Day 100: The Last Lunch

I am home sick from work today (sad face) and I haven't been to a grocery store since before my trip, so lunch today meant freezer food. My friend Shonnie very sweetly offered to bring me some chicken soup, but instead I pulled out pizza bagels. Microwaved pizza bagels are an awesome Friday lunch. I ate one earlier in the day and then left a couple others out to defrost, which left me with a challenge of figuring out how long they each needed to be zapped before they would be melty and soft without getting that overcooked feel. I ended up going with about 35 seconds on defrost and 45 seconds on cook. They were delicious.

Check back next week for a final wrap post!

Day 99: MEETUP and Special Announcement

On Thursday, I headed over to J2 with my coworker Jen to greet the rest of the MeetUp crew. Thanks to all of you who came out! It was fun to eat with all of you guys. I really love that J2 has the open buffet with so many awesome options. I had some mac and cheese, some baked ziti, really good roasted green beans, a small piece of fish, a little bit of Cesar salad, roasted cauliflower, and one perfect strawberry for dessert. I really need to learn how to take less food from these things. But everything tasted good and it made me wonder why I dont eat there more often.

At the meetup, I made a special announcement - Day 100 will be the last day of this blog.

Day 98: If you're tired, you take a Napa, you don't move to Napa!

Apparently wineries need special permits to have picnic tables or to allow food on the premises. Therefore, while waiting for our tour of the Robert Mondavi Winery, we hid in a corner of the parking lot and ate our sandwiches while sitting on the ground. My cheese and challah sandwich was deliciously melty from the hot sun of Napa Valley. I had two mini sandwiches (it was the end of the loaf of challah, so the slices were small). They were delicious and really filling. I could have used some cold water to go with it but there was none to be found. The challah did an excellent job of absorbing the wine from that morning's tasting at the Hagafen Winery. For dessert we had fresh grapes off the vines, almost ready to become a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Day 97: They Took All The Trees, Put ‘em in a Tree Museum…

On Tuesday, we spent the late morning and early afternoon hanging out with the Redwoods in Muir Woods. By the time we were done, I was starving. The plan was to eat lunch at the Point Reyes coast, which was our next destination, but I was so hungry that I decided to eat in the car. It's not so easy to make a tuna sandwich on mini bagels out of a bag of tuna while in motion, but I somehow managed. My sandwiches were good but I was still hungry afterwards and I had to scavenge for snacks.

NOTE: MEETUP THURSDAY LUNCH

Let's eat lunch together on Thursday, at 12:30 at Jerusalem 2 Pizza Marketplace on 37th and Broadway.

Day 96: Meat and a MEETUP

After a stunningly beautiful bike ride from Fisherman's Wharf up and over the Golden Gate Bridge with the sun blazing (note my very very sunburnt arms and face), we rode over to the Vista Point to get a view of the bay, the skyline and the bridge - and to find someplace where we could sit and eat. There were no picnic tables so we ducked undearneath a railing to sit on a little stone wall. Kids walked by and stared like we were in prison, sitting behind bars. I pulled out a package of freezer packed deli that I had been carrying around for 2 days (but refrigerated overnight) and made myself a sandwich of challah slices, pastrami, salami and ketchup. After the long bike ride and other days activities, I was starving and therefore I pretty much devoured the sandwich and tried not to think about whether the meat was spoiled or not. It may have tasted a little funky but it might have been in my head. After we ate, we finished the ride down into Sausalito, at which point I REALLY wanted ice cream but I did not have any.

REMINDER: MEETUP on Thursday at, lets say, 12:30. Place - Jerusalem 2 on Bdwy and 37th unless people have other suggestions / requests.

Day 95: Haight means Love and REMINDER: MEETUP on Thursday

I started lunch today with some Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream from the Ben and Jerrys scoop shop on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. The shops on this street are still 100% devoted to the hippie era that was birthed in this neighborhood, and B&Js is one of the only chain stores on the street. They are accepted in the community due to their Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, and Half Baked flavors and their happy cows. We walked with our ice cream through the Haight neighborhood to Golden Gate Park, SF's answer to Central Park. After wandering through the grounds and a Victorian flower garden, we sat on a grassy lawn and ate sandwiches. Once again, I went for a mini bagel with American cheese. It tasted delicious. I love Chocolate Fudge Brownie and melty bagel cheeses are pretty awesome so it was a pretty awesome lunch day. It was a good thing we ate a big lunch because when we were eating dinner on the ferry ride over to Alcatraz, a seagull ate my sister's sandwich.

Reminder: Meet Up on Thursday! More info to be posted soon!

Day 94: East Coast meets West Coast

On Saturday morning we checked out the local synagogue near our hotel in Nob Hill, SF. They were offering a lunch after services so we thought about staying to eat there. The meal was vegetarian and seemed to feature salads and perhaps a vege chulent. However, the table was only set for about 15 and there were a number of other visitors there, plus a couple of students and locals, so we decided to head back to our hotel where we had food we had bought in advance. We took the scenic route back and checked out some of the fanciest hotels in San Fran. When we got back, we enjoyed a meal of deli sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, and Israeli salad. We had brought the deli from NY but we ordered the rest of the food from Tel Aviv, the kosher market place in San Fran. We also ordered challah from them, and the challah was excellent. Different from the challah I normally eat in NY, but definitely doughy and soft and delicious. I used slices of the challah to make a sandwich with pastrami and salami. I added ketchup, but only on the salami side, not on the pastrami side. It was a very filling and delicious lunch.

Day 93: Sunny San Fran

Lunch on Friday was eaten outside, sitting on a small stone wall surrounding the parking lot in front of Coit tower, with views of the Bay Bridge behind me. I was carrying around some American cheese and some mini lenders bagels, so I combined the two into the kind of sandwich that I would only think to make if I was on the go. It was bright and sunny at that moment, and the sun felt great on my face as I ate the slightly smooshed and slightly melted cheese sandwich. It was the perfect mid- day meal as I explored San Francisco.

Day 92: Office Lunch and announcing a MEET UP!

A few of my coworkers and I sat and ate together in the little kitchen area on our floor today. I had brought in some leftovers that I needed to get rid of before my trip out west tonight. I ate leftover duck sauce chicken with sweet potato, leftover breaded chicken and leftover popcorn cauliflower. Joyce wanted to try the cauliflower but unfortunately got there after I ate it all. It was nice having a free home cooked meal for lunch! Shoutout to Rebecca G who made the yummy breaded chicken.

Note: I will be on vacation for the next week so may be posting irregularly.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: To celebrate some upcoming milestones of the blog, why don’t we all have lunch together? Let’s MEET UP on Day 99, Thursday Sept 10th for lunch in midtown. Details to come.

Day 91: New Restaurant Review!

I met up with my friends Emily and Tzip to check out the new NY Lunchbox on 36th street. They just opened this week, and the menu looks good so I was eager to try it. As I mentioned earlier, they have sandwich, sushi, soup, and salad options plus a hot buffet where you pay by the pound. I had to try the butternut squash sweet potato soup, so I ordered that, and then took some food from the buffet. I may have overdone it a bit and I ended up spending a little more than I would have liked, but I think that was my own fault at the buffet. The problem is that once you load up your plate and bring it over to be weighed, you aren’t going to go back and take off a spoonful of pasta if your plate was too heavy. You are kinda just stuck with it. So you really need to learn how to gauge the amounts. Anyway, my meal came with a free drink which was a nice bonus. There is a nice size seating area upstairs in the back and we had no trouble getting a nice sized table. The soup was absolutely delicious. It is more squashy tasting than sweet potato-y. The portion was huge. I couldn’t even finish it, combined with all my other food. I ate about half the soup, and then turned to my hot buffet food. I tried the penna ala vodka, which was OK but not amazing, and the fettuccine Alfredo (I think!) which was really really good. Definitely the better of the two pastas. I also tasted the sweet potato slices, which were also tasty, but nothing special. My last buffet item was the mushroom zucchini mini quiche. Emily really liked this and thought it had a lot of flavor. I thought it was OK. I prefer a cheesier quiche, but it was definitely not bad. I would definitely come back here, especially for the soup. The only problem is that they have a 25.00 minimum for delivery to my office, which means I won’t be ordering in from them once it gets too cold to walk over, which is too bad because its those days when that soup would really be perfect.

Day 90: Reader's Choice Take Three

Today's lunch choice was up to you, my loyal readers. The losing option, with under 25% of the votes, was the Chinese Lunch Special from Kosher Delight. Second place went to the Chicken Nuggets from Kosher Deluxe, with just over 25% of the vote. This choice was inspired by my friend Darren, who says the nuggets are delicious, but then did not vote in the poll. The winner, with over 50% of the votes, was the Meatball Sub, inspired by my friend and talented singer, Dov (his new album drops soon!). I wasnt sure where I could get a Kosher meatball sub in my area of midtown. I checked the online menus at Kosher Delight, Kosher Deluxe, Mendys and the Sub on Wheels truck. No meatballs subs. Mr. Broadway was out because they are still closed due to health violations. I used to see these subs on the Dougies menu, but they closed down. Two readers commented that they have eaten Meatball Subs at various Mendy's locations, so I called them up and asked if they could make me one. Even though it was not on their menu, they said they would do it for me! The sandwich was delivered to my office a short while later. It tasted pretty good. The meatballs definitely made me want spaghetti. I think I would prefer spaghetti and meatballs to a meatball sub, but the sandwich was pretty delicious. The meatballs were large and firm without being too big, too hard or too mooshy. And the sauce was tasty without being too tomato-y tasting. All in all, I would consider ordering this made it item again. Thanks Dov, for the inspiration for this new and yummy lunch!

