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Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Seven (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

During COVID, after weeks at home, I finally snapped and bought… a toastie machine.

It had been years since I’d had a toastie and, day after day, the feeling grew that it would be reassuring and comforting to eat a toastie again. Not sure why I associate toastie sandwiches with comfort. I think it’s the satisfaction of having all the ingredients in a sealed toast pocket. It’s like a present for a sandwich. You don’t know what you’re going to get until you bite into it and open it.

But there are dangers. The toastie is not an electric blanket of a sandwich. It’s more like a hot water bottle filled with boiling hot liquid that could burn if pierced. The toastie can superheat the wrong ingredients, like tomatoes. The water in tomatoes, when sealed in the pocket, reaches boiling point and will scar your mouth when you eat into it. It’s important when eating a toastie, to choose wisely.

So, no tomatoes, no relishes or chutneys and, no soft cheeses. A brie can dissolve into liquid lava when heated by a toastie. Instead, a toastie needs chunky, solid ingredients. The kind of ingredients that offer the reassurance of concrete (though hopefully not the taster).

So, for today’s lunch, as I was at home for a GP appointment:

“Hello,” I phoned, “Can I make an appointment to see my GP”

“Yes,” said the receptionist, “and what will I tell him it’s about.”

“My ear” I said.

“Telephone appointment okay then?” She said.

“What do you think would be best for a question about hearing?”

“Ah, in person then.”

As I was at home, I got out the toastie machine and had a reassuring and comforting toastie.

Bread: White toastie

Ingredient: cheese

Taste: Like lockdown

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Six (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

For several years, every Christmas, someone sends me a box containing four jars of chutney.

I don’t like chutney.

I never eat chutney.

I have never indicated in any way that I would like to receive chutney.

Yet, every year, when I open my Christmas presents, there it is. A gift box of chutney.

It’s got to the point now where I just accept it. I can’t turn round and say “I don’t like chutney”. I just say “thank you”, and then put the chutney in the cupboard until I either remember to have it (rarely) or I find it again once it’s best before date has passed and I can put it in the bin.

I could put it straight in the bin but that doesn’t feel right. That would be wasting food. Instead, I let it lie until it’s inedible and then I put it in the bin. Because that’s not wasting food? There is the possibility I might eat it. I don’t but it still remain possible.

For this challenge though I have tried this year’s chutney, first a tomato one and now an apple and cider. And both were…. alrightish. I don’t think they added much to the sandwich. The tomato one was a pale imitation of having an actual tomato and the apple one was like adding jam to a sandwich. Not unpleasant but I would no more add Lemon Curd to a cheese roll than ice cream to a lasagna.

However, as the point of the month is to learn more about lunch, I add chutney again to my lunch. But that’s where I will stop. I’m definitely not adding Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey to my dinner!

Bread: M&S soft white roll (still using since Friday)

Ingredient: Edam, sliced ham, apple & cider chutney

Taste: Like Christmas

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Five (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

Last week, when I was ill, I missed a late Christmas lunch at a restaurant in town, which was annoying. I had chosen the venue and had been looking forward to going.

Today, we went to it for lunch, since I missed out.

“The food is fantastic,” said Mrs TwinBikeRun, “and the portions were just the right size.”

So, we ordered, and an entire supermarket aisle of food arrived.

Mrs TwinBikeRun pork ribs looked like they came from an entire family of ribs. My chicken had the the entire hutch. Even TwinBikeChild’s kids menu vegetable spring rolls had deep fried an entire farm worth of vegetables.

“Oh,” said Mrs TwinBikeRun, “when I was here we had the lunch menu.”

Today, Saturday, they don’t have a lunch menu. It’s just for business lunches, Monday to Friday.

We asked the waitress. “Is the lunch menu smaller portions?”

“Yes,” she said, “and to be honest, I think it’s a lot more manageable, but better to have too much than too little, right?”

Today, I had too much. And once you have too much you don’t really see ingredients or meals anymore, you just think “that was too much!”.

So, today, for lunch, I had “too much”

Bread: Too much

Ingredient: Too much

Taste: Too much

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Four (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

“Is it windy in Glasgow?” I’m asked.

“Biggest howler since Jack Butland own goal last night,” I said.

It’s a red weather warning day as storm Eowyn batters its away across Ireland and the central belt of Scotland.

Everything is shut so last night I popped out and stocked up with lunch and dinner.

“What would be good hunkering down food,” I asked myself. The answer: I thought there would be nothing better than ‘stodge’ and what could be more stodgy than a sausage roll… in a roll.

