Rich recently commented that Microsoft’s brown bag events are accordingly named because you might want a brown bag to take home the excess food. At Dell, a brown bag lunch consisted of three lukewarm pepperoni pizzas, a few bottles of water and paper towels from the bathroom.

Microsoft lunches and events, on the other hand, consist of huge spreads of scrumptious food. It’s not unusual for a reception or conference to have cheese platter with every type of imaginable cheese from brie to goat, cheddar, gouda, provolone, fresh mozzarella, and veined cheeses with a various crackers, olives, marinated and roasted vegetables (peppers, eggplant, squashes, artichoke hearts), fruit trays, and large pans of mini spanikopita, quiches, savory pastries, skewers of seasoned meats, hummus and baba ghannouji with pita bread and crudities… cookies, chocolate dipped strawberries… and so much more.

A brown bag I attended a few weeks after joining Microsoft, consisted of two types of fajitas meat, rice, beans, several types of salsas, tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole. For those who didn’t care for Mexican food, they had several pizzas.

Even the pizza they serve is amazing. This week, during a diversity lunch, I had a slice of pizza that had a sweet, slightly crunchy, whole wheat crust. The topping was vegetables with stringy mozzarella cheese. Delicious!

The most memorable food that I had was at the open house for the Microsoft Studio. The food was extraordinary with little potato pancakes with blueberries, smoked salmon with capers, roasted vegetables, tartlets, ethnic hors d’oeuvres, desserts… The picture below, taken with cut-outs of Steve Balmer and Bill Gates, shows my delight!

If you’re wondering, the Microsoft Studios comprise almost an entire building. Along with having rooms of equipment, editing suites, audio facilities, a large tape library, and rooms to host talent, they have three 2,000-square foot sound stages. That’s like having three mid-sized houses in which to shoot productions!

Click here to see a video of the studio.