POLL: What SHOULD Rebecca eat for lunch today?

What SHOULD Rebecca eat for lunch today?

• Chicken Nuggets from Kosher Deluxe
• Meatball Sub - not sure where to get it? Any ideas?
• Chinese Lunch Special from Kosher Delight

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Day 89: NEW: A Chickies Substitute in Midtown??

Many readers wrote in to tell me about a new place opening up on 39th street, just off of Broadway, called Schnitzel Glatt Kosher Express (thanks D, Sus, and TorahMike). It just opened last week, so today I went to check it out with my friend Emily. The menu is mostly different flavors of schnitzel, that come on baguettes or wraps (regular or whole wheat), or I think in salads. There are different sauces to go with the chicken, as well as vegetables. What I liked was that they also had different flavors of grilled chicken sandwiches, which makes for a somewhat healthier lunch option. I ordered a teriyaki grilled chicken with BBQ sauce on a whole wheat baguette with pickles and lettuce. Emily ordered the greek chicken in a whole wheat wrap with pesto sauce. They restaurant is small but has a few tables and we had no trouble getting a place to sit. We had to wait a few minutes for the food to be ready, but when it came the portion sizes were definitely substantial. From the first bite, I really liked the flavor of the chicken. It was clearly fresh and had just the right amount of sauce to give a good taste without being overpowering. The whole sandwich was really delicious. Emily enjoyed hers too. The restaurant is a bit far from my office, but they do deliver (call 212 997 7770), and I am eager to try some of the other options on the menu. Readers, if you have been - let me know what you had and if you liked it.

Heads up kids - tomorrow is a Reader's Choice Day on the blog! Check back in the AM to vote for what I should eat for lunch!

Day 88: Honey Do you Love Me? I Love You Honey But I Cant Elope!

If lunch is the meal in between breakfast and dinner, then on Sunday for lunch I had cantaloupe. We had already cut it into cubes the day before, and we stuck the leftovers in a little zip lock bag in the fridge. When I was looking for something to eat when I returned from the park before rushing out to a movie, it was the perfect grab and go “lunch”. The melon itself was not amazing. It was a bit harder than I prefer, and not so sweet. I guess melons aren’t really in season anymore, but we did have a terrific honeydew this weekend.

Day 87: BC 06 Lunch

I had a couple of college friends staying with me for the weekend, so I invited some of our other mutual friends to come over for lunch. We ate a delicious meal of breaded chicken, asparagus, popcorn cauliflower, sesame noodles, salad, and spinach kugel. I thought the sesame noodles that my friend Rebecca made were particularly delicious, though everything was really good. We ate Deena cake for dessert, along with chocolate peanut butter cookies that Michelle made, and some fruit. In the spirit of college, we spent a lot of time during lunch reading some textbooks that I had lying around. We also talked about the upcoming Komen Race For The Cure, in which many of us are participating in order to support breast cancer research, prevention and treatment. You can donate here (just search for the person you want to support). Lunch was a lot of fun and I am almost done washing dishes.

Day 86: Not even Tuna

My lunch plans for Friday got derailed by an extended meeting on Friday morning. I ended up eating breakfast at about noon, and then snacking for lunch instead of eating a real meal. I ate a couple of mini cinnamon raisin bagels that my roommate, Mor, had bought for her niece, and then given to me. Free food tastes awesome. :) I had planned on making mini tuna sandwiches, but it was just a weird food day so I never got around to it.

Day 85: Two More Kosher Lunch Options in Midtown Manhattan!

Exciting news on the NYC Kosher scene. My roommate, Tzip, tipped me off to a new lunch place called New York Lunchbox, on 36th between 7th and 8th. I went today, but they aren't open quite yet - it seems like the grand opening is in a week or two. It looks nice and the menu includes paninis, wraps, salads, sushi, a Hot Buffet (pay by the lb - includes pastas, fish, veges and a LunchBox Quiche - yum!!). They also list Creamy Butternut & Sweet Potato Soup as a DAILY option. I can't wait to try it! Since they weren't open yet, I walked a couple blocks north to the Vegetable Garden on 38th. The menu there is pretty much the same as all these other places - pizza, salads, sushi, wraps etc. I ordered a matzah ball soup and half of an egg salad wrap. The staff was VERY friendly and accommodating and made my wrap exactly like I wanted it (whole wheat, lettuce, cucumbers, pepper, no other veges). It was especially nice of them because they were stuck with the other half of my somewhat odd wrap, and had to hope someone would buy it. Maybe the staff eats those. I don't know. I went back to work and ate the soup first. It consisted of a clear liquid, with several cute looking mini matzah balls, and some tri-colored rigatoni pasta. The broth itself was pretty bland and sort of just tasted like pasta. Luckily I had salt and pepper packets at my desk to spice it up a bit. That made the soup much tastier. The matzah balls were OK but hard to cut into pieces with my plastic spoon. After I finished the soup, I ate my wrap. It tasted good and was very filling. I would definitely order a wrap from them again, but might skip the soup next time.

Have a tip about a new Kosher lunch place in Midtown Manhattan? Email me at rebeccalunch@gmail.com .

Day 84: Ask The Lunch Lady Two

Yesterday I received the following email:

Subject: I have a lunch related question
Message: Hey Rebecca, When you eat your tuna and crackers do you put anything on the tuna?Clearly I read your blog. Shoshana

Hey Shoshana,
Nope, I eat the tuna plain. If I happen to have a mayo packet around, I might use that, but I usually don't.
Rebecca the Lunch Lady

This brings me to today's lunch. One of my friends and loyal blog readers had a baby last week (Congrats Eli!), and since I was going to see her and her kids tonight, I ran over to Borders during lunch to buy some baby and kiddie gifts. I went back to my desk and turned to my trusty lunch-at-desk option: tuna and crackers. As is usual, I ate the tuna straight out of the can with no mayo, mustard or any other flavoring. It's not the most delicious thing in the world, but I don't mind it.

Day 83: Change is Bad

I met my friend Sol for lunch today and he was in the mood for dairy. We considered the mainstream local dairy options and decided to go to Rosas, on the basis of it being close to both of our offices, and it not being Circa, where I have been eating pretty frequently. The thing with Rosas is that a lot of there food looks good, but there is never anything I want to order. They have lots of specialty pizza slices which look kind of appealing and kind of odd. For example, today they had ceasar salad pizza. Anyway, they were advertising individual brick oven pizzas so I figured I could get a personal pie the way I like it, whole wheat, no veges with light sauce. When I asked the pizza man for it to be done that way, with regular mozarella and not fresh mozarella, he was not very pleased by my request. After the pizza was baked, he added fresh basil which is apparently standard for brick oven pizza. But I don't like basil so I started picking it off. The pizza man saw this, and in an unfriendly voice, asked me why I bothered to order his pizza if I wasn't going to eat it the way it was made. I told him that I had never asked for basil. He said that its just the way the pizza comes. I told him that at Circa, they make me pizza the way I like it. He said that if I liked Circa so much I should just eat there. I told him I would be sure to do so in the future. I took my pizza to my seat and ate it. The crust was thin and burnt and not doughy at all. The pizza had a weird flavor. I either don't like brick oven pizza or just don't like the attitude with which it was made, but I did not enjoy my lunch and I will be returning to my regular Circa routine.

Day 82: Happy and Sad

I had a serious pasta craving today which meant I would be calling Circa. I wanted to order my pasta on the website, but they still do not have all of the options that I need available online. Come on, Circa! So I called them up and asked for whole wheat pasta with vodka sauce. I sat and hungrily waited for the food to arrive. Finally the delivery guy came so I went down to meet him in the lobby. I brought the food upstairs to my desk. The bowl was full of delicious pasta. There were no tomato chunks this time, which was a good thing. As I finished the meal I felt an incredible sadness that my food was all gone.

Day 81: American Woman

When I woke up Sunday morning, everyone was lazying around the house and eating brunch. Alex was making himself a bagel, and it looked really good. This inspired me to make myself a bagel sandwich as well. I took a whole wheat bagel (as I had ordered from Deborah in the aforementioned google doc) and had Scott slice it open for me with his machete. (He had already sliced open one finger so I let him handle the giant knife.) I put three pieces of American cheese into the bagel, and then ate it. The American Cheese went well with the Independence and Perseverance flags that Mor and Sol had bought on Friday.

