I have yet another questionable confession to make to the blogging world. 

I have taken the same lunches to work for the last 6 years.  The exact same rotation and with only some brand subsitutions.  I get a little uneasy if the routine is broken by say, public holidays and annual leave (does this make me a workaholic?).  I apologize if I am bordering on the  Samuel Pepys side of detailing even the most mundane aspects of everyday life.  Just look upon it as character development (or perhaps character building as a reader).

There are several advantages to this routine:

• I stay awake after lunches that are cold and low on carbs.
• Making lunches is a no brainer.
• I will never be underwhelmed by the quality of the food.  Which is a big problem at some places I’ve worked.  The bigger hospitals tend to outsource food preparation and everything is either limp with oil or snap frozen from being ‘made fresh’ some 357 hours previously.  Small hospitals rock though, the food is cooked  home style on site, the canteen ladies treat as if you were their daughter and make sure you get the full serve on your meal ticket.
• It’s very economical.  Those savings have immediately been put to good use to fund some investment purchases other aspects of my lifestyle.
• It’s pretty healthy, I have energy, I have zing, I rarely get colds.

But there are drawbacks:

• It is routine, it is structured and I wonder if this makes be a bit on the anal side.
• They are rather ‘slow’ to eat lunches and I need table space to eat.  I can’t really do lunch on the run very well.  It is nice though, to be forced to sit quietly with the paper under my lunch.
• I have gone for months at some of the well located hospitals before I have even stepped out and explored the local cafe and eating strip.  In my 9 months of working at RPA, I only ventured down into Newtown 5 times.

Anyhow, this is how it breaks down.

Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesdays are especially ironic.  Eating a salad whilst gazing languidly at the latest news in the Sydney food scene with the SMH Good Living supplement.

Wednesday and Thursday.  On Thursdays, I nibble on my crudites and rice cakes  over the pages of the fashion and style supplement and feel somewhat at one with the disciplined artistic and fashion types featured in the articles.  As an aside, I love that crudites are both raw vegetables cut into sticks and the dip – such word economy cannot be overlooked by the wordy blogger.

The rice cakes are good but make a person incredibly thirsty.

And then we have Friday.  Crazy, unpredictable Friday.  Inspiration is drawn a little more widely for my Friday lunch.  I have been known to have a cup a soup (adding milk after the hot water makes them taste so much creamier) and lots of fruit or one of my infamously labelled frozen meals .

But whatever the day of the week, there will always be my mug of green tea and a piece of chocolate.  I love Japanese sen cha tea with the rice in it.  It doesn’t matter how bad the day has been (or indeed will get), it all looks better with some green tea and chocolate.  I may have to combine the two one  day.

And so the working week passes.  I have found though, that the SMH has started that slippery slide in its standard of content.  With front page stories being written based upon ‘facts’ gleaned from facebook and my space content, several weeks’ worth of front pages devoted to the My School website and random character assassinations of Olympic medallists it is heading into the dangerous territory I call The West Australian Newspaper.