The Joy of Eating… Redefined.

Since a very young age, lunch has been one of the highlights of my day. Whether we were spending a day at home, running errands around town, or traveling, I was always adamant about taking time out for lunch. Skip breakfast if you wish, do what you will with dinner, but don’t mess with lunch.

I remember daydreaming all through my school years about growing up and one day enjoying the freedom of choosing when and where I would relish my favorite meal of the day. I was pretty sure that all of my friends who wanted to be teachers were crazy for willingly subjecting themselves to school lunches for the rest of their lives when there were so many off-premise lunch options (with friends and colleagues, I assumed), to look forward to as a “free” adult.

I romanticized the noon hour… I imagined regularly dining at places with words like “bistro” and “cafe” somewhere in their name. I’m not sure what I thought my career would be… law, banking, real estate, sales, etc. That part was always fuzzy. What was for sure, though… and all that really mattered at the time… was that lunch would be chic, sophisticated, and a delightful break in the middle of an otherwise hectic day.

Well, the hectic part was some accurate foreshadowing.

Fast forward a decade or two, and I find myself dining more often than not in the confines of my own kitchen with people who fail to share my charming vision for lunch.

Sometimes my lunch mates fall asleep at the table.  Sometimes they experiment with the texture and conditioning potential of their yogurt and/or dipping sauces.  Sometimes they spend most of the meal singing or standing up or doing otherwise distracting things at the table.  Almost always, they end up wearing a good portion of their meal on their face, neck, hands, clothes, and occasionally, on their shoes.

Yes, lunch is currently a far cry from the way I envisioned it with the food being savored, the iced tea being sipped, the conversation being relished.