Day 80: Beans, Beans, They’re Good For Your Heart

I was woken midday on Saturday because people wanted to eat lunch. I joined my friends at the dining room table, with a beautiful view of the lake beyond the screened-in porch (thanks AJ!). Scott had baked delicious challah in a few varieties. I liked the kind that tasted like a cinnamon bun the best. He also made whole wheat challah with a jar of honey dumped in, and French bread challah. We then had Deborah’s Shabbos Salad, (lettuce, cucumbers, pepper, pickles, tomatoes, Hearts of Palm, craisins, and croutons) which was delicious as always. We also ate a really good chulent. Somehow, multiple people ended up buying the ingredients that we needed for the chulent, so it all got thrown in together for a random but tasty mix. There were some ingredients that no one could remember buying, so our apologies to whoever’s rooomates bag of chulent stuff we accidentally stole. Shlomo was really upset that the chulent had beans but it all tasted good in the end. We had fruit for dessert, and while we wanted Lisa’s famous pineapple drinks, we could not find the missing Pineapple Juice.

Day 79: BYOFL

I was headed out to the Poconos for the weekend, and in all of our trip planning, spreadsheeting and google doc-ing we had decided that we were going to do BYOFL – Bring Your Own Friday Lunch. My car stopped in Teaneck to pick up Chickies for dinner (YUM!) so I went down the block to Poppies to get a bagel. I ordered an egg and cheese on a whole wheat bagel for me, cream cheese on whole wheat for Mor, and a tuna melt for Sol. Mor and I both really enjoyed our lunches. Egg and cheese sandwiches are one of the best things ever invented. Especially when you eat them when they are hot and melty. Sol’s sandwich ended up thrown into the backseat of the car, where it landed upside down and all over the place so he couldn’t eat it.

Day 78: Grease on Wheels

I had a chance to go back over to my Kosher Street Food stand, Sub on Wheels. The special day was chulent and kishke (doesn’t get more Jewish cuisine-y than that), but I passed and ordered a Philly steak sandwich with lettuce and pickles, no tomatoes. A few minutes and eight dollars later, I was headed back to my office with a piping hot sandwich. I was definitely hungry at this point. At my desk, I opened up the wrapping to find meat and veges overflowing out of the bread. It was definitely a packed sandwich. And I pretty much inhaled it. It tasted OK but wasn’t amazing. The bread was soft this time, but it was soaked in grease from the meat. The whole thing was really oily. The meat was good but not super flavorful. This place seems to serve up your really basic, heimish greasemeat but I’m not sure I’ll be returning all that frequently.

Day 77: Bag o' Pasta

Joyce, Clare and I popped over to a handbag sample sale during lunch today. My friend Abie used to work at the handbag company so he gave me the scoop on the sale. (It's still going on, in case anyone is interested). We browsed for a bit but ultimately did not buy anything. We passed Circa on the way back so I stopped in to pick up lunch. I ordered the whole wheat penne ala vodka. The sauce had chunks of tomatoes in it for the first time. I don't like tomatoes so I did not appreciate this addition and had to eat around them. Otherwise, the pasta was really tasty and filling. I think that I would be remiss to mention Abie and Circa in the same post and not direct my readers to this fabulous clip wherein Abie sings a medley about his love for pizza, Circa broccoli soup and Sabrina the Teenage Witch : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Day 76: Circa-tastic

I headed over to Circa today to pick up some lunch. When I walked in, one of the managers let me know that they had a vegetable noodle soup, and to warn me that it was very spicy. It was too hot out to eat soup as my meal, so I only asked for a taste. It was pretty good. I definitely tasted the black pepper but it had a nice flavor. I noticed that they were serving the Cantaloupe soup again, but now they are calling it Chilled Cantaloupe soup. Coincidence??? I think not. I ordered a whole wheat pizza with light sauce, to go. While waiting, I chatted with the manager about adding certain options to their website and about their new menu design. When my pizza was ready, I took it out to Greeley Square where I ate and enjoyed. During lunch, I also signed up for the Komen Race for the Cure, to support breast cancer research.

Day 75: Game Plan

When you know you are going to have a delicious and large dinner, it makes sense to lay low lunch time. My friend Avi's wedding was tonight, so I wanted to save room for what would surely be awesome food. I stuck to a small ice cream sandwich and some cherries for lunch. I also snacked on some cheerios. It was filling enough and the cherries were pretty good, considering that it's pretty late in the season. Side note: the wedding did not disappoint. It was definitely the right way to play the day.

Day 74: Bagelicious

After leaving the JCorps event at an Upper West Side old age home, I started walking South to pick up something to eat. I headed over to Bagels and Co, where, surprisingly, I did not see anyone I know. I picked up a whole wheat bagel with lettuce and tuna and took it to go. I then headed towards Central Park, stopping in at the Museum of National History to say hi to my parents, who were there for a tour. I continued on to the Sheep Meadow lawn where I met up with my friend Clare and some of her other friends. There, I sat in the heat, under a big leafy tree, and ate my bagel. I like Bagels and Co because the bagels are large and doughy and they always include a lot of tuna. They are my bagel place of choice on the Upper West Side. Lunch gave me energy for an afternoon of frisbee, badminton, football and One Up One Down.

Day 73:Oscar Meyer Weiner

My friend Elie invited me to join him for lunch at his friend Rachel's. Rachel is new to the neighborhood and is a welcome addition because she cooked up a pretty awesome lunch for us and some other friends including Arielle, Josh and Marc. I had challah and dips, salad, cous-cous salad, brocoli kugel, squash kugel, chicken, and chulent. I particularly enjoyed the squash kugel which I have not had in a while. I brought dessert - chocolate rugelach, mixed berry sorbet, and strawberries (there were also grapes). We spent a lot of time talking about funny names. Rachel and Arielle told us about patients who name their babies heaven (heaven backwards) and lotion. I told everyone how my brother wants all of my siblings to name our babies after awards shows, like Emmy, Tony Grammy, and Oscar. Elie said that we should get married so we could have a baby Oscar Meyer Weiner. I declined.

Day 72: TGIF

Fridays are good bring lunch from home days, or as I told someone earlier, “good bring home from lunch days”. (I think I need to be getting more sleep.) Everything on Friday just seems to have more urgency. If you don’t get things done today, you either ruin your weekend or you’re stuck until Monday. So lunch needs to be efficient. I had to run out on an errand during lunch today, so I brought my trusty and ever efficient crackers and tuna for lunch. I don’t know which flavor of the crackers they were, but they were very tasty. I did a really good job controlling my cracker:tuna proportions today, so I finished off the can and the 2 packs of crackers in the same bite. This has been a very successful lunch day.

Day 71: Soup of the Day

I need to start with a couple of disclaimers. 1 - I rarely like new foods the first time I try them. 2 - I don't really like cold soups. With that said - I decided to order soup from Circa for lunch when I noticed that Thursday's specials included both my favorite soup - sweet potato - and the one I've been curious to try - cantaloupe. Circa's manager had graciously offered to let me try the cantaloupe soup for free so I called them up and ordered them both. The first thing I noticed when the delivery came was that half the bag was half hot and half cold. I should have guessed that the cantaloupe soup would be a chilled soup, but it hadn't occurred to me, and this already made me nervous. First I ate the sweet potato soup, while it was nice and hot. It wasn't the best Circa's ever made, but it was pretty good. The bread dipped inside is particularly delicious. I then opened up the Cantaloupe soup. It was a thick, chunky soup, with some sort of green leafy spice floating around. I cautiously took a spoonful and ate it. It basically tasted like smooshed cantaloupe with a weird spicy afterkick. I did not particularly enjoy that taste. I think my initial reaction was "ew". But, I gave some to one of my coworkers, Kiefer, and she thought it was OK though she did not particularly want to keep eating it. So maybe it's just me, but I think that regular cantaloupe is really good and I would much prefer to eat the melon straight up than the soup.

Day 70: Egg-xactly

Today was the end of the reign of mom-made lunches. I took some crackers, and used them to polish off the leftover egg salad. Egg salad is one of those foods that seems really simple to make but is actually very easy to mess up. My roommate and I have had many adventures trying to make hard boiled eggs and ending up with eggs that aren’t cooked through, or that have egg shell stuck on them, or have some other weird variation that renders them unusable. Anyway, my mother’s egg salad somehow always comes out correctly, and it made for a perfect mid-day lunch break before Tzip, Deb and I took a trip on the lazy river.

Day 69: Ketchup Packets

Today's lunch was another day of mom-cooked goodness. I brought some leftover breaded chicken cutlets to work. I wouldn't call it schnitzel since it was baked and not fried, but otherwise it's the same idea. Good stuff. I like to add some ketchup to my chicken, and for that reason I have some ketchup packets in my desk drawer. I keep packets at work and in my bag for condiment emergencies. For example, 2 weeks ago my sister and I were flying home from Greensboro on a no food flight. That would not have been an issue for the 1 hr 45 min flight, except that we ended up sitting at 3 different airports (surprise stop in Allentown, PA!) and circling over DC for a total of 6 hours. Luckily, we had some plain pasta with us, and a collection of soy sauce, duck sauce and mayo packets. And a plastic cup and 2 popsicle sticks. OK, so in that case the packets didn't really get us anywhere. Anyway, the chicken was really good. If anyone else wants to make fun of my mom's cooking, you can do it in the comments below.

