Today for Lunch

Rhett,

While I applaud your attempt at realism, I don’t know what to say about your feelings toward Ginny Weasley. They seem a little — untoward? Maybe there’s such a thing as too much honesty.

As far as your lunch goes, I hope that you ordered from Chicago Deep Dish Pizza, not Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. Notwithstanding the bafflingly duplicated name, these pizzerias produce vastly different dishes. Conflate them at your peril.

My own lunch was leftover stir-fry from earlier in the week. Since the lingering effects of the cold have rendered my taste buds less sensitive than usual, I took the opportunity to make a dish full of aromatic flavour and fiery heat. Kung Pao Chicken fit the bill to a T. Even two days later, it was spicy and delicious, with the great peppery taste you get from Sichuan peppercorns. My only complaint was that I ate too much for dinner and didn’t have enough for a truly filling lunch.

It was nothing that a trip to the candy machine couldn’t fix.

Thanking God it’s Friday,
Brendan

Dear Rhett,

Last night was kind of depressing. I can feel it bleeding into today.

I went to go see a documentary called Junior that was playing at the Plaza as part of the Doc Soup festival. Rather than the madcap Schwarzenegger pregnancy flick that I was picturing, this Junior was a clever and thoughtful meditation on aging, told through the eyes of a 75 year-old Italian living at home with his 99-year old Mama. Needless to say, the spectre of death loomed throughout, and as I walked out of the theatre, I was lost in my own conflicted thoughts about growing old and dying.

Instead of trying to cheer myself up, I went home and grabbed The Brothers Karamazov off the bedside table and sat down to finish it once and for all. I only had 75 pages or so to go and was totally caught up in the grand finale, which takes place in a courtroom. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I will say that Russian novelists of the 19th century were not masters of the happy ending. Truth be told, I went to bed feeling pretty down about things.

Fast forward to this morning. I’m easing into my morning with a little routine web surfing. Somehow I came across this Taco Bell webpage, featuring a rather sad packet of hotsauce.

Glen Bell, RIP

I tend to read more into these things than I should, but I felt like everything was conspiring to stress to me how brief and fragile life truly is. How did I act on this information? I went to the cafeteria and got the Creole Chicken sandwich with a side of Chicken and Rice soup. Sometimes you’ve just got to live every moment like it’s your last.

Yours fearlessly,
Brendan

Dear Rhett,

I say this as a friend: ease off the chili. Tex-Mex cuisine is best consumed by Tex-Mexicans. Their digestive tracks are up to the challenge in a way that yours never will be. If you can’t break the habit, however, rather than adding sulfur to the mix after the fact, might I suggest adding enzymes beforehand? Your co-workers (and nostrils) will thank you.

I myself briefly flirted with the idea of having chili for lunch while at Tim Horton’s today. I thought better of it. Instead, I ended up getting the somewhat redundantly-named Turkey Bacon Club sandwich. I might be wrong here, but aren’t all club sandwiches served with bacon? Isn’t that the point?

Since you’ve probably ordered more club sandwiches than anyone else I know, I suspect you already know how the Turkey Bacon Club tasted: average, with a pleasant honey mustard sweetness. All things considered, not a bad lunch.

Think about them enzymes,
Brendan

Rhett,

As I mentioned yesterday, the flu I’ve been fighting has adversely affected my desire to prepare meals. Ordinarily, I’m a fair-to-middling home cook. There’s something about transforming raw ingredients into finished dishes that always impresses me. It’s like a non-lucrative form of alchemy.

Although my heart wasn’t in it, I made the effort to make stew the other night. Nothing fancy: some beef, carrots, onions, parsnips, tomatoes and garlic, with a little salt, pepper and rosemary for seasoning. I made a big batch so we’d have meals at the ready when we didn’t feel like making anything. All this to say: I had leftover stew for lunch.

It was good — if anything, the flavour had intensified overnight. The only thing keeping it from being perfect was my microwave anxiety. I hate having people wait for me to do things. It probably dates back to lining up for the water fountain in elementary school. The taunt “save some for the fishes” rings in my ears to this day. The problem with the microwave at the office is that it is both low in power and high in popularity. After keeping a crowd of coworkers waiting for 5 minutes, I took my still only lukewarm dish out of the microwave and back to my desk. It would have been better hot.

