches are perfectly delightful on their own - and I’m sure I could eat my weight in them - but they are remarkably versatile in the kitchen.

One of my summer benchmarks is making peaches & cream cake. This simple moist sponge cake is flavored with peach wine and layered with fresh peaches and whipped cream (that’s real cream, whipped by me, scented by peach wine). The slight embarrassment I may feel while purchasing the cheap Arbor Mist peach flavored wine is well worth it for the end product.

I used to arrange this as kind of a traditional layer cake, but over the years, I’ve found it travels much better if I treat it more like a trifle and put it in a bowl. (That also makes it easy to just dig in whenever I walk by with a spoon.)

I’ll be making peach cake to share with my neighbor, but I also have a few other peach plans. I have a friend who makes the best fruit salsas. His strawberry salsa is pretty dreamy, but I love the peach salsa. The flavor is so fresh with cilantro, sweet peaches, sour lime juice, and the bite of red onion -it's perfect with some salty tortilla chips and cold, cold beer. (His wife makes a mean peach ice cream as well, so I'm still waiting on my invitation for our peach-a-palooza party. You know who you are.)

I’ll also be making peach chutney. Unlike the bright raw flavors of salsa, this chutney has a warm sweet spicy flavor. It is excellent atop pork or salmon, but my favorite way to enjoy it is on a bit of good bread with some chevre. (I've included the recipe below.)

Well I think I need to go peel some peaches. What’s your favorite way to enjoy them?

Peach Chutney

1 large shallot
1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger root, peeled
1 clove garlic
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1Tbs light brown sugar
2-3 peaches, peeled and cut into chunks
1/4 cup finely choped scallions
2 Tbs fresh chopped cilantro

1. In a food processor, finely chop shallot, ginger, and garlic.
2. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat and sautee shallot mixture until tender (5 min). Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes.
3. Allow to cool. Serve with flatbread and goat cheese or on grilled or roasted meats.Can be made a few days in advance and stored in the fridge, but it is best to bring to room temp before serving.

5 Key Skills for Office Survival

Photo Credit: mrMark

If you want to be an office superstar, you need to have skills, and I’m not talking about being proficient in the latest version of Microsoft Office applications.

You might be a wiz with numbers or a detail-oriented event organizer or even a top producing sales rep. You may have specific skills and accomplishments that you can list on your resume, what some refer to as core skills. These may even be the skills that got you hired, but if you really want to shine in these dark employment days, pay attention to the soft skills – you know – those personal traits and qualities that make you a pleasure – or a pain – to work with. Here are 5 that I think make an employee a keeper.

Communication

Everyone puts "excellent written and verbal communication skills" on their resume, but rarely is this actually true. In a perfect world everyone would have a solid grasp of grammar and spelling, but more importantly we would all understand how to communicate clearly. So before you walk down the hall, pick up the phone, or hit "send", take a moment to consider: What is your objective? To share information, solicit feedback or request a specific action? State it - in as few words as possible. You increase your odds of cooperation, collaboration and efficiently executed action items when you do this well.

Attention

While expressing yourself clearly and effectively is a magnificent thing, listening well is even better. Active listeners not only hear what is being said, but they have the ability to pick up other communication cues like body language, tone, intention - big clues to office culture. Pay attention to what those around you do and say. Absorb it. Process it. Be present. There is nothing more annoying than when reports and colleagues miss important information because they weren't really present while you were talking to them, either because they were trying to anticipate what was coming or they were distracted by their own agenda.

Intellectual Curiosity

Hard worker, team player, people person – well, of course you are all of these things, but what I really like to see in an employee is intellectual curiosity. If you have it, you want to know how things work. Not only are you skilled at paying attention to your professional environment, you ask questions and take things apart to look inside.

The intellectually curious never isolate themselves in their own functional silo. They know how all the parts of the business work together and see how their performance impacts the whole. They can see a few steps down the line and make better decisions that align with company objectives.

Ability to Take Direction

It is a rare person that can accept and digest feedback well. Some of the most memorable lessons I’ve learned have been on the heels of some criticism that stung. If you can take it without responding with excuses or defense, you have a wonderful opportunity for growth. Even if you think the instruction you’ve been given is wrong, carefully consider both content and intent. You will always learn something useful.