Day 68: Filter Fish

Visiting my parents over the weekend always means one thing: free leftovers. We had tons of food in the house and my mom packed me up with a goodie bag before I returned to the city. Today, I brought some gefilte fish to work. It was already sliced and cut into quarters because that is how my mother served it on Saturday. I really like gefilte fish - it is one of my favorite traditional Jewish foods. I know that it's considered to be a weird food by a lot of people. I once saw someone forced to eat gefilte fish as a challenge on a reality TV show, along with other cultural delicacies like cow stomach. Then again, my friend Joyce told me that there is a similar fried fish ball dish in the Chinese culture, so I guess its not only a Jewish thing. After the fish I ate strawberries and watermelon (leftover from yesterday's BBQ).

Day 67: Rain Rain Go Away

I spent most of midday on Sunday refreshing weather.com on my computer so I did not end up eating until later in the afternoon. Luckily, the thunderstorms that were originally predicted to go on all day did not end up starting until late in the evening, so we were able to trek over to the park with 200 hotdogs, 200 burgers and more corn salad than I have ever seen in my entire life. 36 cans may have been overkill. There is nothing like a good burger fresh off the grill, and I enjoyed a couple of those (and a hotdog too) at the community BBQ. I think I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner's worth.

Day 66: Grandma's Chicken Salad

I spent the begining of this weekend at my parent's house on Long Island with my parents, aunt and uncle, sister, and brother (he has a blog too and its much funnier than this one) . The whole family was home because we were commemorating the deaths of two of my grandparents. This, of course, meant a lot of food. We had some close family friends over for what my mother called "not lunch". This included challah bread, gefilte fish, egg salad, BBQ chicken wings, sliced turkey, chicken cutlets, chulent, potato kugel, pumpkin kugel, cranberry crunch, angel hair pasta, and five different salads. My favorite salad was the terra chip / vege salad so I ate a lot of that, along with lots of chulent and chicken. We also had cake and jello for dessert and even though I was stuffed, there's always room for jello. The food was delicious (good job Mom).

Day 65: Flying Saucers

Today for lunch, I ate an ice cream sandwich. Chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookies on either side. We always called these Flying Saucers growing up, but some of my friends recently informed me that they have no idea what those are. I think Carvel called the ice cream sandwiches Flying Saucers and I always just assumed that it was a general term. I have really fond memories of going to our local Carvel ice cream store after Little League softball games, and ordering a cup of chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. We would sit outside on these little benches with crushed sprinkles under our feet. Carvel ice cream always had such an awesome swirl. The ice cream I ate today was some super healthy brand so it was probably fake ice cream and fake cookies. It wasn't that good or filling at all and now I am still hungry.

Day 64: I heart NY

Today, I fell in love with NYC. I took a day off from work and decided to go for a bike ride. I rented a bike near my apartment and rode over to the West Side Highway. I figured I would ride South until I got tired (or bored) and then take the subway back uptown to my apartment. Riding right on the river, I had an unabridged view of the Jersey skyline as I passed through beautiful parks and sports fields in Riverside park. I rode past my alma matter, Barnard, past Fairway, past some dog parks. I watched two helicopters take off no more than 20 feet away from me at the VIP heliport in the 30s. I saw lots of really interesting architecture and installation art. The ride had a constant change of scenery and feel, and showed off NYC in a way I have never seen it before. Before I knew it, I was in the financial district, and I was lost and hungry. I called my friend Shlomo B, who works in the area, to find out where I can get some food and the subway. He told me about Cafe 11, a small sushi and sandwich shop in his office building. So I headed over there and Shlomo watched my bike while I went inside to get some food. I ran into basically everyone I know who works downtown, including an old friend from HS, Yehudah, and our friend Josh R. Yehudah and Josh joined me for lunch in the small park across the street from the office building, right by Battery Park. I ate a whole wheat tuna fish wrap. It was pretty good and a very nice size considering a not super high price. We ate and hung out for a bit before I said goodbye to the boys, got back on my bike, and biked back up the 12ish miles to my apartment. The song that was stuck in my head the whole ride was the ever catchy Push It To The Limit.

Day 63: Funny Man

I met my friend Ari for lunch today at Mr. Broadway. Ari is the founder of an organization I am involved in called JCorps, which runs volunteer events for young professionals in NYC and other cities around the world. It has been a while since we touched base, so we wanted to catch up on everything going on with the organization. We both ordered sandwiches (his was Corned Beef and Chopped liver on Rye, mine was Pastrami on whole wheat). I also munched on the half sour pickles. Mr. Broadway always has really good pickles! Ari is a comedian but nothing funny happened during lunch today.

Day 62: Some People

Some people are really good omelette makers. Some people can flip omelettes from one side to the other in a smooth even motion, with no splatter. Some people can add foods like cheese to their omelette without it sticking to the bottom of the pan. I am not one of those people. My half egg half egg white omelette with orange american cheese was kind of a mess. Luckily, the execution of the omelette has no baring on its taste. Cheese omelettes are pretty good. I hope to have another one soon.

Day 61: Another New-ish Option for Kosher Lunch in Midtown!

I was really in the mood for something meat or chicken-y today. Often I order in when I want non-dairy, but since it is so hot and sunny out (what a change) I wanted to take advantage and actually get outside for lunch. So I made plans to meet my friend Emily for our weekly lunch date that doesn't always happen. We decided to check out Baguette Express, a relatively new sandwich place on 37th between 5th and 6th. The place is a tiny hole in the wall with no seating. You walk in and there is a counter in front of you with a brief and basic menu hanging above it. They do sandwiches. That's it. You pick your meat (or schnitzel or falafel), you pick your bread (looked like baguettes, whole wheat baguettes, and pita), you pick some salad toppings (of the Israeli variety - including grilled eggplant, fried onions, Israeli salad, olives, Israeli pickles etc) and some sauces / dressings, and then you take your sandwich and go. Emily ordered falafel in a pita. I had schnitzel on a whole wheat baguette (like that makes it healthy) with hummus, pickles, fried onions and BBQ sauce. We took our lunches out to Broadway and sat on the benches on the new pedestrian walkway. My sandwich was tasty. The BBQ sauce added a particularly good flavor. Of course, this was no Chickies, but for a local lunchtime chicken sandwich, pretty good. I would go back.

Day 60: No Lunch

Today I only ate breakfast and dinner. There is just no way around that. I technically ate breakfast after most people eat lunch, but all I ate were some dry cheerios out of a zip lock bag while sitting in the backseat of my friend Deborah's car. I just can't call that lunch, or even brunch. And then I did not eat again until we had Chickies for dinner. (I LOVE Chickies. It had been way too long). So, no lunch today. Sorry.

Day 59: Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

I spent the early part of the weekend at my friend Devorah's apartment on the Upper West Side. We had a chilled out lunch there with our friends Lisa and Sarah. In addition to the customary wine (Jeunesse, one of my current favorites) and challah (traditional Jewish bread, this time from Zaydies) to start the meal, we ate chicken, roasted cauliflower and roasted squash. Everything was very tasty - props to the chefs. Devorah was very proud that I ate the squash, because I am usually averse to trying new food, and she has prepared it in a way that I had never eaten it before. But it looked good, so I tasted it, and it was. Later, we used the leftover squash to concoct fruit fly traps. These surprisingly provide hours of entertainment and I recommend that you try one yourself some day.

Day 58: Shorty Got Low

Today, I had a low key lunch of chunk light tuna (from a mini flip top can) and crackers (wheat flavored). I still can’t get the tuna:cracker ratio correct so I ended up needing a pack and a half of crackers again. Shrug. Not the biggest deal in the world to eat a couple of crackers by themselves without the tuna. I ran out of the office on a quick errand (to pick up this week’s People magazine with the Saved By The Bell reunion on the cover, for one thing) and stopped by one of the fruit carts to check out the selection. Prices seemed really high, so instead of paying 2.99 / lb for cherries, I decided to eat the orange I brought with me from home. I listened to my youtube random music playlist as I ate.

Day 57: Fast Day

In observance of Tisha B'Av, the Jewish Day of Mourning, I did not eat lunch today. Funny how fast days can move so slowly . . . This evening, later into the fast, I watched The Wave, an early 80s movie about a teacher who recreates a Nazi like regime in his High School history class as a social experiment. This movie is a classic Trigger Film, and they used to show it to us in High School and in sleep-away camp all the time to prompt group conversations on topics such as group dynamics and peer pressure, or on weightier subjects such as the Holocaust. I found it to be as thought provoking now as I did back then, and spent some time googling the story to see how much of it was true (it's unclear). You can watch the 45 minute film here. After the movie, I was still hungry and waiting for the fast to end. My father always says that his father always said that it's better to eat ten days than fast one day. Ponder that.

Day 56: Lunchtime Lying

I knew I needed a substantial lunch today, so I ordered a personal pizza from Circa. I went downstairs to the lobby of my building to pick it up from the delivery guy, and on my way back upstairs I ran into a very nice, friendly, more senior colleague in the elevator. He asked me where I ordered my pizza from, because he himself had picked up slices of pizza for lunch. I commented that I preferred personal pies during the day, because to me those are more lunch appropriate, whereas I equate slices with dinner. I knew as I was saying it, that this was a complete and utter lie. I totally made it up. I've noticed that when I am in the middle of a semi-awkward conversation with someone I know but don't have much to say to, I will often end up fabricating stories. And then, just like it happened today, I walk away wondering what on earth I had been talking about. A professor I know just wrote a book on lying and he discovered that "new acquaintances will lie to each other about three times in the course of a ten minute conversation". My personal experiences definitely corroborate that. Regardless, my pizza was really good, and very filling. It was slightly more toasty than usual and that was a nice change of pace.

