As your schedule allows, devote time on the weekend or even a slower weekday to prep for lunch. That way you can spend most of your break time eating and not cooking. Photo / 123RF
As your schedule allows, devote time on the weekend or even a slower weekday to prep for lunch. That way you can spend most of your break time eating and not cooking. Photo / 123RF
The move to working from home for many people has upended a lot of routines. Lunch is one of them. You're probably not making a daily run to your favorite fast-casual, and your typical brown-bag might not even make as much sense as it used to.
For freelancers and others used to putting in days at the home office, it's more of the same.
We turned to one experienced veteran, cookbook author Jennifer Tyler Lee, for some advice.
Actually make time to eat.
"I think the schedule is your friend in your situation," Lee says. "If I don't keep myself on the schedule, I will just eat pretzels all day."
Sign up to our daily Covid-19 newsletter for essential advice and a full summary of the day's news and developments. Register or sign in here and select Top News Stories
Whether it's easier or harder to step away from your computer at home than at the office, do carve out time for lunch. Lee focuses on writing in the morning and calls in the afternoon, which leaves a natural break in the middle to eat. If you have kids at home, trying to keep some semblance of a schedule, at least when it comes to meals, is important, too.
As your schedule allows, devote time on the weekend or even a slower weekday to prep for lunch. That way you can spend most of your break time eating and not cooking, especially if work time bleeds into lunchtime.
"Stuff happens," Lee says. "You get a phone call at the last minute, or you get an email that you have to respond to right away." That's less of a crisis if you can move straight into eating.
Lee's staple for make-ahead lunch is Mason jar salads, which she usually assembles on the weekend. She also makes onigiri, or stuffed Japanese rice balls, as another grab-and-go option.
Lean on leftovers.
This goes hand-in-hand with make-ahead. "My kids and my family, in general, need the leftovers to be reworked into something else," Lee says.
So roast chicken will go into those salad jars or onigiri, or even on top of a very minimal pasta dish that can be quickly thrown together on the lunch break. I'm less picky about eating the same thing over and over again, and if you're the same, consider a healthful soup as a good option. Ditto egg or chicken salad to last you a few days.
Take care of yourself, but take it easy on yourself. "
I don't put too much pressure on myself for lunch," Lee says, who prefers to leave her more involved meals for dinner. "For me, it's just about making sure I eat a lunch."
She notes that is especially important right now, when we're counting on our immune systems to be strong. Still, not every day will be a home run, whether you cobble together a bunch of snacks or just work through lunch.
"There are going to be exceptions, and that's 100 per cent fine," she says. "You want to do your best, but don't beat yourself up if it's not perfect."
