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Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Thirty One (plus two days) (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.

In 31 days of lunch I had to cover this, even though it didn’t happen in January.

Today, I had afternoon tea.

AKA lunch but, because the sandwiches don’t have crusts, it’s a tea and not a lunch. Even though I had it at lunchtime.

I don’t understand the differences between Tea, High Tea and Afternoon Tea.

Mrs TwinBikeRun tried to explain it to me.

“You drink tea. You can do that anytime. Afternoon tea is a sandwich and a scone and a cake. You have that between lunch and dinner. High Tea is a cooked meal. And usually earlier than your dinner.,”

Which sounds straightforward until today we went for Afternoon Tea at a hotel at… midday. Which made it lunch. I was having lunch. I was having a sandwich then a scone then a cake. But it was still lunch. Until I spotted the sandwiches were cut into rectangle fingers and didn’t have any crusts.

“Afternoon tea is not lunch because you don’t eat crusts”, I said.

“Not quite,” said Mrs TwinBikeRun but I interrupted before she could say more.

“And a scone is not lunch,” I said, “and neither does it have a crust. And neither does a cake. Afternoon tea is just made up of things without crusts.”

“What about rolls?” She said but I already knew the answer to that.

“They’re nothing but crusts!”

So, for my final entry in this challenge I have, after 31 days, finally learned something new: it’s not lunch if it doesn’t have a crust.

Bread: But not crusts

Ingredient: Various

Taste: Like a breakthrough

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Thirty 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.

And done.

Or not done as I’m going to swap this day 31 with Sunday day 33 as I’ve got an interesting lunch to discuss. So, consider this day 30 and a half and day 31 in full will follow on Sunday.

What have I learned so far though?

At first I was curious whether this would even work as a 31 day challenge. Lunch isn’t a challenge. It’s a routine. I would no more write about 31 days of going to the toilet (though there’s an idea!) than I would write about going to bed. Lunch is just lunch, isn’t it?

What I’ve learned though is that by giving just a small bit of attention to something I rarely think about I have looked at lunch in a new way. I’ve enjoyed lunch more when I think more about it. Instead of eating something because that’s what I’ve always eaten, I’ve eaten new things, even if it’s just to add a chutney or to swap a roll for a bagel – and those small changes have a big increase in the pleasure I’ve taken from it.

The second thing I’ve learned is that, without much effort, I’ve rarely repeated a lunch in 31 days. I used to think I had the same things each day. Now I know I do have a variety to what I eat and that it wasn’t difficult to eat something different each day for a month.

Finally, I learned that having a vomiting bug in the middle of a food challenge is the ultimate irony and the universe must like a good laugh. That’s why next year I’m going to start my 31 day challenge of NOT gambling. That’s right, universe, I won’t win the lottery that month. No siree, not me. I want to gamble my life savings and not receive anything in return. So, universe, please don’t think it would be really funny for me to win £100m on the Euromillions during a no gambling month – that would totally ruin my challenge!

Also, just as I finish, I spotted the following thread on Reddit by someone who could be my challenge nemesis – a man who has eaten the same sandwich every day for decades: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1id24iz/i_have_eaten_the_same_food_for_lunch_every_day/

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Thirty (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 night my mum made a stew. And by stew I mean she cut up some carrots, potatoes and meat and boiled it for 12 hours until one ingredient was indistinguishable from the next and the whole thing resembled mud.

It wasn’t beautiful but it was tasty – and it was authentic. My Mum is from the Isle of Lewis and everything she cooks is genuine Hebridean cooking as it comes with a distrust of all herbs and spices, a suspicion for anything not with meat and potatoes or fish and potatoes, and it she has a downright hostility towards cooking anything rare, medium rare, medium or even well done. Heston Blumenthal may like twice cooked chips but in the Hebrides that would only be the first step. We have dozen cooked chips, just to ensure they’re fully cooked.

This approach to Hebridean cooking, learned at my mum’s table over the first 18 years of my life, is why I’m suspicious of the man who calls himself the Hebridean Baker.

I have his cookbook. The first recipe includes a melon. The second involves flash frying a tuna steak. The third is a tiramisu. None of these things were ever found on my mother’s table.

So, when Iain TwinBikeRun sent me a lunch challenge of goats cheese with pomegranate seeds “just like Granny made on the croft” I have to blame the Hebridean Baker. Granny didn’t have goat’s cheese. She didn’t have pomegranate seeds. She didn’t even have a sandwich… unless it was stewed for 10 hours and served with potatoes.

But I had it anyway. Even if it wasn’t authentic.

Bread: Toast

Ingredient: Goats cheese with pomegranate seeds

Taste: Like a Greek restaurant in Inverness

Andrew

31 Days of… Lunch – Day Twenty Nine (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.

Before starting this challenge I made of list of new sandwiches to make and try. These included:

Tahini, feta & honey toastie

Coronation chickpea sandwich filler

And

Hummus & avocado sandwich topper

And I’ve made none of these so my challenge as I finish the month is to make at least one of them.

Today, I went from a meeting at another office to a meeting in my office and had the easy option of picking up crispy rolls and some hummus

Bread: McGee Crispy Roll

Ingredient: Hummus

Taste: Like a quick break

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