Day 55: Cartoon Review, circa 2009

I went to Circa today for the last of my Tuesday lunches with Steinberg (who just started his own blog!). I was greeted warmly by the management there and we chatted for a bit about their various offerings. They told me that the new Circa will be opening on Sept 1st with a salad bar, pizza bar, pasta bar, sandwiches etc, so those of you who work downtown should look out for that in the Fall. Circa had a split pea soup today, so I tasted it. It was pretty good, but I decided that it was too hot out for a soup lunch. Steinberg and I both opted for pastas – I got the whole wheat penne ala vodka from the Make-Your-Own-Pasta bar, and Steinberg ordered the penne-al-fredo with tomato sauce from the Entrées, which came with his choice of side dish (mashed potatoes in this case). We also split a side order of roasted sweet potatoes and butternut squash. I noticed that while Steinberg’s pasta had the benefit of coming with a side dish, my plate seemed more overflowingly full. And my order was cheaper. So if you really like variety, the entrée pasta with a side is a good choice, but if you can handle only straight up pasta with no add-ons, the pasta bar is a better value. The roasted veges were very tasty. I preferred the sweet potato but Steinberg liked the squash better. I think the potato was a bit sweeter (figures), but ‘berg thought that the squash had a little “somethin’-somethin’ ”. He always likes that little somethin’-somethin’.

Day 54: Ask the Lunch Lady: Lunch at the Bar Exam?

My lunch today consisted of tuna fish, crackers and an orange. I would like to now turn to a new feature: Ask the Lunch Lady. Earlier today, I received the following email:

Subject: LUNCH EMERGENCY

Dear Rebecca, I am taking the bar exam tomorrow (and Wednesday and Friday) and just don't know what to do for lunch (gasp!). Should I bring lunch and stuff it into the 1 gallon clear plastic bag they let you bring into the exam? Should I risk running out to J-2? What if it’s too hot, too cold or too rainy? Should I order in? How will they ever find me amongst the thousands of people taking the bar? I'm taking the bar in the Javits Center (~37th St. and 11th Ave). I am in quite a pickle, and so I turn to the expert. What would YOU do? - Ezra

Dear Ezra, First of all, good luck to you and all my other friends taking the bar this week. We can’t wait for your gchat statuses to be about something else. If it was me, I would bring lunch from home. J2 is far, and even if anyone will deliver to you, it can take up to an hour for food to arrive during the lunch rush, and you might miss your chance to eat. You do not want this extra stress in the middle of the exam. Supposedly there is kosher food in the Javits center – the website names “Eden Caterers for kosher dishes”, but I can’t vouch for its actual existence, Kosher standards or (dairy) food selection. I suggest bringing some sliced bread and tuna packets or cheese, or a small sandwich. You can fit a granola bar in that bag too. Good luck this week- my roommate will be there too! – Rebecca

Have a question about lunch? Email rebeccalunch@gmail.com and you might be featured in a future column!

Day 53: Farmer's Market

Fresh, local grown Southern produce looks and tastes a lot better than the so called "produce" at Keyfood in Washington Heights. Everything at the Farmers Market was brightly colored and huge and perfectly shaped. We saw bright purple egg plants, tiny watermelons, huge green zucchini and perfectly round cherry tomatoes. I tasted white and yellow peaches, black berries and blue berries. Everything was really sweet and delicious. Sara also tasted apricots and tomatoes. My grandfather bought a bunch of tomatoes to make tomato sauce. We went home to eat a much more mundane meal of macaroni and cheese. Sara and my grandfather had some raspberry vanilla Dove ice cream that comes with a chocolate bar inside. I ate some small chips of the chocolate bar, but not the ice cream because I do not like Vanilla ice cream.

Day 52: North Carolina feels just like New York

Even though I ate this meal immediately after I woke up, we're going to call it lunch. On Thursday, I had ordered some deli from Mendy's, and they delivered it to my office. I brought 1 lb of salami, 1/2 lb of corned beef and 1/3 lb of pastrami with me to North Carolina. To eat for one meal. For three people. One of whom is my sister Sara, the fake-atarian. (She only eats salami and hot dogs). So if anyone wants to come to Greensboro for some leftovers . . . We also ate potato salad, cole slaw, salad, potato kugel. For dessert we had mini Black and White cookies. My grandfather loves these and can't really find them here, so we always bring some down when we come to visit.

Day 51: Cucumber Tuna Rolls

My grandfather, sister and I sat down in the sun drenched kitchen in my grandfather's North Carolina home to enjoy almost-matching sandwiches of tuna fish and cucumber slices on challah rolls. I personally opted for chunk light tuna and whole wheat, while Sara and Grandpa went for white tuna on regular bread. My grandfather has lots of little bags of Utz potato chips that he is given with his sandwich at the local Italian sub restaurant he frequents, so we each took a bag of chips to accompany our sandwich. I put my chips rights inside the tuna, but the wetness added by the cucumbers did not go so well with the crunch added by the chips. Next time I would probably skip the cucumbers, or eat them on the side. We fed the extra tuna to the cats. For dessert we compared the cherries I brought from NY to the ones my grandfather had bought locally. The Carolina version were a bit sweeter and more tart.

Day 50: Reader's Choice, Take Four

My readers had a definite opinion today, and 42% of you chose the Penne A La Vodka from Circa (beating out A Circa wrap / sandwich from Penn Station, Circa Pizza, and tuna with crackers). It’s a classic, a perennial favorite – I can see why it would win. I went to the Circa website to check if I could order it online (I couldn’t) and I noticed the return of the Sweet Potato Soup to the menu. This left me with a moral dilemma - do I get the soup which was once a favorite, or do I honor the promise I made to my readers to let them decide. I opted for both (that was easy). I called in my order and then waited an HOUR for it to arrive. I went for the soup first, because it’s obviously best hot. I was really curious to see if it would live up to its old standards or whether it would be more of the kugel batter gloop. I am happy to report that the soup was delicious! It has returned to its former glory and I can once again anoint it as my best lunch option ever. The bread that comes with it can be dipped in the soup as a great combination. Afterwards, I ate the pasta, and it was OK, but its taste paled in comparison to that of the soup. The sauce also seemed a little more oily than it usually is, but overall, a great dish. I hope Circa is paying attention.

Day 49: There's a Bear! Where? Over there!

During my lunch break I ran out of the office on a quick errand. Upon exiting my building, I immediately noticed a giant bear running around the MSG plaza. In a blink of an eye, it was gone. I thought I might be hallucinating but then I found a man in a bear costume standing behind a pillar, gnawing on it with big plastic teeth. I continued on my way. Upon my return, I went to my desk and retrieved a small flip-top can of chunk light tuna from my purse. I was en route to the kitchen to drain the tuna when I realized I was still wearing my flip flops from my outing. This is not appropriate office attire. I decided to risk it and walked to the kitchen and back without seeing anyone important. At my desk, I opened a package of wheat flavored crackers and started scooping out the tuna with the crackers. I finished the first pack (about 5 - 6 crackers) but still had ¼ of the can of tuna left. So I had to open a second pack, even though I only needed about 2 more crackers, and then of course I ate the rest of the crackers anyway.

Day 48: Lunch Special

I met my friends Deborah and Steinberg for a late lunch today. We met up at Kosher Delight. KD has lunch specials so Deb and I both ordered the burgers, fries and drink special. You basically get the drink for free, which doesn't really save me money because I never buy drinks at lunch, but I guess a free bottle of water is never a bad thing. Steinberg insisted on getting a double burger and onion rings, and he paid about twice as much as we did. He says its OK because he only eats out for lunch once a week and other days he just eats cheese. We sat down to eat, and Deborah informed us that a woman had just taken out and rinsed her teeth in the public sink. We ate anyway. I dumped lots of ketchup and BBQ sauce packets on my burger. It tasted exactly as expected - greasy and delicious. The fries were a bit less crunchy than I like them, but I stole one of Steinberg's onion rings (he owes me from the watermelon incident) and those were really good. The food overall was very good, but we all left a little bit hungry. Back at the office, I ate many many cherries and this kept me full enough through the rest of the day and an Ultimate Frisbee game in the rain before I ate dinner.

Day 47: Kosher Street Food in Midtown!

I had heard about a Kosher sandwich truck in midtown and was excited by the prospect of Chickies like sandwiches in my neighborhood. So I walked over to 9th Avenue where the Sub on Wheels truck is parked between 32nd and 33rd. There it was, an actual food truck, with a Glatt Kosher Certification from a Rabbi in Monsey who my friend Ariela says is legit. Their menu consists of all different kinds of sandwiches, including Philly steak, deli, and chicken as well as salads, hot dogs, and soups. They were advertising their daily special which was soup and half a schnitzel sandwich for $5.00. FIVE DOLLARS! I couldn’t pass that up so I ordered it with Zucchini soup. I walked over to the Post Office on 8th and sat on the steps to eat (very Gossip Girl, I know). The soup was thick and creamy with chunks of zucchini in it. It was very good. The sandwich itself was a little disappointing – I guess I was expecting some kind of sauce, but it was just a piece of schnitzel on a club roll, with some veges. The chicken was a bit dry but edible. And I was very full after the soup and sandwich. I am eager to go back and try some of the other options.

