It's lunch time

I frequently take my lunch to work. Why?, you may well ask. Well, there are 3 main reasons: (1) It's cheaper (2) It's cheaper (3) It's cheaper.

For two years I've been on a search for the perfect lunch bag. Not too big, not too small, keeps cold foods cold, has space for a fork and napkins away from the ice packs but not on the outside, holds a drink as well as the food, etc, etc. I finally found it.

Actually, I found two. A big one and a littler one. The big one has a mesh pocket on the outside for my refillable water bottle and is big enough to hold a TV dinner (one of the steamer kind with the cut off corners). The littler one holds a sandwich and fruit on the inside and has an outer zipped pocket for utensils and chips. It also has a pocket on the outside for a drink. And it doubles as a back pack - if you're 6 years old, which I am not.

And the total cost was less than $20 for the both of them.

I bring this up because I just viewed some "fashionable" lunch bags on Oprah's web site. They didn't look that practical to me (unless you just need something to pack a carrot stick or celery rib) and they cost well over $20 each.

The most expensive was $85 for a lunch box set which has multiple compartments of various sizes that snap together, one on top of the other, to hold wet food, dry food, cold food, and hot food separately. Doesn't that seem like a bother? You need instructions to put it together and take it apart. You've got four containers spread around your lunch area while you're eating. And who's going to wash all that stuff every day?

If you think that sounds fancy, you should have seen her idea of quick and easy meals to pack. The Pan Bagnet sandwich used half a fennel bulb on a baugette with capers and black olives. A fennal bulb sandwich? Yech! (I say Yech, but I don't even know what fennel is.)

Just give me bologna, some mustard, and a couple of slices of bread. To be fancy, I'll eat it with my pinkie in the air.