Last night at dinner, a friend asked me what kind of perks I get as a food writer. Well, here’s the story of one.

I’m writing a column for Seattle Magazine called Chef Test. The first one ran this month. Pastry chef [Dana Bickford](http://phatduck.blogspot.com/) and I tasted six brands of chocolate chips, plain and in cookies, and she ranked them from best to worst. The winner was Ghirardelli 60%; the loser was local brand Dilettante semisweet.

Today I got an email from my editor:

> Someone just dropped off an entire box of chocolate chips for you. Let me
know when you would like to come by and pick it up and I’ll put it at the
front desk for you.

There was no further information. Laurie and I discussed this over lunch. Ever cynical, I said maybe the chips were sent by Dilettante and they were poisoned. Laurie said maybe they were sent by Ghirardelli as a thank you gift.

> **Me:** I guess they would be thanking me in the only way their corporate hearts know how. It’s like, if you do a favor for a hooker, you know how you’re going to be thanked.

> **Iris:** How?

> **Laurie:** Um, they’ll catch you a fish? You know, with the hook?

I thought it would not be entirely ethical to accept free chocolate chips, especially if they were from Ghirardelli, since it might appear that I made a deal to engineer a victory for their chips in exchange for, uh, more chips. I asked my editor for clarification. She replied:

> I’m not sure who it was. The gentleman came to the back door and handed them
to an intern.

Obviously, now I had to head downtown. I went to the office, and it turned out to be a *nine-pound box* of Guittard milk chocolate chips (the tasting was of dark chocolate chips). I don’t even like milk chocolate chips. I considered opening the box and leaving it on the curb for homeless people to snack on, but then I realized two things.

1. The chips would melt in the sun.
2. Everyone would know exactly who to blame for the melted chips, because my name was written on the box in block letters.

**UPDATE:** I opened the box. It was from a Guittard sales rep, and it did *not* contain nine pounds of milk chocolate chips. It had a couple of packages of those, plus two packages each of semisweet and “Super Cookie Chips,” as well as a package of single-origin bars. I guess this was a nice way of saying, “Why didn’t you include my chips in your tasting?” The answer is, I didn’t find any at the stores where I was shopping. But thanks, sales guy!