26 November, 2009

Who Moved My Cheese?

If you're ever looking for party ideas I've got a new suggestion for inspiration: the business section of the book store.  I'm serious.  We had a great party in the office today and I came up with the idea after reading this book.

There is no need to bore you with the details of the office, suffice it to say there's been more than a bit of upheaval lately.  We have a good group of people with some pretty strong convictions.  Perhaps more importantly, we all have a pretty wicked sense of humour.  Even the senior folks were entertained by the party idea. A little chat about finding our cheese when it comes to work, combined with an ongoing mouse problem in the building gave us the idea to have a cheese crawl in the office.

People set up a plate of cheese and accoutrements in their office.  Then, individually or in small groups, we wandered the halls visiting and tasting.  And yes, we hid the cheese of one boss so that he was forced to yell, "Hey, who moved my cheese?" Hmm, maybe it's an inside joke.

Quite surprisingly to me everyone totally got in to the idea.  We had a great variety of cheeses from an amazing triple creme brie to a heavenly honey goat. Winner of the most unique cheese was the gjetost, or Norwegian brown cheese.  It looks like fudge and does have a caramel taste to it.  We ate it on mini rye with cucumber.  I don't think it was very popular, but I really liked it.

My contribution was the Seckel pears with blue cheese, honeycomb, and hazelnuts. We were served something very similar on our trip to the Okanagan in September (The dinner is gloriously summarized here.)  The difference was that the pears we ate there were still warm from the sun and the blue was local Poplar Grove. I've taken to eating the pear, blue, honey combo as a frequent snack so I passed that on today. The consensus is that they would also make a fantastic holiday appetizer, or perhaps as an alternative to chicken wings this Sunday for the Grey Cup.

And, of course, there was just a teeny bit of wine. Served in our glorious reusable plastic cups.

7 comments:

elle said...

I definitely have to make something in lime green! oops, wrong blog! 8^) But we have been talking about the holidays. Maybe I can incorporate some wine and cheese. (with lime green placemats)

danamccauley said...

Fun! This book was on the reading list for a local grade nine class I know.I don't think they got to have a party after reading it though. No wonder our young people don't like school.

Vincci said...

Neat idea! Unfortunately our office is a little too small for a cheese "crawl" and I think everyone's a little cheesed out - I sometimes help my sister sell stuff to our coworkers for her band fundraisers and I've been peddling cheese for the past month!

Charmian @Christie's Corner said...

What a super idea. Your cheese crawl sounds like a blast. Such a creative idea.

I read the book and couldn't understand how it became a best seller -- but THIS idea? Tops!

Debbie said...

What a great idea!

You know, I've encountered 3 people in my office who Don't. Like. Cheese.

Shocking. Heartbreaking. Sad. They don't know what they're missing.

Bellini Valli said...

No pears in season right now, but Poplar Grove is just further down the road . I would love to go to one of the God's Mountain dinners in penticton that are catered eacxh week by Joy Road.

Kitchen Butterfly said...

Loved the who moved my cheese bit