Courtesy

When all else fails, being pleasant, polite, and respectful never does. Being a delightful presence in the office often can and does make the difference when it comes to survival. Don’t get me wrong, being nice will not substitute for being competent, but courtesy is a great karma builder – and you never know when you could use a little extra dose of that.

What would you add to this list?

Dreams and Deadlines

Goals are dreams with deadlines. ~Diana Scharf Hunt

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. ~Douglas Adams


I love these quotes, and I love them together. Wishing, hoping, dreaming are nothing without action, and nothing compels us to action quite like a deadline. Sometimes, however, we let a deadline slip up on us. We let it get so close we think, “Oh well there it goes. The deadline has won.” We give up the task and allow it to go unfulfilled.

Sometimes we need to let go, but sometimes I think we need to just finish. Have you ever been to a race where the loudest cheers were for the one that came in last, the one that didn’t give up just because there was no hope of winning?

You may miss one opportunity, but you’ll never know what else may be on its heels if you don’t stick around for the end.

Great Gift Idea For Dad

Father’s Day is coming up this weekend, and I’ve seen lots of interesting gift guides. You can find gifts for geeks and gadget dads, golf dads, grill dads, gourmet dads and so on. There is a tool or toy for just about any guy on your list.

So sure – you could buy dad a gift, but when you want to tell someone how much you love and appreciate them, I’m a fan of the “Here, I made this just for you” category of gifts.

My kids have put their paint covered paws on just about every possible wearable item you can think of. (Nevermind that my husband has NEVER actually worn any of these heartfelt creations.) We’ve made magnets, mugs, loose change trays and applied paint and/or photos of their cherubic faces to every useful (and some not so useful items) a man might employ.

Adorable.

The best homemade gift by far, however, has to be food. It appeals to my anti-clutter, anti-crass commercialism streak, and I love food. Who doesn’t? So what would be better than giving dad a special treat made especially with him in mind?

I have just the ticket for you: a collection of recipes that call for beer. That’s right. One of my new favorite foodie websites, TasteSpotting, has a great collection. You can start with this Beer Cake recipe. It’s like coffee cake, so Dad can finally have beer for breakfast without getting the hairy eyeball from Mom.

For lunch you could try the Baja-Style Beer Battered Fish Tacos with Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce and for dinner, Beer Can Chicken on the grill. Of course, the day wouldn’t be complete without dessert. One of my all time favorite recipes is a Guinness stout chocolate cake – the most delicious, decadent chocolate cake you could ever imagine – but this year I think I’ll break out the ice cream maker we got for Christmas and try the Dark Chocolate Stout Ice Cream. Hooray for special occasions – and dads!

What gift ideas do you have for Father’s Day?

Do You Have Lunch Order Disorder?

Anybody else out there have lunch order anxiety? You need to order lunch for the office and for some, this can be stressful. It shouldn’t be stressful, and maybe you’re even a little embarrassed as you become increasingly angst ridden by the decision making process.

To me, one of the most stressful situations I can find myself in is standing in a crowded quick service restaurant (that’s code for fast food) with which I am not very familiar, looking up at a menu of biblical proportions with endless possible combinations and choices to make about sizes, toppings, condiments, and so on. Compound that with the fact that I am too vain to wear my glasses most of the time. I have to squint really hard and hope for the best.

And I’m slow. I need time to review the entire menu, weighing my options, lest I miss something really good.

And there are people around - lots of people - so I feel the need to hurry it up which only makes the performance anxiety worse.

And if I’m in the drive-thru? Oh boy.

My family usually only hits the drive-thru when we're on a road trip, and we only go to McDonalds. Not because I am that brand loyal or because they have the best greasy cheeseburger or even because they have McCafe coffee drinks that I’d pay 5 times as much for at Starbucks. It is simply because I know the menu intimately, and as we are driving I can have everyone decide in advance what they want so I don’t waste a single excruciating second at the order window super self-consciously thinking and deciding.

