« July Food Candy '07 | Michelle Paskar

After attending the Bourdain "No Reservations" series premiere at Tribeca Cinemas and viewing his New York episode on what chefs eat, I began to wonder, what do people at snotty stores eat? I decided to take a little survey, and also to observe this cross section of anthropological interest and to report to you what I will now - the food behind the store, what keeps us mean shop people alive.

I work at a luxury clothing store on 5th Avenue. When customers enter, they see us in our uniforms like a little army of fashion warriors. Prim, proper, well groomed, sometimes pretty, sometimes not, and I'm sure they wonder what the hell we eat. Do they imagine us in the lunch room licking our fingers and sucking on chicken bones? Or do they picture us eating sushi with our own personal set of chopsticks, or as regulars at the famous fancy places around the corner? Or do they picture us never eating at all?

When I first started working at my store I was excited about the new food choices I'd have. But unfortunately, when you work in retail, you really only have an hour. Never more. So we rarely venture out further than our side street which houses everything from amazing Japanese Ramen, bagels (ofcourse), Delis, sushi, Indian, and the usual Hale and Hearty joint.

The delis are great for quick things like ice coffee in the morning or a fat free muffin which is what most of us lug in to the shop in our D & S or Mangia bags.

Mangia is really for the more elite shop worker. When you have a Mangia bag it says, "I got a gift certificate to eat here" or "I made a lot of commission last week". It definitely doesn't say bargain with its $3.00 muffins, organic pressed juices, and fancy shmancy salad bar which houses all kinds of gourmet salads like fresh mozzarella with roma tomatoes and pesto, garbanzo beans with chopped cucumber, onions, fresh dill, and olive oil. Everything from Mangia tastes good, but it's pricey.

The most frequented and most popular lunch spots in our store are Sophie's and Utopia.

The food from these places is very typical Spanish food with its rice and beans, tostones (plantains) and their unforgettable green sauce. I don't know what's in that stuff, but it's like mayo or ketchup in that you can and will want to put it on anything and everything. The best thing about Sophies is their Cafe Con Leche which is almost as good as the kind you can find in Spanish Harlem in any of the bakeries up there.

For the health conscious and perpetual dieters we have The Great American Health Bar. This place does not serve any kind of meat except for Tuna. Their salads are unbelievably fresh and they have a killer honey mustard dressing. The only thing that sucks about this place is it's cash only and if you sit down there for table service you'll pay twice as much as take away.

As you can see, we cover a wide range here and when the big wig managers go out (on the store of course) we go to fancier places like Brasserie 81/2 on 57th street.

These are just some of the manager ladies I work with and as you can see, we like to share. Here you see goat cheese croquettes (YUMMY!), calamari, and beef satay. We like to order small stuff so we feel thin, glamourous, and chic while eating.

So I hope this gave you some insight into why shop people can be so mean at times. Overfed, underfed, food has a lot to do with it all!