Monday, May 21, 2012

Lunch should be abolished

Without question my absolute least favorite daily task is deciding what to eat for lunch.  I accept that lunch is a necessity but why does it have to be so difficult?  If one works outside the home one is at the mercy of the work environment.  I think my dislike for lunch stems from my years as a temp and substitute teacher.  The first day at a new location was always peanut butter and jelly.  PB & J can survive without refrigeration.  I would never know what the facilities would be; was there a refrigerator and microwave or failing those a cafeteria of some nature?  Granted when I was in schools I knew there would always be the latter but sometimes it was eat at your own risk.  I did get lucky a few times.  The teacher’s dining room at the high school I should have attended had my parents not chosen to uproot me my freshman year made a matzo ball soup that was amazing.  One school where I worked had a cafeteria staff worthy of a restaurant.  They would start preparing the Thanksgiving meal two days in advance – everything was made from scratch.  It was torture for me because the kitchen was very near the library so I got to smell turkey, pies and breads baking for two days.  It was worth the wait.  The staff decorated our tables with real tablecloths and candles and the meal was served family style.  The last high school in which I worked was attached to the area vocational school which boasted a culinary arts program.  Once a week the classroom was opened up to the teachers so the students could learn how to run a restaurant.  I looked forward to those days – the meal was abundant, reasonably priced and always good.  Of course regardless of where one works there might always be the occasional pot luck meal where homemade goodies abound.  Where I am currently employed is in the middle of nowhere.  The closest restaurants are in another state and it takes twenty minutes to get there, difficult when you are given thirty minutes for lunch.  We are lucky in the spring to have a small barbeque stand available but they are only open on Friday.  This requires me to come up with meals four out of five days.  If I am ambitious and cook over the weekend then I might have leftovers.  However, most Mondays roll around where my weekend meals have been a slap-dash affair and I haven’t been to the grocery store.  This weekend was one of those; so Sunday at 5:00 pm I found myself hard boiling eggs for lunch.  Egg salad is not my favorite thing but it beats going hungry.  As this week looks to pan out the only night I will be home to cook will be tonight, down side is I don’t even have bread for a PB & J.  It’s getting too humid and the bread gets moldy before I have time to eat it.  I hate putting bread in the refrigerator.  Having to decide what to eat for lunch is such a pain – even on the weekends – I feel the meal should be abolished.  The majority of people in this country work through it anyway so who would miss it?

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