Amuse bouche... Office Cake

Celine was thinking of suggesting that office cake should become a monthly rather than a weekly thing. She needed to spend some time pondering the circumstances first, though. She got out a piece of paper and started to write out the pros and cons of such a suggestion.

The cons were easy. Celine could easily anticipate her male colleagues’ reactions. At the mere mention of the word ‘monthly’, there would be asides about ‘monthly office cake’ and the like, as if the women were the only ones scoffing cake in line with their supposedly synchronised cycles.

And then there were Celine’s female colleagues, who were, well, going to be a bit more complicated. First, they would infer that their cake-making abilities were considered substandard by Celine — and she could talk, what with that mushy banana bread she brought in last week. ‘Large banana’ is too nebulous a description for a recipe, Celine had mused. There had been office sniggers over that.

Second, the other women would know immediately what was really going on with Celine. Her real issue was the only thing she had written in the ‘pros’ column: Celine was getting fat on this weekly office cake. At least five people were bringing in their wares every Friday, and even if you didn’t want to eat, you were browbeaten into it. “On a diet, Celine?” “Off sugar again, Celine?” “Doing another detox, Celine?” If you didn’t eat some, people got in a huff. Like, Celine didn’t like white chocolate; she thought it smelt like puke.

One of the girls had it in her baking every week, though: white-chocolate-chip cookies, white-chocolate marble cake, white-chocolate frosted buns. And she had the amazing ability to make her eyes well up with tears if you didn’t want any.

Then there were the feeders, who were often the thinnest people in the office. They never seemed to consume any of the cakes they baked, but they bullied you into having some.

One of them would bang on and on until you took a slice of her wares, and would then tell the office what a huge portion you’d taken: “Oooh, Celine, you’ve such a terrific appetite! How do you keep your figure?”

Opting out of the office cake was seen as an act of war, and watching your weight was taken as an attack. If Celine said that office cake was making her fat, then she was saying that it was making everyone else fat too. She’d be a pariah.

But that might be worth it, Celine thought, if it saved her buying a whole new work wardrobe.

And having to come up with a recipe other than her now derided banana bread.