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| Caroline's lunch Photograph by Rob Biddulph |
"For 26 years Caroline McGivern has saved a fortune by avoiding a
pre-packaged sandwich and making her own lunch. Her towers of plastic
tubs have inspired real lunchbox envy at the Observer.
There’s nothing like a well packed lunch box and I’ve been making
mine for 26 years. It was always a great way of saving money and to be
honest, there are only so many mayo filled sandwiches that I can eat in
one week.
The choice can be overwhelming or even underwhelming
depending on how you look at it, and the worst scenario is to pick up a
take-out that you were looking forward to only to end up disappointed.
You never experience that with a homemade lunch box because you know
exactly what you’re getting.
In recent years we’ve been hit by the
foodie bug resulting in an enormous amount of choice, but it comes at a
price. I tallied up one colleague’s expenses for breakfast and lunch
over the eight years that she’s been working at the Observer, and it
came to a beautiful £23,000. And no, that's not a typo.
It’s
great to experiment with flavours and customise the food to suit your
palette and I love the purity of home-made, knowing exactly what’s gone
into it. Sometimes I take it day by day and use up any bits and pieces
that are hanging around and other times I make a big vat of rice, lentil
or mixed bean salad and include an extra ingredient each day so that I
don’t get bored. I go out of my way to make a jar of exceptional
dressing, something like a classic French because olive oil and balsamic
can get boring, and it makes all the difference to a tasty salad.
It’s
a lot easier to make a packed lunch than you think. But yes, you do
have to get out of bed. Even if I’m adding daily to to something I've
prepared earlier, I need more than 5 minutes to dish it out and prepare
the other courses. Courses? My Tupperware tower has reached seven
storeys before now - I include a small bowl of pretzels, nuts, a couple
of pieces of fruit or a slice of tea loaf. Fruit salad with yoghurt is
an everyday must but I vary the fruit by season. A small container of
mixed dry roasted nuts and seeds, (not the shop bought variety!), dates,
grapes and what ever else takes my fancy.
The Scandinavians have
got lunch boxes down to a fine art - every shape and size - but I’ll
make do with whatever will hold my bounty. Each morning I lift the altar
of Tupperware out out the cupboard and make a selection. And everyday
around my desk at 1pm there is serious lunch box envy.
Caroline's tips to a successful lunch:
- You have to be organised and plan ahead. And get up 10 to 15 minutes earlier.
- Stock up on the ingredients you need.
- Cook a bit more dinner the night before as leftovers always taste better the following day.
- Make enough bean/pulse/rice/couscous salad to last you the week and top it up each day with strong flavours - choritzo, goat cheese, tuna or salmon.
- Nibbles to graze on such as dry roasted seeds and nuts, are great with a sprinkling of sea salt and fresh rosemary.
- Keep a jar of salad dressing ready mixed to save time.
- Get inspired with different recipe books or pinch ideas from salads in shops."
