30 Days of Stuff: Food

by Justin 25 May 2011 04:54 30 Days of Stuff

In which I ponder morosely about the lack of a cheese and ham toastie in my life...

How do you view food? It is one of life’s essentials, or is it your reward for making it through another chunk of your day? Perhaps you see it as a loyal, doting, companion (albeit one that’ll whisper sweet nothings in your ear and then mysteriously abandon you when you visit your dentist, doctor or dietician)?

I think I view it as all three, to varying degrees. This post has been prompted by a dire case of Toastie Fail. I tend to get hungry at around 11am most days - probably a lot of other people do as well, otherwise they wouldn’t have invented Elevenses. Some days I’ll manage to pull through until lunch time, some days I’ll be so busy I won’t even notice it’s lunch time (yeah, right!), other days I’ll have planned ahead.

For much of the past year I’ve been accompanied to work by a cheese (and, occasionally, ham) sandwich. Through the magic of the Sandwich Toaster, this sandwich would be mystically transformed into a Toastie at the designated time of day. Naturally the Broaching of the Toastie would incur great howls of frustration and envy among my co-workers, but, frankly, sod ‘em - they could have brought their own toasties in...

Now I have a new office, in a different building. This building does NOT have a sandwich toaster. Instead it has some manner of diabolical over grill toaster type thing, and like all of those types of things which is designed to do several different types of thing it doesn’t actually do any of the things particularly well.

Still following me? Good.

So, to cut a long story only marginally shorter, today, instead of a cheese and ham toastie I ended up with a slightly warmed cheese and ham sandwich. I mean, the cheese wasn’t even melted: there was no bonding with the ham or the bread, I could have just whipped that cheese slice right out again, there was no crispy crunch, no risk of drooling melted cheese over my work clothes. Nothing.

This made me sad.

But it also made me think.

On weekday mornings I get up, I make porridge, then I eat porridge. This is partly to ensure that Mr C has his breakfast before going off to Kindy, but it also means that I get to have breakfast without even really thinking about it. (Weekends are different: breakfast at weekends is much more special, and something to be savoured).

For lunch I’ll often (where possible take in leftovers), often very tasty, but again just a means to an end. For dinner - with the notable exception of social events - we’ll often eat well, but it’s often simply something we do to ensure that we don’t go to bed hungry.

The Toastie is different.

The Toastie is special.

The Toastie is one of the things that I don’t really, honestly need to eat - but I have it anyway: it’s my reward for being at work. It’s my prize for lasting a mere two hours at my job. It’s something that makes my day a little bit special.

It’s also something I probably won’t be having any more since I’d rather go without than have to endure another mildly warm sandiwch with slightly softened cheese (no, really, stop, I can hear the violins). I’ve already promised myself that once a week, on Fridays, I’ll go all out and buy a toastie from the cafe, but that’s the reward for making it through the week. It looks like, from now on, I’ll just have to go without my special 11’O’Clock prize...

… or I suppose I could just have something else to eat...

• Tags:
• rant