The perfect work lunch doesn't exist

On lunches eaten al fresco, al desko, alone and not at all.

Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter, edited by me, Lucinda Bennett. I hope you’re hungry!

A selection of work lunches eaten by friends on 27/2/24.

I was on placement at a secondary school in central Tāmaki that someone said it. “Imagine if people chose their jobs based on what their lunches would look like.” Laughter, followed by a forlorn, “no one would want to be a teacher.”

It seems no one wants to be a teacher anyway, but my colleague was right. One glance around the stained Tupperware containers of Hello Fresh leftovers and sachets of Ben’s microwave rice would be enough to turn off even the keenest young educator, although as I later learned, this school where teachers actually congregated in the staffroom to eat their lunches was one of the good ones.

During my short teaching career I survived primarily on caffeine, adrenalin and the bag of almonds in the top drawer of my desk. I know I ate lunch, but it was always a meal snatched during a free period, a sandwich barely tasted while marking essays, peanut butter smeared in the margins. I only survived two and a half years as a teacher (a story for another time), but I left with a clear vision of what I needed from my next job: proper meal breaks. And you know what kind of work generally offers those? Office work.

Despite having been in the workforce for almost 20 years – my first job was at the local Fruit World when I was 14 – I have only twice held roles that could be considered “office work”. Once in my early 20s and again last year, both for periods of less than 12 months. In theory, the boon of office work is that it doesn’t require you to be available to students or customers during specific windows, allowing flexibility around the length and timing of your lunch. In my first office job, I had the luxury of an hour lunchbreak during which time I could eat a bowl of hot soup and a cheese scone at a café and still have time to go swatch lipsticks at the local Farmers. Obviously this was not a sustainable way of living with a café soup costing an absolute minimum of $13.90 (at my then-regular, Potpourri Vegetarian Café in Dunedin) and I would usually eat my microwaved leftovers in the staffroom while chatting – or resolutely avoiding chatting, depending who was around – with my colleagues, just like everyone else.

This culture was replicated in my next office job, years later and at the other end of the country, although the milder Tāmaki weather meant that my gaggle of disenfranchised colleagues would often take our meals outdoors, to the little enclave of benches behind our building, an oasis in a sea of parking lot, a place to sip milky tea from our carefully transported staffroom mugs and spill the tea on whatever fresh hell had erupted at the latest team meeting. Whatever lunch I brought, the real treat of these work lunches was the sense of camaraderie, the sweetness of knowing that this was the only window in our working day where we could do as we pleased and we were choosing to spend it with one another.

More work lunches from Tuesday.

What job would I choose if I really did base my decision on the reality of a classic workday lunch? As a freelancer, I could really have whatever I like for lunch, can eat at any time, go anywhere. But most of the time I end up eating leftovers or assembling various bits onto a plate, something like a few slices of cheese, cucumber sticks, a chopped nectarine, a cold sausage. Sometimes I take myself out for noodles or a bánh mì from Mug’n’Bowl, or I forget how to look after myself and have a gelato for lunch then wonder why I feel lightheaded come 3pm. Even though I feel very blessed every day I am in charge of my own time and tummy, there is something I kind of miss about eating a cheese sandwich at my desk while the Rainbow Group holds court in my classroom, or forsaking my packed salad to share a box of Coles Ultimate Cookies that a colleague brought back from holiday in Australia. It’s nice to be able to chew my food thoroughly without worrying about the bell ringing or my manager’s eyes rolling, but I find I hardly need to take a full half hour when it’s just me. It’s nice, but it’s a little lonely.  

What is National Lamb Day?

Thursday 15 February marked National Lamb Day, and Beef + Lamb New Zealand encouraged everyone to celebrate. But what is National Lamb Day and what can we do to show our support? The Spinoff asked Beef + Lamb New Zealand CEO Kit Arkwright to explain.

Read the article, in partnership with Beef + Lamb New Zealand on The Spinoff now. (sponsored)

Weekly bites

While we’re all trying to do our bit to prevent food waste (ngā mihi for my little green food scraps bin, Auckland Council!), some people – like Angus Simms and Katie Jackson of Wonky Box – are doing the most. After discovering the scale of perfectly edible produce that was going to waste simply because it didn’t look quite perfect or there was a harvest surplus, the pair began knocking on farm doors, collecting unloved produce and delivering boxes of fresh, nutritious and affordable kai under the moniker Wonky Box. Having spent the last three years diverting two million kilograms of food waste by supplying fruit and vegetables to households across the North Island, Wonky Box has recently expanded to service the South Island.

Despite the good work of companies like Wonky Box, thousands of tonnes of food continue to go to waste in Aotearoa while children are left hungry. The Salvation Army’s latest State of the Nation report reveals that the proportion of households with children reporting some level of food insecurity rose sharply in 2023, with more than one in five (21%) households with children aged under 15 reporting that “food runs out often or sometimes”. This percentage jumps up to 40% when looking specifically at Pacific households, 35% for households with disabled children and 31.5% for Māori households with children.

Social media has been trying to convince me for a while that the oat milk I prefer in my flat white is going to kill me (something about seed oils). I assumed big dairy was behind it, but it turns out it’s Gen Z. According to the Daily Telegraph UK, the last three months has seen a 2% rise in the sales of whole milk on the same period last year, and some commentators are crediting TikTok, where content producers are extolling the virtues of whole foods for a healthy gut microbiome and debunking the long-held myth that “full-fat” is a synonym for “unhealthy”. Of course, there are other, climate-related reasons to choose plant-based milks, but my advice is to choose what tastes best and makes you feel your best.

Since the start of the year, Spinoff readers have helped fund some of our most popular and important work. Whether you read, listen to or watch our mahi, you can support us to do more by donating today or signing up to become a Spinoff member.

Snack of the week

Vadilal Classic Cassatta Ice Cream $4.99 from Yogiji’s Food Mart, Mt Roskill: I had always thought cassata was a traditional Sicilian dessert, somewhat akin to tiramisu in the sense that it involved liquor-soaked sponge layered with something creamy, but more recognisable for the fact it always appeared covered in pale green marzipan and decorated lavishly with candied fruits and maraschino cherries. As it turns out, the origin of cassata is the subject of much debate across not only Italy but throughout the Arab world and on to India, where a version of cassata – “a crescent-shaped, three-layered ice cream placed on a soft sponge cake, with pistachios atop and tutti frutti (or candied fruit) spread across the slice” – was once a staple dessert at weddings. I didn’t know all of this when I selected this packet from the fridge at Yogiji’s, was merely enticed by the rainbow layers and felt $4.99 was a fair price for something so attractive and novel. While the packaging offered no description of the flavours, I hoped the green and pink layers might translate to pistachio and strawberry, and that the yellow might even be saffron. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The yellow ice cream was the only layer with any clearly discernible flavour, and oddly, that flavour was rose – but a fake-tasting rose, more plastic than flower. Meanwhile, the gorgeous fuchsia-hued centre tasted of nothing, just generically sweet, same with the green. The nuts, chocolate chips and sponge all provided textural interest but did little to elevate the ho-hum flavour of the dessert overall. While I can’t say I particularly enjoyed eating my Vadilal Classic Cassata Ice Cream, I really did appreciate the aesthetic, so for that I’ll give it a 4/10.

Mā te wā, 

Lucinda