Day 46: 'Ello Gov'na

By the time I arrived at Governor’s Island, I was already pretty hungry due to a rigorous round of Ultimate Frisbee in the park in the morning. I was delighted by the selection of snacks that were collectively brought by the other birthday celebrators who had gathered in honor of our friend Aliza. I mostly munched on honey twist pretzels, cherries, and twizzlers. Eating cherries while lying on a grassy lawn and looking at an unbelievable view of the Statue of Liberty is a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. While not the most substantial of lunches, this filled me up and I was energized for a challenging round of croquet and for other park fun. In the late afternoon, I did have another snack of cheerios and Honey Mustard and Onion pretzels before meeting some other friends and attempting to roller skate.

Day 45: Chulent

Shabbat (Saturday) lunch was another pot luck meal with about 10 friends. Lisa and Deb made yummy chicken and asparagus, which Avi Z spilled all over the floor, and Shlomo spilled all over his pants (the pre-meal l’chaims may have contributed to that). Scott made turkey ravioli which was new and different, and pretty tasty. I made a pumpkin kupiegel, which is a kugel in a pie crust. The graham crust really adds to the sweet pumpkin flavor. I picked the croutons and avocado out of Becca’s salad. I also ate sesame noodles, deli roll, and cauliflower. For dessert, in honor of Sho’s birthday we had Deena Cake , which was De-licious. I wanted some watermelon but there was only one small piece left, and when I asked Steinberg to pass it to me, he ate it. There was no chulent.

Day 44: Disappointing News

In a disappointing turn of events, by the time I got around to ordering lunch today, my Kosher lunch choices had already stopped delivering. At least on Seamless Web. Which was really the point, because I had a $5.00 off coupon that expires tomorrow. What a waste. Anyway, the winning choice in the poll was the Hot Pastrami Sandwich from Kosher Deluxe. I am not sure why, but maybe it's because all of the other choices were from Kosher Delight, and people might prefer Kosher Deluxe to Kosher Delight in general. Although, there were more votes overall for Delight than Deluxe. And in the first poll the Kosher Delight choice won. Maybe the Chinese options split the vote. Who knows. Anyway instead I am eating a bag of BBQ flavored soy crisps for lunch, clearly inspired by Lisa. I also bought an orange but I have not eaten it yet. Only time will tell.

Day 43: Local Flavor

A last minute change in lunch plans meant a trip to Mendy’s with my coworkers, Marisa, Joyce and Clare. Therefore, the poll is still open and will decide my lunch for tomorrow instead. Joyce and I both tried the shwarma in a pita. I had them add chips into mine, in addition to Israeli salad, hummus, and tehhina. The shwarma itself was chicken, which I don’t think is usual for shwarma. It had a weird flavor which Joyce thought might be curry. It wasn’t the best shwarma I’ve ever had but it was really filling. We also ordered some latkes (potato pancakes) for the table, because, who doesn’t like a good latke in July? On our way back to the office, we saw our favorite cross dressing man with his dog in his stroller. We haven’t seen him in over a year, but he’s a favorite local character since he always dyes both his own hair and that of his dog. We couldn’t get a picture but I found an old one online. My facebook friends can also see a rendering of him on my graffiti wall.

Day 42: Hungry? Why Wait?

I had a late start today and therefore ate a late breakfast and also a late lunch. I ordered a whole wheat penne ala vodka from Circa, which is another dish that you need to order over the phone. Why isn't the vodka sauce option on the website? It's annoying. When I went down to the lobby of my building to pick up the food, I noticed a giant plastic cube on top of the overhang in front of my office and Madison Square Garden. Inside the cube, there were people sitting and hanging out on couches. The cube had signs for Snickers bars and apparently was kicking off some Feeding American charity collaboration. But was this supposed to cause viewers like me to buy a Snickers bar? I didn't. I wonder about the effectiveness of these stunt marketing campaigns. They bother me because there seems to be no way to measure your ROI. Maybe the point was just to get media and blogger coverage, in which case, I guess it worked. The pasta was good.

Stay tuned for Thursday's Reader's Choice edition! The poll will be on the top right hand side of the page.

Day 41: Kosher Switch-up In Penn Station

My first attempt at lunch was unsuccessful. I had a meeting to run to, and not much time, so I went downstairs to the basement that is Penn Station to pick up a Yummy Sandwich, hoping for a good ceasar grilled chicken wrap. When I got to Primo Cappucino, I noticed that all of the kosher sandwiches were fish or cheese based, and none had any chicken. Upon further inspection, I realized that they were not Yummy Sandwiches at all – they were Circa sandwiches! They had several different tuna and vege wraps, and assorted cheesy looking sandwiches. I am generally a big fan of Circa, but nothing looked appealing to me. And 8 dollars for a tuna fish wrap seems kinda insane. So I went back to my office, went to my meeting for an hour, and then ordered in from Circa. The website listed a cantaloupe soup, which I would have tasted if I was at the restaurant, but I thought was too risky of an order without a taste test. I decided to get a pizza, since I was hungry and cranky and two of my computers had crashed and almost died in the last 2 days. For some reason, there is no whole wheat pizza option on the Circa website. I had to call my order in and request a whole wheat pizza, light sauce. It came pretty quickly, and seemed to be a bit bigger than the one I ordered last week, so maybe that smaller one was a fluke. It was extra cheesy and as always, deliciously satisfying.

Day 40: New Kosher Restaurant Alert!

After making several requests, the manager of Circa assured me that my favorite Circa soup, Sweet Potato, would be on the menu today. I eagerly checked the website this morning – and there it was! I made plans to meet my friend Emily to sit outside in Herald Square after I picked up my soup. I went to Circa and when the manager saw me, he came over to join me at the soup section. The man behind the counter poured us each a sample so we could taste it. Circa got a new soup chef from some fancy restaurant, so the recipes are different. The manager and I agreed that while the soup was tasty, it had a bit of a kick from the pepper and could use a bit of extra seasoning. The manager had them add extra cinnamon to my soup before giving me my order. He also called over one of the owners of Circa, who told me that he has read my blog (and is happy that I eat at Circa more than I eat at Rosas). He also told me that Circa is opening up a new downtown location at 111 Fulton Street (near Dutch ST)! He said that it will be smaller but have almost the same selection as they have at the Circa in midtown. Big news for all of my readers downtown! I then went to meet Emily and eat my long awaited soup. It wasn’t bad, but it really is not as good as the old sweet potato soup. This one was thinner and more gloopy. And by the time I got to the bottom, it had settled a bit. At the end, Emily compared the consistency to slime. To me, it felt like eating raw kugel batter. I recommend eating it quickly while it is still hot and looser, and tastier.

Day 39: I'm On A Boat

About 6 miles down the Lehigh river, our trusty guides directed us to paddle our rafts over to the side bank. This might have been tricky for others, but with Scott the navigator at the rear of our boat, and Priscilla the fish floating behind us, we were able to safely maneuver over to the side. We were then informed that there was a rattle snake on the shore, so we quickly paddled a little further down the river before we docked our boat, Floaty. We joined our co-white water rafters, Team Flippy Floppies, for a lunch stop in the woods. My stomach was grumbling so I dug into my two tuna sandwiches on whole wheat mini challah rolls (always bring two sandwiches!), and the cherries I brought as a snack. The fruit had gotten a little smooshed in our sealed waterproof bucket full of food, but the sweet treat was a good energy booster as we set off to continue to navigate the (not so) wild rapids of the river.

Priscilla

Day 38: All Girls Plus One

My friend Emily hosted a Shabbat lunch today. There were about 8 - 10 of us there, and it was a classic All Girls Meal Plus One - as in, only one guy at the meal. As said guy is known to remark, when one guy is eating alone with many girls, one of two things will happen. Either, the girls focus all their attention on the one guy and ask him lots of questions, or, the girls forget that there is a guy in the room and speak freely. Either way, the guy learns a lot. I would say that his assessment was correct in this case. I ate delicious chicken cutlets with BBQ sauce and onions, asparagus salad, rice with craisins and mushrooms (I made that), chulent, and some other good stuff. For dessert I had fruit and an incredible chocolate streudel cake, made by another friend. It was rich and chocolately and deliciously amazing. My props to our own resident Ace of Cakes.

Day 37: Pizza Shenanigans

The day after the fast is all about eating the foods you couldn't eat the day before. That means that lunch today was pizza. I ordered a whole wheat pizza with light sauce from Circa and had it delivered to my office. The pizza came in a new box with an ad for Dasani water on it that says "The water that makes your mouth water". Doesn't that kind of sound like the water won't quench your thirst and that drinking water will just make your mouth water for more water? This would actually be a smart gimmick for water companies to increase sales, (kind of like adding nicotine) but it doesn't seem like a smart way to advertise. The pizza itself, inside the Dasani ad box, was tasty. But the personal pies from Circa seem smaller than they used to be. Has anyone else noticed this (or am I just going crazy from thinking about lunch too much)? I was still full at the end of the meal, but I felt a little cheated. Also, the slices were cut very unevenly, so that some took 4 bites to eat and others took closer to 10. I do not approve of such inequity.

