So you brought your lunch from home. Congrats! I hope the three hours you spent meal-prepping on Sunday is still feeling worth it, or that your leftovers are holding up.
Or maybe you didn’t, and you’re chowing down on some dubious carbonara or a schnitzel wrap from the just-OK cafe next door, or even just a *sigh* salad.
Unless you have some kind of job that allows you to eat your lunch somewhere that’s not at a woodgrain-laminate work table, and/or you’re one of those people who cooks properly every weeknight and actually thinks ahead about whether it will reheat well tomorrow, you’re probably eating some uninspiring stuff some days.
Here’s how to make it not suck: stack your desk with two or three basic things that you like the taste of, don’t need refrigeration, and work with just about everything.
The number one non-negotiable is salt. Unless you have some kind of medical reason to keep a close eye on your sodium intake, I guarantee you’re not salting your food properly.
Restaurant food tastes amazing because they salt the shit out of it before and after cooking, during cooking, after plating, and then still give you the option to put more salt on it after they serve it to you.
So keep a little grinder of sea salt on your desk – not one of those things of pourable fine salt, for the love of Nigella – and give it a good few twists over that flaccid sandwich or salad if it’s tasting a bit meh, then taste it again.
Also, don’t underestimate fresh pepper. Yeah, I know, salt and pepper on food – groundbreaking. But really going to town with grinding pepper on a bland dish can remind you that pepper, y’know, actually has a flavour.
Speaking of pepper: if you like hot sauce so much you have one of those monthly California Reaper sauce subscription boxes and an indestructible butthole, you’re probably the kind of person who has hot sauce on their desk already.
But if you’ll throw on a bit of Tabasco or El Yucatero on taco Tuesday, or reach for the chilli oil during a dumpling feast, it’s time to become That Guy just a little bit. Keep something all-purpose and versatile like sriracha in your little desk pantry to start with.
Then expand your hot sauce wardrobe as you go to include a few things with more complex flavours that turn a sad bowl of chickpeas, microwaved rice and baby spinach into things with a bit of personality.
ron eat
And thirdly: start stockpiling tiny versions of whatever condiments you actually like. Wasabi, Kewpie mayo and soy sauce fish from the sushi place. Mustard and “ketchup” from the local burger place that’s pretending to be an American diner. Nugget dipping sauces from Maccas. Vinegar and chilli oil from the dumpling place. The little tubs of vinaigrette that come with the guilt salads you order alongside your pizzas. That tiny bottle of olive oil a well-meaning family member gave you for Christmas.
Don’t pocket so many free packets it goes from thrifty to dick move, and make sure anything you’re keeping in your desk isn’t supposed to be refrigerated – and if you’re lucky enough to be near a window, keep them out of direct sunlight.
But just doing those couple of tiny things can help you stick to the cheaper, simpler lunches you keep forcing yourself to eat instead of ordering the burrito delivery you really want. Cover the food you don’t love with a condiment you do, and for god’s sake, put some damn salt on it.
That said: on Friday, get that pub lunch parma. You deserve it.