NaBloPoMo 21: Lunch Ladies

About 6 months ago, a few of us at work started a diet together, and a few days in decided to start taking turns bringing in lunch for the lot. It didn't take long before more joined in, and a lovely "Lunch Ladies" group was born.

Here's how it works:

• You just kind of pick a day when you're going to cook, and announce it. Try to keep it healthy, please
• Anyone can play
•  No one has to.
•  If you don't have anything to contribute...fine. Sit down and eat with us.
• Feel free just to bring an ingredient—we'll put it with something else and voila! lunch!
• If you don't like what's on the table, you're welcome to take yourself out to McDonald's.

I LOVE lunch ladies group. No one is finicky. If the lettuce is starting to turn, we'll pick out the brown stuff and move on with fixing salads. Almost every meal is to die for, even when nothing really matches up. There's a drawer of "Emergency soup" for the days when we discover that no one brought anything.

I like the ritual of sitting down at a table for a meal.I like that if I'm at a meeting that runs through lunch, when I get back to my desk, there's a plate of hot food waiting for me, or a salad in the fridge.
I love that we have all lost weight, and saved money.

I recognized also that this would never, ever have worked with some of the coworkers in my past. There would always have been someone keeping tabs on who bought shrimp and who "only" brought hot dogs, and who skipped a day, and who had too many servings and who never bought salad dressing...my God, the potential for drama!

But there is no drama. There is just great food, and good food, and sometimes "meh" food—like the jambalaya soup I made this week. It wasn't supposed to be soup, it just turned out...soupy, so I declared it soup.

MMMMmmmm