When I worked a summer job at the local golf club the greenskeepers I worked with had a simple roll rule: if you can stick it in a roll, it’s a snack, and not a meal. Three course lunch? Not lunch, if on a roll. That way they could a snack at 1030 consisting of pie, beans and chips… on a roll and then lunch at 1230 of pie, beans and chips, not on a roll. Anything you could think of was fair game to be a snack as long as it was buttered and covered in a floury bap.

From them, I discovered the joy of getting a sausage roll and eating it in a roll. You might ask “Why would you do that? The sausage roll already had pastry, it’s designed to be eaten by hand. It already has a protective pastry sheath.”

But I think it’s still greasy and the roll gives you an extra layer to absorb all the grease and, more importantly, the ketchup, without getting your hands greasy.

It’s a roll on a roll and that’s been my rule for sausage rolls ever since.

Bread: M&S soft white roll.

Ingredient: A sausage roll

Taste: Like shelter.

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Three (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

I was invited to join a Q&A seminar with the Scottish Tory leadership team at lunch. I’ve been to a few of these with other parties but this was this first time I’d ever met a Tory MSP.

At each session, I like to ask the same question:

“Politician’s always criticise other parties, can you tell me what policies or actions you admire of the SNP/Labour/Tory [delete as appropriate]”

I asked an SNP cabinet minister and he praised the Conservatives then approach to many foreign policy issues. I asked Ian Murray, now the Scottish Secretary, and he praised many of the domestic reforms introduced by the SNP. I asked Russell Finlay, Craig Hoy and Murdo Fraser today and they, well…

I like this question because it tells me a lot about the person answering it. Can they put aside their standard responses and give a considered reply? Can they show genuine praise of people they normally oppose? Do they have empathy for them? And can they answer the question, as I’m not asking for criticism, I want a straight answer.

And from the Torys, I got two minutes of waffle and then a joke about Hamza Yusuf.

What a bunch of plonkers.

And I didn’t even get a decent sandwich. Instead, I got tiny wraps filled with a bit of tomato and ham. Less a sandwich and more a tiny napkin that looks like it’s been used to wipe up a messy table.

Bread: Wrap.

Ingredient: Scraps

Taste: Disappointing, all round.

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Two (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

When does lunch become dinner? Yesterday I discussed the timing of lunch and how for some people it can be midday and for others it might be 2pm but what I hadn’t considered is what happens when it becomes 7pm, and it’s dark and it is definitely not lunch anymore, it’s evening.

That’s what happened today. Lunch didn’t start until after I finished work. I bought lunch at midday, I meant to eat it before 1pm but, due to being waylaid, I couldn’t get to it until 7pm.

First, I already knew I what need to eat quickly. I had a meeting from 1pm to 3pm and then 3pm to 5pm, and the meetings were not the type of meetings I could bring a sandwich and munch away. I would be doing a lot of talking and no one wants to listen to someone chewing. Unless it’s on YouTube and you’re a weirdo and you don’t call it chewing you call it ASMR.

This was not an ASMR meeting.

So, I had to get to the meeting and then speak to a receptionist to hand in some signed documents and then I had a 10 minutes window to eat my sandwich when… I met someone I knew and they started talking, and talking, and I couldn’t eat my sandwich then either because that would be weird too.

“It’s great to see you. How long’s it been? Two years. Fantastic, now tell me about your family while I stare at you while eating a baguette.”

So, no sandwich, 4 hours of meetings, walk back to the office, collect car, go home, play with daughter, and then, and only then did I get to eat lunch. For my dinner.

So, was that lunch or was it tea?

Bread: Baguette, with 5 minutes in the over to crisp it up and to melt the cheese.

Ingredient: Mozzarella, tomatoes and param ham

Taste: delayed gratification

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty One (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

The problem with lunchtime is that people have different ideas of when it takes place. To me, lunch has always been 1pm. I think that stems from my first office job having a fixed 1pm to 2pm lunch break. Or, at least I thought it was fixed, in reality everyone had lunch had some point between noon and 2pm and it was entirely flexible, it was just the employment contract that was not.

Even with this flexibility I still had a colleague who thought lunch was at a different time entirely. He would have lunch around 11am. But, because he didn’t want to leave the office and make it look like he was skiving early, nor did he want to eat at his desk, he would often be found eating a sandwich in the men’s toilet.

“Early lunch or late breakfast?”, I’d ask.

“Both,” he would say, using the sandwich in his hand to point to the empty (and just finished) cereal bowl and single serve packet of corn flakes beside him on the bathroom sink.

I always thought that was the strangest lunch/breakfast I’d ever seen until, last week, I discovered one of my colleagues has an even stranger habit. They have breakfast cocktails, which is not as alcoholic as it might first appear.

