I love having a whole rich list of lunch ideas! Already I am keen on the idea of bringing a snack lunch. Yesterday I tried it out with cottage cheese, baby carrots, parmesan pita chips, and a hard boiled egg. So yum.
I also bought a small Pyrex dish set (I’m annoyed to see it’s cheaper at Amazon than the sale price I paid at Target), three round lidded glass bowls in three sizes. That seems like the perfect way to carry, heat, and eat, all in the same container, without using the client’s pans/dishes.
I loved the idea several of you mentioned, which was to take a lunch-sized serving out of a meal BEFORE the family descends upon it like locusts. This also solves the problem of leftovers that are mostly noodles and hardly any chicken, or whatever.
I have a book to recommend:
(image from Amazon.com)
Astonish Me, by Maggie Shipstead. I’d read another book by this author, Seating Arrangements, and found it an interesting mix of exactly what I want (so much inside-view into a family and their thoughts and feelings and why they do what they do)—and also the sort of book that made me question why anyone ever anythings, when we’re all so flawed, and all so oblivious to our flaws. It also turned out I was confusing Seating Arrangements with ANOTHER book I read about a WASPy wedding, and THAT book took a bad turn right at the END, so even on page 245 out of 257 of Astonish Me I was thinking, “Well, I love it SO far, but let’s not get too confident.”
Astonish Me is set in the world of ballet, which is a place I find interesting for behind-the-scenes: it’s so dainty and beautiful and quiet and cooperative on the outside, so sweaty and painful and demanding and competitive where we can’t see it. One of the main characters is someone who deliberately leaves ballet after realizing she’ll never be good enough; we follow her life afterward, and also the life of her former roommate who stays with ballet. The timeline jumps around a little, pursuing an answer to the question of why several things happened the way they did; I found the eventual resolutions satisfying enough, without feeling as if they were TOO tidy/explained.
This book was on my lost forever, but I kept not choosing it, since I wasn’t sure if i would like all the ballet. And it turned out that I loved it.
I loved Astonish Me. I feel like I read A LOT of ballet novels as a pre-teen (but can’t even recall their names) and this was like a grown-up version of those.
Have you read Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan? I was surprised at how much I liked it. The next book, China Rich Girlfriend is out now, and I’m totally sucked into it.
The Union Street Bakery series by Mary Ellen Taylor is good too. Try it.
I have those Pyrex bowls and I use them for work lunches all the time, but I have a warning: they are not leak-proof, so beware of filling them with soup, or stew, or anything with a sauce. If I have something like that, I just freeze the bowl with its contents overnight, and then it survives the commute without getting all over the inside of my lunchbox. Once at work, it can defrost upright until I microwave it. Speaking of which, another warning: I advise against microwaving the lid, because it will break down much faster than the glass bowl anyway, and repeated microwaving won’t help. Instead, put a paper towel over the bowl to keep from splattering the microwave.
Thanks for the book recommendations; I’m always looking for a good read and I appreciate that you have the same aversion as I do to books that don’t have a satisfying resolution or even sort of turn on you at the end. Here are a few that I’ve read recently that you might like (of course, I’m behind the times, so I’m sure they’re obvious picks and in fact I might have seen them on your blog in the first place):
The Story Hour, by Thrifty Umrigar
One Plus One, by JoJo Moyes
Delicious!, by Ruth Reichl
The Peach Keeper, by Sarah Addison Allen
The Dress Shop of Dreams, by Menna Van Praag
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson
Thank you for the book recommendation- I read Seating Arrangements and enjoyed it, and Astonish Me sounds awesome. I love reading about the world of ballet.
At the library now, and both books are in. Thanks for the recommendation. Now I am bummed though because I want to read after my child goes to bed, but I already have a commitment. Tomorrow though…
Swistle, I have what might be an annoying question, so I beg forgiveness in advance: you had recommended books by an author who is Not Rainbow Rowell, but whose name is similar to that in such a way that I inadvertently downloaded a book by RR when trying to pursue your recommendation (and obviously didn’t double-check). I finally did get a book by Not-RR, and it was about an author who teaches writing at a community college and there’s a murder mystery involved. My searching of “swistle + book” has me stymied. Does this sound familiar at all? I wanted to read more by the same author. Thanks!
Yes, I know just who you mean: Jincy Willett!
YESSSSSS! Thanks, Swistle! I just downloaded Winner of the National Book Award.
ooh. i think i need to read that… and yes! the library has it.