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

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

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