Eating From Home

So you know what's awesome about working from home?  You can eat whatever the hell you want, whenever you want.  Though I do miss the office snack cupboard when I'm working from home, the fact that I can make warm food or make messy food totally makes up for it.

For example, this morning I started my day with a traditional Italian breakfast of hard bread, soaked in water and then smothered in balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt.  It sounds much more revolting than it is.  It's actually rather tasty.   Oh, and it's finger food.  There is no elegant way to eat it.  Your hands will get covered in oil and you may have balsamic dribbling down your chin.   You can't make this for yourself at work.  I mean, fine, you could bring in all the fixins and make it, but then you'd have oily hands and balsamic running down your chin when you'd run into your boss in the lunchroom.

The one thing you can do at home that you totally can't do at work is make yourself a nice, warm meal.  I made myself omurice with some leftover rice.  OK, so I could always go get an omelet from the cafeteria in the tower next door and have a warm omelet for lunch at work, but... But that cafeteria really sucks.  It makes greasy spoon food and smells like oil and their omelets are rubbery and not served on fried rice.   And I wouldn't have been able to wash the whole thing down with Chardonnay if I was at the office.

Of course the downside of working from home is that you have to do the dishes. 

Grilled Cheeses and Omelets Are Universal Foods

Irene calls me up today and says, "I had a Snad Food Day today!"  So I'm like, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I had a grilled cheese for breakfast and an omelet for lunch!  You always have grilled cheeses for breakfast and omelets for lunch!" 

"Well, not quite.  I do have grilled cheeses for breakfast quite often," I said, "but I typically have omelets for supper.  And that's only on evenings when I don't want to cook."  

"I didn't want to cook for lunch," she said, "so it's the same thing.  Did you notice that the leftover piece of grilled cheese is in the shape of Brazil?"  

Then she told me about the omelet.

Have you seen Tampopo?  Of course you haven't, and not only because you, dear reader, are a figment of my imagination.  I think only 12 people in North America have seen it and I know each and every one of them.  There's something to be said for having a repertoire theatre within walking distance of your university.

Anyways,  Tampopo is a Japanese movie about food.  There's one scene where they make omurice, a Japanese rice omelet.  Irene and I both learned to make omurice after watching that movie.  My omurices, though, usually don't involve tomato sauce or ketchup, but do include tobasco.   Irene's omurice from today included bonito flakes and black sesame seeds, because, like I said, she's a better cook than me.  Also, I don't like the idea of bonito flakes.