This is the reason it took me so long to discover eating at Subway. The “fresh fit” choices they were hawking on The Biggest Loser looked good, but when I went inside and saw the order maze and menu board, the black pit of despair started filling my stomach like so many mayo slathered sub rolls. Once my 10 year old trained me on the proper order procedure and briefed me on bread, meat, cheese, veggie, and condiment choices, I can now happily say that I have added Subway to my lunch repertoire. (So what if I order the exact same thing every time I go?)

When a friend or coworker asks me to go to lunch, I always suggest a sit down place. I play like I’m all classy like that and just want linen napkins and real silverware and someone to serve me – but the truth is, I’m buying time so I can review the menu at my leisure.

By now you either know exactly what I’m talking about or you’re thinking, “This woman need serious psychological or pharmaceutical help.”

I’ll assume the former and tell you there’s good news for us. Online ordering means never having to be rushed. 24/7 menu browsing on the web is a god-send for those of us with lunch order disorder, and just plain convenient for everyone else.

So next time you’re asked to get lunch for the office, don’t stress. You know where to go.

How do you learn patience?

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? ~Paul Sweeney

Does the pace of life and work ever make you dizzy? It is no wonder that we feel compelled to multi-task, rushing from place to place and task to task.

You may not realize it, but hurry is the enemy.

While technically, productivity may mean getting more done in less time or with the most efficient allocation of resources, productivity is not an end unto itself. Don’t you really want to accomplish something? Then you need vision, focus, perseverance, and patience.

Can you learn to be patient? Yes. It starts with intention. Do you want to just do more or do you want to do something more significant?

Lining up a Caterer Doesn't Have to be This Hard

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about event planning and catering.

“Well, duh!” you might say. “Isn’t that what you do for a living?”

Well, sort of.

You see it has always been hard to describe exactly what Vmeals does. The short answer is corporate catering, but when people hear the word "catering", they tend to think weddings and big events. Our customer is more likely to be an office admin ordering in for a meeting or a sales rep that incorporates food as a sales tool.

Our customers are looking for a convenient way to check out a variety of menus, place orders and access order history, receipts and account details. They are usually looking for simple meals that can be delivered to the office: boxed lunches, sandwich trays, pizzas, buffet items. When I get to explaining the part about delivered meals, then I get asked if we can deliver to an elderly grandmother or a bereaved family friend across the country. No, we are an ordering platform for group meals to be delivered to an office or business setting – mostly.

My job is to help people understand what we do and what problems we solve, and maybe you can appreciate the challenge if you just read the last sentence of that last paragraph. I occasionally order lunch for our office, and more frequently place orders for demonstration purposes, but it is not too often that I am planning a big event and considering catering requirements.

It’s on my mind now, though, as I plan one of those big milestone birthday parties for my husband. I do a fair amount of entertaining and cooking at home, but I thought on this occasion I might splurge and hire someone else to do it. This turned out to be maddeningly difficult.

My first call was with a “manager” who I will generously characterize as “new”. How else could she know so little? Because she couldn’t answer any questions or give me menus or pricing, I then had to speak with the next person up the food chain and replicate my entire inquiry again – that was after a nearly endless game of phone tag. I gave him a budget and he gave me the most generic menu ever. (Swedish meatballs? Seriously, what year is it?)

My mother asked, “Why don’t you use Vmeals?”

Oh, would that I could. To conveniently have lots of different menu options clearly laid out, with prices, so I could peruse and ponder and make my choices without the endless back and forth calls; to get the order in writing; to know that set ups are included and I don’t have to specifically ask for forks – that would be great. Sadly, I live in a remote rural community outside of a Vmeals delivery zone.

To make a long story short, the caterer and I couldn’t come to terms. I will be my own caterer again – which is just fine - really.

Even though I extol the virtues of Vmeals for a living, this whole experience has given me a fresh appreciation for the tidy service Vmeals provides. Are you lucky enough to live or work in Vmeals service area?

The Rest of the Story

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

Oh wait...that was last week when your blogger was on vacation. However, after 14 hours in the car with the family this weekend, the office is looking pretty restful!

I hope you enjoyed a little rest and relaxation over your weekend. It will get this first Monday of June off to a positive and productive start.