Photo Credits: Marisa C

Day 36: Cravings

Today is a Day of Mourning on the Jewish calendar and therefore I am abstaining from food. This means that I am very hungry. During my lunch break, I distracted myself by doing some quick shopping. It is really convenient that my office is right next to so many stores, so I can very easily run over to Old Navy or H&M. But shopping did not make me any less hungry. And when I walked back to my office I smelled the sweet aroma of fresh baked pizza wafting down 33rd street. And now all I can think about is pizza. Bubbling hot cheesy delicious pizza.

Day 35: Dairy Debate

It finally stopped raining in NYC so I have been venturing out of the office for lunch more often. Today I met my favorite Early Childhood Educator (and my roommate), Mor, for lunch. We first walked over to Circa to check out the soup selection. Still no sighting of my favorite soup. I decided to talk to the manager about this, and he assured me that they would serve my soup of choice on Monday. We'll see . . . He also had me taste the eggplant soup which was not terrible but I think it was tomato based and I don't usually go for tomato-y foods. Mor and I then went to Rosas to check out the menu over there. The selection was not bad but we decided to go back to Circa, where we split a whole wheat personal pizza (her half with veges, mine with light sauce). The pizza was particularly awesome today. Good job, Circa. I also ate a side order of roasted sweet potato. I wondered if this counts as a vegetable side dish. Potatos are somewhat gender ambiguous like that. Google research confirms that sweet potatoes are in fact members of the vegetable food group.

Day 34: Something for Everyone

Today I had lunch with my cartoonist friend, Steinberg. (Check out my new Steinberg original cartoon in the blog header!) We went to check out the recently improved J2. J2 used to be a standard pizza store but is now billing itself as a "Gourmet Marketplace". In addition to the regular pizza / salad options, they now have fresh fruit in the front and a buffet- like set up in the back, where you can take different dishes and then pay by the pound. This is awesome for indecisive people like me or commitment phobic people like Steinberg (just kidding). It is also great because it lets you pick exactly what you want to eat. For example, they had mixed roasted vegetables, which I usually avoid since I don't like roasted peppers or eggplant. In this situation though, I was able to pick out JUST the squash and zucchini and eat only that. I also was able to take the cheesiest part of the baked ziti, the exact size of grilled fish fillet that I wanted, exactly 3 pieces of cauliflower tempura, a scoop of grilled sweet potato and one perfect looking strawberry. This came out to about 1.2 lbs. Everything was really good, in a somewhat greasy cafeteria style food kind of way, but it was waaay too much food. Not that I didn't eat it all. Hours later, I am still stuffed. I will definitely be back.

Day 33: This does not count as lunch

After a late return last night, I found myself working from home with no food in my apartment. I tried to improvise on lunch by eating an extended breakfast of cheerios throughout the day. This was only somewhat satisfying. I supplemented this with some cherries, which always make me happy. Happy, but not full. Luckily, I knew that my friend Scott would be bringing a Chickies sandwich for me to Volleyball, so I would have an awesome dinner. This knowledge got me through the day. Side note: apparently I was only allowed to eat 'ch' foods today.

Day 32: Lunch with a View

Gondola rides and cave crawls are fun, and watching a 20-something year old man squeeze through a tiny cave hole as if he was being birthed backwards is always entertaining, but they don't quite work up the same appetite as a full on hike does. So even though I brought two sandwiches up to the top of Loon Mountain, when we sat on the platform of the amphitheater and ate lunch overlooking the view, I only ate one sandwich. When faced with the choice between tuna and American Cheese, I had to go for the smooshy deliciousness of the cheese sandwich. I should eat these all the time. Back at the bottom of the mountain, after experimenting with a trampoline and conquering my fear of a rock climbing wall (does making it to the top before you freak out mean you are no longer scared?) we devoured an entire red juicy watermelon for dessert.

Day 31: Freedom and Liberty

Our July 4th lunch table was festively adorned with our trip mascots, Freedom and Liberty. My fellow Americans and fellow vacationers, Mor, Lisa, Tsufit, Shlomo, Sol, Yair, Steinberg and I sat down to a festive traditional Shabbat meal. I ate breaded chicken cutlets, cous-sous with vegetables, sweet potato strips, grilled veges, chulent (traditional Jewish stew made with potatoes, meat, barley, onions and an array of spices), and potato kugel (which I mixed into the chulent - this is an amazing combination). I made Vodka Twerps for dessert but they were gross. Don't try it at home. The meltaway chocolate crumb cake, cantaloupe and malibu pineapples made for much tastier after-lunch treats. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing games and reading magazines that sound edible but arent.

Day 30: Lunch on a mountaintop

Lunch never tastes as good as it does when you eat it after climbing 2500 feet to the top of a mountain, especially the day after a rainfall that left a set of challenges including mud pits, slippery rocks, and waterfalls on the trail. I was instructed by Shlomo, one of my hiking mates and frequent commenters, that I HAD to bring two sandwiches on the hike. So when we got to the top I started in on my chunk light tuna and whole wheat bagel sandwich. I had an unexpected treat when I discovered mayo in the cafeteria at the mountain top. However, I added too much mayo to the tuna which was a little bit unfortunate. Overly mayoed tuna is pretty gross. But when eating in a cloud at 4300 feet, anything tastes good. Next, I ate my second sandwich which was three slices of American cheese on whole wheat sliced bread. This sandwich was particularly delicious because it was perfectly smooshed from being in my backpack all day. I finished off lunch with some Hershey Kisses, which are great energy boosters when hiking.

Day 29: Reader's Choice, Take Two

Yesterday I asked you, my readers, to vote on what I should eat for lunch today. The poll ended when I ate dinner last night, because I ate the losing choice. Over 30 people voted and the victorious choice for lunch today, winning by a slim margin of only ONE vote, was . . .corned beef! This beat out the breaded dark meat chicken, which I ate and very much enjoyed last night with a side of carrot kugel (traditional Jewish side dish). Thanks Mom. Anyway, for lunch I ate home-made sweet corned beef, which was probably braised in some sort of sauce, and brown rice on the side. The meat was tender and tangy without being overbearing. The brown rice served as a nice balance to the meat. The only thing missing was a vegetable. Shrug.

Feel free to leave suggestions of Independence Day themed lunches for this weekend, but I will likely ignore them as I am going to be out of town and only blogging sporadically until next week. Until then, Happy 4th and lunch out.

Day 28: Heaven on Earth

A trip to Jersey last night left me with a most delicious lunch for today – a Chickies sandwich. Few loves can rival the love between me and my sandwich. Today I had half of an Ian Beatbox sandwich with Kumbaslow sauce and pickles. I requested whole wheat bread, but I think they accidentally gave me regular. Chickies, you are forgiven. There is just something about the honey bbq sauce on the batter fried chicken and the garlic mayo sauce on top (these descriptions may not be accurate; I am not really sure exactly what I am eating) – it is amazing incredible scrumptious-ness. I’m not going to lie, it’s not the easiest on my stomach. It’s a pretty heavy lunch. But that means it is also filling, and since it looks like between a volleyball game and a moving away karaoke party tonight I won’t be eating dinner until at least 10, this sandwich has a long way to travel. I trust that Chickies is up to the challenge.

Tomorrow is Reader’s Choice Day! Vote now (on the poll on the right side of the screen) for what I should eat for lunch tomorrow! Deadline is 10PM(ish) tonight when I will eat the losing choice for dinner.

Day 27: Does soup count as a meal?

Today I went out to eat with a few coworkers. They asked me to choose the restaurant, since I needed a Kosher locale. I always feel a lot of pressure in this situation, because I am spending other people’s money and forcing them to eat certain foods (and NOT eat certain foods). So I try and choose a nice enough restaurant with modest enough prices to keep everyone happy on both counts. Today, I opted for Mendys. The Seinfeld angle (NOT the soup Nazi) gives this place a bit more stature than your typical no-name Kosher restaurant. In that honor, I ordered a soup and half-a-sandwich. I chose the chicken noodle soup (no matzah ball) and pastrami on rye. The soup wasn’t bad, but I wish I had requested no carrots. Why does everyone put so many carrots in chicken soup? I much prefer zucchini, parsnip and other veges. My pastrami sandwich was really good – the pastrami was soft and delicious. I also had a half sour pickle to finish off the meal. Overall, I thought it was pretty good, but what really matters is what my non-Kosher lunch eaters thought . . .

Day 26: Picnic Lunch

We had a celebratory meeting at around lunchtime today in honor of my coworker Marisa being awesome. Afterwards, I went down to the basement with my coworker Jen to look for sandwiches in Penn Station. Upon checking out the Yummy selection, I had two choices – Caesar chicken wrap, or something called a Picnic chicken wrap (is that a real thing?). After a major fumble where I clumsily dropped the wraps and they slid back into the display case, I opted for the new and unknown – the Picnic chicken. The wrap consisted of little chicken pieces in a lemony sauce with onions and seasoning, with cabbage lettuce in a tomato paste flour tortilla wrap. After the first bite, I noticed right away that the chicken was very wet. And not in the good, moist, ‘this chicken is not dry’ kinda way. The wrap itself was not wet, but the chicken was almost soggy. And the flavor was mostly bland. The bites with onion were a bit tastier. Overall, I was not a fan of this wrap, but at least it was filling so I was not still hungry afterwards.