A breakfast cocktail is when you get a cereal bowl and then fill it first with one cereal, let’s say Rice Krispies, and then you take that bowl and… fill it again with a second entirely different cereal, let’s say Just Start. Then you mix the two together and have them both for breakfast. What freak does that?!

I thought of both of my colleagues today as, through the fact that no one knows the right time for lunch, I had people book meetings at 1130, noon, 1pm and 2pm, completely covering three hours over lunch. So, to eat, I’ve bought a sandwich from Sainsbury’s and I may need to say at some point: “Excuse me, a minute, I’m just going to pop to the toilet.”

Bread: Tuk-IN Kashmiri Chili Chicken in an naan (very nice!)

Ingredient: See above

Taste: convenient

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

One of my favourite meals is a proper hot dog from a stall that looks German. Not sure what the stalls nationality has to do with it, but, if the stall has a German flag, or is made to look like a wooden Bavarian hut or is anything but a white formica van in a car park, then I’m sold. It’s authentically German, especially if it calls the sausages ‘wursts’.

Today, I inadvertently recreated a hot dog by buying some sub rolls from Morrisons than making a sandwich to bring to work. I had the rolls, I checked the fridge and I had some slices of Bavarian smoked ham, I had some cheese and I added some tomato chutney. And, after tasting it, I had managed to create a hot dog substitute. The only thing that was missing was mustard. And any sense of German-ness. I should have worn lederhosen.

Bread: Sub roll from Morrisons

Ingredient: Smoked ham, edam and tomato chutney

Taste: like hot

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Nineteen (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

Post race snacks this way, said the sign. We (Iain TwinBikeRun and I) had just finished the Nigel Barge 10k and were following our stomachs after collecting our finisher’s medals.

I love a good post race buffet. Both the Jimmy Irvine 10K and the Forth Road Bridge 10K have tables and tables of home cooking. This one was not so plentiful but it was varied and, more importantly, it didn’t have a queue.

We helped ourselves to tuna sandwiches (with the crusts already cut off) and selection of sweets before sitting down in a canteen in the Gascube sports centre and witnessing the queue floods open. By the time I eat one corner of my sandwich there were at least 20 people in the queue for food. More kept joining every minute.

“We must have been first and everyone else is just finishing the race,” said Iain TwinBikeRun.

“Were all the people in front of us disqualified and went home early?” I said.

“We must be a the tipping point,” he said.

“Between what?” I asked.

“The athletes who are cooling down and the folk who’s first thought after a race is “Can I now eat a caramel shortcake?”

No need to consider lunch today, it was provided by the race.

Bread: 10k ready

Ingredient: tune and mayonnaise

Taste: like athletic achievement

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Eleven (Andrew)

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For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

Darjeeling in India is famous for its tea. But did you know that the Darjeeling tea plantations were created in the 18th century, in part a Scotsman?

Perhaps this is not a surprise. It could only be a Scot who would think that a country where the temperature routinely hits the mid 30s was really missing a boiling hot cup of tea.

And, for the two days each year when the temperature drops, the dour prophetic Scotsman, wrapped in a tartan shawl, is sitting in the corner, holding a cup of tea aloft and telling everyone “Och aye, I knew the weather would turn – the sunshine cannae last forever! And neither can the big freeze, even if we have reached the point where the local pond has frozen over and all the local Torvill and Deans have come out with their skates to Bolero on it.

I don’t understand the attraction of skating on a pond. An ice rink is safe An ice rink is maintained. A pond in Glasgow is filled with chip suppers, buckfast bottles and botulism. Why would you want to risk falling into a pond that has more health hazards than Donald Trump eating a Big Mac while unicycling around the top of the Empire State Building?

How do they even know if the pond is safe enough to skate on? One part may look thick but the rest could be as thin as, well, anyone not Donald Trump. I don’t understand the appeal, just like I don’t understand the appeal of tea. Even when the temperature drops, I don’t see any need to drink a hot drink, unless it’s hot Chocolate, in which case, bring me a cup.

There’s a place near us – Il Geletessa – that serves fantastic hot chocolate, except today when it offered a special of Brown Butter Hot Chocolate. I thought “that sounds nice” and then I tasted it and thought “that’s just melted butter! I’m drink boiling butter – and who drinks boiling butter? No one. You pour boiling butter to repel invaders from scaling your castle walls. You don’t turn it into a beverage!”.

Luckily, I’d already had my lunch so I wasn’t disappointed to throw it in the bin as I was already full from a roll and sausage (the last from a packet bought from yesterday’s dinner of sausage and mash). And I didn’t drink tea.

Bread: M&S White Roll

Filling: a cumberland sausage from Morrisons

Taste: thankfully nothing like boiling butter