Very best,
Brendan

Rhett,

As you may or may not know, I have been fighting a particularly virulent bug for the past week or so. I missed work last Thursday and slept away most of the weekend. I thought I was OK to be at work today, but while you were ineptly flirting with a patron at a pious pizzeria, I was staring blankly at my computer screen, a sweaty, shaky mess.

Since Tara was also home sick, I was able to implore upon her to pick me up from work so I could finish my day from home. Once we got there, it became clear that neither of us wanted to prepare anything for lunch. I tossed around a few suggestions; she tossed them out. Eventually, we struck upon the curative potential of Middle Eastern cuisine.

I don’t know if you ever made it down to Tazza in Bridgeland when you were living in the Rotary Manor, but to my mind, they serve the finest shawarma in the city. Since Tara had come to pick me up from work, I was tasked with picking up lunch.

Despite arriving in the midst of the lunch hour rush, service was quick and pleasant. I got a large shawarma for myself with everything but banana peppers, a regular with everything for Tara, and a small tabouleh salad for us to share. I had it all bagged up to go and was home within a quarter hour. We ate in front of the television beneath a heavy blanket. As I headed up to the office, I wished I hadn’t promised to work from home that afternoon.

Feeling better already,
Brendan

Rhett,

I wouldn’t feel bad about craving ice cream for breakfast. When I was a younger man (with a more aggressive metabolism), I was known to eat two-bite brownies with heavy cream as a sort of breakfast cereal. As a child, I vowed to eat whatever I wanted when I grew up, and for years, that’s exactly what I did.

But who am I kidding? Nothing’s changed. This childish fixation on the least healthy option on any menu still sways me (see The Baconator), and once again has influenced my decision for the worse.

I honestly don’t even know if the cafeteria serves healthy food, because it has never occurred to me to order it. Today’s special was a Peppered Bacon Cheeseburger. Do you think I even listened to the options for sides? I did not. I ate the burger and fries at my desk with two packets of off-brand ketchup.

There’s no need to go into how bad it was – my views on the aggressive mediocrity of the company store is well documented. I do want you to know that however sad the web comic made you feel, lunch made me feel sadder.

Warm regards,
Brendan

Rhett,

It’s interesting what you said about eating at Subway, because I’ve noticed this in other people as well. For whatever reason, it’s just not a fast food franchise where people mix it up very much — they all tend to go for tried and true flavour combinations. Whenever I’ve strayed from my 12″ Tuna on Italian Herb and Cheese, I’ve been sorely disappointed. Why do you suppose that is?

Regardless, it’s probably why when it came time to get lunch today, I, too, went for an old standby. Feeling too lazy to leave the building, I went to the cafeteria (after promising myself I wouldn’t) and got a Bacon Cheeseburger. At the last minute, I decided against the fries and instead went for a beef soup that tasted like gravy.

Everything came in a disposable Styrofoam container and I ate the soup with a too-small plastic spoon. It was kind of depressing and exactly what I expected. I found it strangely comforting.

Best,
Brendan

Rhett,

I was at the dentist yesterday from 12:30 to 3. Didn’t much feel like eating beforehand, so a Vanilla Latte served as both breakfast and lunch. The ironic thing is that the dentist told me that Starbucks is the worst possible thing for tooth decay—treacly sweet and slowly sipped, so that sugar stays on your teeth for a dangerously long amount of time. Her exact words were, “Starbucks is great for my business.” She didn’t seem that happy about it.

Best,
Brendan

Rhett,

As you well know, the cafeteria is a danger zone. Specials are your safest bet from a freshness point of view, but frequently fail in their attempts to resemble the food product they’re supposed to be mimicing. Ordering off the chalkboard is slightly more expensive, but offers the added benefit of being recognizable as diner standards.
Which leads me back to the chicken quesadilla, a dish whose mediocrity I have extolled elsewhere on this wall. Served with a sub-Old Dutch salsa and a container of runny sour cream, I drenched the greasy tortilla pockets with Frank’s Hot Sauce to add something like flavour. As always, I sat at my desk alone and ate in silence.

Best,
Brendan

Rhett,

A combination of cold weather and overall laziness means I’m eating at the cafeteria more than I probably should. I ended up getting the Crispy Chicken Caesar wrap with fries Thursday. The salad to chicken ratio definitely favoured the salad, but it was definitely edible. And as deep-fried chicken dishes go, it l…eft me feeling better about myself than I had any business feeling. I’ll probably eat there again today.

Best,
Brendan