Evil Carrots in Bldg 17

I knew that something was awry upon my first visit to the Building 17 cafeteria. As we entered the courtyard, our first mistake was to follow a crowd of people the wrong direction (Mike and I were talking and not paying attention). Thankfully our guest Host, Erik Ashby of the Exchange Notes Migration team and MSCT2006 guest participant Jeff Cardon from the OneNote team popped out of the main door and yelled at us. Also joining Mike and I were MSCT regulars John Durant from the Visual Studio team and Joel Oleson from the SharePoint product team.

We had not even started lunch, and some "greater power" had tried to warn us, and lead us to safety. But we allowed ourselves to be led astray, and it was our downfall. As guest host, Erik came up with the idea to do a sort of "Iron Chef" theme (he called it the Iron Cafeterian) where he would announce a secret ingredient and we'd all have to select foods that utilized this ingredient. Alas, his choice was carrots.

I despise carrots. They are a disgusting root, and should only be consumed if fully cooked alongside potatoes and pot roast. Ugh, I cannot understand how people can actually swallow those things down. My choice for lunch was the Dixie Special, which is barbecue brisket over a sausage link in a bun, made with some special super spicy sauce. I think Erik referred to it as 'The Man' or something. It looked good, but was sans carrots....so I got a side of a zesty cucumber salad, a hunk of corn bread, and a small helping of dried out orange root rejects, which I assume come directly from Satan's garden . John Durant caught my first bite on video:

All in all, my food was pretty good. Always a fan of the barbecue. Having an appreciation for authentic Texas brisket, the meat was a far cry from my last trip to Richardson, TX where I consumed brisket no less than twice a day while at a conference. But it was good. Aside from the single root I consumed in the video, the rest were for show -- and were quickly discarded. This other photo is of me scarfing down cornbread to counter the effects of a spoonful of the hot sauce I foolishly downed after calling Mike and Joel "girls" for picking at it like babies.  My face turned red, they laughed at me, but I rose above it -- I am, of course, a professional.

On the cafeteria itself -- we had heard high praise for the cafeteria in 17, especially since it is home to one of the newly minted Cafeteria 2.0 endeavors: the barbecue grill. Does it have a name? I didn't pay attention. I was distracted by the carrots. But I have to tell you, John and I remarked more than once that the place was much more chaotic than Bldg 41, or my personal fave over at 43. I get what they were trying to do with the layout -- two seating platforms, with pathways around both to keep the traffic flowing. But the giant food islands forced long lines around the outside, and the position of the cashiers and soda refrigerators didn't support the logical ebb and flow of the crowd. Aesthetically, the place was nice...but with the lower ceiling and maze of railings to section of eating areas, its just a tad too busy for me. One other observation - because of the limited floor space, they tried to jam several long tables into the space rather than fewer, smaller sections, so people tended to congregate at the ends of the long sections - making it difficult for late comers to access the back end of the tables. Not good planning.

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