Once upon a time, in a land that's far, far away (called the Celtic Tiger, if I remember correctly, it seems like a dream now but that could be because I fell in the snow this morning and banged my head on the footpath), I had a job. That job was in an office, and that office had a fairly standard lunch break from 1pm to 2pm. I was pretty nifty at the whole packed lunch thing, long before it became trendy to not fork out the guts of a tenner on some pile of salt-infested un-nutritious muck that would leave you nipping out to Spar for a Kit Kat Chunky an hour later. Generally I had some tasty leftovers to heat up from dinner the evening before (though it didn't go down very well the time I brought in salmon red curry, particularly since there was no door on the kitchen area and it was an open plan office), and then if I didn't have anything cooked I'd throw together a simple salad. When I lost my job obviously I ate lunch at home every day, I was able to cobble bits together from what was around the kitchen, and on days when my dad came from Longford to help me do DIY bits about the house I'd make a big pot of soup and some sambos for us (my mam used to phone me about once an hour to make sure that he had eaten). I started work again part-time about a month ago and haven't quite managed to get my act together on the packed lunch front. We're re-opening a community centre that has been closed for a long time, and there's no microwave, so leftovers aren't really an option. I also haven't been organised enough to sit down and plan it, so I've been resorting to a VERY boring but handy lunch of tuna wraps - trying to make it healthier by adding spinach leaves (which also gives a nice crunchiness) and topping it with chopped tomato. I make my tuna salad with mustard rather than mayo; mayo makes it a bit soggy, I find. There's a jar of Hellman's in the fridge, left over from when there were cameras and the like invading my house, but I prefer the homemade stuff, so that just gets used as hair conditioner (yes, I know that sounds nutty, but it is lovely and rich, all those eggs and oil - I find it particularly good post-swimming, when my hair is dry and chloriney). I tried wheaten wraps, but they were actually quite sweet and a little drier than the white ones. Anyhow, my culinary mission for the week is to make lunch more interesting, it really can't be that difficult. I just found a load of quinoa in the press, so first stop is salad I reckon.
