Tomorrow, my sister, brother in law, mother and a friend are coming over for a meal. It is Chinese New Year tomorrow, so I thought I would make Chinese food. My mother does not eat wheat, my sister does not eat pork, my fianc�e does not eat fat and the friend does not eat meat. So, I think I'm going to serve a big bowl of bok choy and call it a day. The funny thing is that, before I met him, I was told that my brother in law is a picky eater. He is the only member of my family not to have a self-imposed dietary restriction.

All whining aside, I kind of enjoy the challenge of planning and balancing a meal around all of these restrictions. I like to figure out how I can adapt recipes to fit people's eating habits. That is why I'm a big nerd.

I just ordered pizza for fifty people at work. I had to figure out the number of strict vegetarians, half-assed vegetarians (generally the Indians that have been here for five years and have succumbed to our evil and tasty meat-eating ways, at least when it comes to non-beefy meats), the Muslims and Jews who don't eat pork, the people on the Atkins diet who eat the toppings and cheese off of the bread (which is gross), etc. One thing I did learn is that Diet Coke with lemon tastes like Diet Coke with furniture polish.

You may also be wondering why I, the famous master programmer and IT security specialist, am ordering pizza. I wondered the same thing. Lately, I've had to do all sorts of horrible tasks which I consider beneath me (truth be told, I consider all work beneath me but there you go). Fear not. The vice president told me yesterday that we are going to get an admin of our very own. He did this right before asking me to train her. On the one hand, I'm sure we will go through two or three admins to start and it will be a big pain. On the other hand, I will functionally be her boss. Which could be very good indeed.

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