INTRODUCING a brand new column for POYP this week from two talented, young passionate foodie students calling themselves just simply, Soph and Lu.
They are aspiring to be the next 'Two Fat Ladies' of the foodie world, with their witty, down to earth take on everyday life, and of course, their passionate take on food. You never know, you may actually see them on TV one day with a nice little TV programme called Soph and Lu do.....yes, FOOD.
Their first of hopefully many columns for POYP talks about that everyday meal, the working office lunch. According to the dynamic foodie duo, there are several categories of the working lunch, so POYP will leave them to do the honours and serve up....
Throughout our temp job office stints, we have become fascinated by people’s lunch habits in the office and have come to the conclusion that watching people eat lunch is, in general, decidedly nauseating.
The Tupperwares.
Now these people pre-prepare at home and they’ll put anything in it; hot, cold, a medley of the two, gravy on salads, meat on fish, rice on noodles with salad cream. Or they will ram the tupperware full of something so passé and bland, tuna pasta salad say, and don’t forget the leftovers from Sunday roast, a bit of congealed lamb mushed with cooked-to-death cauliflower cheese. The absolute worst thing about tupperwares is the stale odour, like fetid tortoise breath, that poofs out on opening the lid. Soph’s definitely a Tupperware, she says it’s the planning that excites her, her concoctions taste infinitely better than an egg and cress roll and it saves money. Luci abhors the idea. It winds her up.
The Anal Picnic-Packers.
More often than not these are mousy women, or men with mousy wives. Their picnic tends to consist of a sandwich, perhaps a scotch egg or sausage roll, crisps, a chocolate bar or biscuit, a piece of fruit (normally a banana) and a flask of identifiable hot liquid (probably Horlicks). They have severely over-thought the subject and there is this overbearing urge to say ‘How OLD are you?? Get a grip! I used to make picnics like that when I went on school trips to the Natural History Museum… In Kindergarten.’ These people always drag out eating their picnic too, the unveiling of each item, the little annoying kerfuffle of the tin foil and the inevitable under-filled, flimsy, lame sandwich consisting of one slice of ham is just silliness. Invariably these people eat unnervingly slowly.
GI Janes/Joes.
These are omega-oiled, GI Food obsessives who will eat anything to avoid sandwiches. They will bring in Food Doctor ready-made meals consisting of poached salmon, seven different pulses and scattered with more seeds and nuts than a bird table. Then you have the sushi clan, watching them meticulously snapping open their little tiny disposable chopsticks and dribbling soy from their little tiny plastic fish onto their little tiny nigiri and popping it into their little tiny polite mouths whilst reverting back to the keyboard to type and chew simultaneously, is nothing short of painful. Heinously painful.
The Burger Vanners.
Now these people might have the right idea. It seems to us that the only feasible solution is to nonchalantly ‘catch sight’ of the Piggies van pulling into the office car park and oh so indifferently turn down the corners of your mouth, shrug your shoulders and utter the words ‘err anyone want anything? I might as well see what they’ve got’. When you’ve got the hot, double chicken and bacon mayo baguette in your possession, ruthlessly tear it open, indulge yourself and don’t pretend to be reading news online. Eat, slam-dunk the wrapper into the paper bin and get back to work. Just don’t make a bloody meal out of lunch. Do you see what we did there.
Best thing we ate last week
Soph – Thai Green Curry.
Lu - Rib eye steak with home-made béarnaise sauce, skinny chips and rocket
More foodie stories on http://www.plentyonyourplate.com