Lunch Time...



Nearly every day I take my lunch to work instead of buying some crappy, expensive, high fat, low taste lunch from one of the 97 million sandwich places around campus (yeah, I'm looking at you, Potbellies. ugh.) Because I'm married to a guy who can really cook, this means I typically take some pretty interesting leftovers in my lunch. So, nearly every day I wander upstairs to the optimistically named "Graduate Student Lounge" (with its mid-60's decor, ratty tables and chairs, usually broken vending machines, and 3 occasionally working but always cranky microwave ovens) in order to nuke my lunch. This is also where a small klatch of the department's custodians also hang out when they're on break. These are always fun, nice folks who, unlike the other graduate students lounging there, are actually friendly enough to talk to each other and anyone else who wanders in.

Every day when I walk in I'm greeted by the same question, "So what did she make you today?" You see, they're under the impression that I'm married to a woman. And, Oh.My.Gods do they love this woman I'm married to! She is, it is generally agreed, the end-all and be-all of wifeliness. They particularly love the fact that she knows how to "feed her man". I have to admit that is one of the many things I love about her too. Er ... him. dammit.

(Yes, yes, yes... I should dissuade them from the notion that my husband is the proud owner/operator of a human vagina, but there are times when you just don't want to deal, you know?)

Anyway, they're always fascinated with what I bring in -- or rather, what she's packed for me -- though most of the time they admit they'd probably never ever eat such crazy things themselves.

(The amusing parallel here is that most of the other graduate students who use the lounge are from China, and while I am often fascinated with what they bring in -- several ingredients, always cleverly arranged in no fewer than 8 different tiny Tupperware compartments, each heated up for different amounts of time -- I'd probably never, ever each such crazy things myself. I often have to stop myself from shrieking, "OMG! What the frak was that, a squid head?")

So, every day I tell the custodian-klatch what I've brought for lunch; reading the bill-of-fare and answering questions about any unfamiliar ingredients. They universally dislike asparagus. Rice with pumpkin in it? Yeah, I have to admit that sounds strange when you say it like that. Making your own cheese? Now that, they generally agree, is going above and beyond the call of duty even for my dutiful, devoted little wife. I attempted to explain how making paneer is really easy and takes only minutes and that I do the dishes afterwards (which, by the way, earned me major points with them) but they were unconvinced that eating home-made cheese was something normal people would ever want to do, or that it was even sanitary.

However today's offering, putting bacon in spaghetti sauce? Apparently that's a concept everyone can get behind.

Posted: Tue - April 1, 2008 at 12:34 PM        

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