Day 25: Some More Summer Fun in the Sun

Another beach day with Deb, Lisa and Tam brought us back to the beach house for lunch at about 1:30, pretty hungry. We cut up some watermelon for the group and made bagel sandwiches. I had a cinnamon raisin bagel with chunk light tuna, no mayo. I noticed that I was the only one who did not toast my bagel before eating it. I prefer my bagels soft and not crispy – is this uncommon? My friends thought that tuna fish and cinnamon raisin was an odd combination in general, but I like the mix of flavors. After we ate our bagels, we took some fruit pops out to the beach for dessert. I had a kiwi-watermelon flavored pop, which I thought was pretty good, but Tamara thought tasted like medicine. She preferred the orange cream and lemon flavors.

Day 24: Summer Fun in the Sun

I spent this past weekend at my friend Deborah’s beach house on Long Island. On Saturday, we (me, Deb, Lisa, Tzip, Becca, Dee, Tam) came inside in between beach lounging to eat some lunch. It was basically a make your own sandwich / salad kind of affair. I opted for turkey pastrami on a whole wheat roll, with ketchup, BBQ potato chips, and some of the nacho chips leftover from the previous night’s dinner from Carlos and Gabby’s. (Named after the characters from Desperate Housewives? We’re not sure.) Later in the day, when Neil the lifeguard kicked us off the beach due to lightning storms over the ocean, we retreated to the porch for a late dessert of watermelon, mixed berries, and pineapple juice.

Day 23: A Tribute

Emily L. and several others readers requested that I blog about Michael Jackson today. However, as I told them, I only blog about lunch. I considered eating black and white cookies for lunch today in MJ's honor, but decided against that plan. The truth is, I don't really understand why people care so much about MJ's death, and I feel bad for Farrah Fawcett and even worse for all of the regular, daily lunch eating people who died yesterday without getting any midnight vigils outside the Virgin Records in Time Square. So this post is dedicated to anyone whose death yesterday was NOT covered on tmz.com. I was sitting on a conference call at 12:30 today when hunger pains struck. This was a tough situation, because I needed to call Circa to place my order of whole wheat pasta with vodka sauce, because for some reason, this make-your-own-pasta sauce option is not on the circa website. I decided to put the conference call on mute, and call Circa from my cell phone while listening to the call with my other ear, crossing my fingers that no one would ask me any questions while I was on both phones. Luckily, the ordering process went smoothly. When my pasta came (after the delivery guy went to the wrong building), it was a little less saucy then I prefer for this dish, and the noodles were very limp and overcooked. The portion was nice sized though, so when I was done I was pretty full. Full, but not satisfied.

Day 22: Readers' Choice, Take One

Today I let my readers decide what I would be eating for lunch. There was a clear preference (over 50% of the votes) for the “Chicken soup and a burger from KD” option. Second place went to Tasti Delite, with Yummy Sandwiches and Circa Soup tying for least favored option. Thanks to those who voted! I went on to seamlessweb.com to order the KD lunch and discovered that the Dougies BBQ in midtown has closed! All of my saved favorite orders from there are grayed out and pathetic looking on my screen. Sadness. They made really good sweet potato chips. Anyway, I always order my burger exactly the way I want it (yes pickles, no tomatoes, ketchup on the side) but I usually order my soup without any special instructions. I decided to get more specific this time, so I asked for lots of chicken and noodles and wrote that I do not like carrots. The delivery from KD arrived in about 20 minutes which was really impressive (good job KD!). I was eager to see how they had prepared my soup, and shockingly, there were NO carrots, a nice amount of noodles, and seemingly an entire chicken in the container. The big chicken chunks were hard to eat with a plastic spoon, but I appreciated that they had listened to my preferences. Despite this, the soup itself was kind of bland. I dumped in some of the accompanying Chow Mein noodles which added some much needed saltiness to the soup, and then found it fairly decent tasting. It was also really filling due to all the extra chicken inside. I then turned to my burger (yes pickles, no tomatoes, ketchup on the side), put the ketchup on the burger (2 packets, on top), ate and enjoyed. Now I am stuffed. Good choice, readers.

Day 21: Even MORE famous lunch!

Today I went to Tasti Delite for lunch with my friend Emily. I tasted three flavors and rejected Tasti Musketeers (something with chocolate in it but vanilla based) and Chocolate Pudding (a lighter chocolate, with Caramel – thanks to Isabelle at the Tasti counter for explaining that to me!) before settling on Dutch Chocolate (a darker, richer chocolate). I am a big fan of the Dutch Chocolate flavor. Emily and I sat and ate our lunches outside in Herald Square, where they recently closed off traffic to create a pedestrian space. We were enjoying a lovely conversation until it started to rain and we each ran back to our respective offices. While waiting in the lobby, I spotted Dina from the Real Housewives of New Jersey (with her friend Paige, from the first episode)! We took the same elevator upstairs and discussed how some people don’t understand that the show is a warped perception of reality. Apparently she has gotten a lot of nasty not-fan mail! For more information on my lunch time celebrity sighting, email me at RebeccaLunch@gmail.com. Feel free to leave your own (lunchtime) celeb sighting stories in the comments!

Readers, check back tomorrow for a special Reader’s Choice Edition: What SHOULD Rebecca eat for lunch today?

Day 20: Famous Lunches

Today I ate lunch with a bunch of coworkers (JNel, AJ, Pat, K-Fed, Yianni) in the office cafeteria. Since I needed a Kosher food option, I went to Primo Cappucino to look at the Yummy Sandwich selection. The first Primo location’s options were only OK, but at the second one I found a chicken Caesar salad wrap, with croutons and Caesar dressing. I bought it and went back up to my office to join my friends. The wrap was really good, with a solid proportion of chicken to croutons to dressing. I would definitely buy it again. My coworkers and I spent most of lunch discussing how the plastic in our water bottles is going to create messed up babies, and how many hours you would need to be stranded on an island before you ate another person (or, for some, non-Kosher food). We also talked about this class at Parsons called Internet Famous, where students are graded on how large of an internet presence they build up over the semester. Find out how internet famous you are here: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Celebrity_Meter .

Day 19: Hungry Eyes

I like to eat lunch as late as possible in the day, because I usually eat a late dinner and I don’t want to get too hungry in between meals. My rule is that I can’t eat lunch before noon, and I usually try to eat closer to 1 PM or later. Today, I found myself counting the minutes until twelve. I woke up very early this morning (4 AM!) in order to catch a flight back to NY in time for work, so I have been awake for about an extra 4 hours today, which I would guess greatly impacted my hunger level. I scarfed down a tuna fish sandwich (Bumblebee albacore tuna packet and Zaidies whole wheat challah roll) at twelve noon on the dot. It tasted alright, but I was still hungry afterwards, making for a very hungry afternoon. (Note: Word Spellcheck is saying that ‘scarfed’ is not a word. Urbandictionary says otherwise. I hold by urbandictionary - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scarf ).

Day 18: Canadia

Sunday was an informal lunch day. I was on the road en route to Ottawa for most of the morning. By lunchtime we had reached the city but we were still driving around, somewhat lost but enjoying the sites. (For those of you who are Canada ignorant like I am, Ottawa is actually a beautiful city.) We were on a tight schedule, since we needed to prepare for the wedding we were attending that afternoon, so we didn’t stop for lunch. Instead I munched on a roll, my mom’s homemade blondies, and Mediterranean flavored terra chips. I really like terra chips, especially the sweet potato ones. My sister yelled at me for picking all of those out of the bag. Lunch was good but I didn’t fill up because I knew I had a delicious wedding smorgasbord later in the day.

Day 17: Pot-Luck Birthday

Today I attended a pot-luck Birthday lunch celebration for my friend Daniella. It was hosted by a friend of hers, Lauren, in her apartment on the Upper West Side. I ate pretzel crusted chicken, meatballs and cous-cous with mushrooms, popcorn cauliflower, and rice with craisins and mushrooms. My contribution was the rice. People usually seem to like it but I think I added too many craisins - it was not my best effort. The rest of the food was delicious. I am generally a big fan of meatballs so I particularly enjoyed those. The pretzel crusted chicken was also a nice addition. The crushed pretzels create a really interesting texture and crunch that is fun to eat. For dessert I had chocolate rugelach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugelach), which taste particularly delicious when wearing a pointy birthday hat.

Note

Please note that I am going out of town this weekend, and may not be able to post again until Monday. My apologies to my daily readers.

Day 16: Keyfood

Since I am out of the office on another Summer Friday (gotta love 'em!), I wandered over to my local grocery store to see what I should eat for lunch. I was really not in a cooking mood so I was looking for something low key and simple. This led me right to the freezer section, where I picked up a box of pizza bagels. A perfect Friday-at-home lunch. Unlike most people, I do not make these in the oven; I prefer to microwave them. I zap them one at a time so that I am always eating a fresh hot steaming cheesy pizza bagel. I ate some today, and stuck some in the freezer for a treat at another time.

Day 15: Yummy Discovery

Another rainy day had me looking for a no travel option for lunch. I decided to check out the sandwiches in my “basement” aka Penn Station. There are usually a random assortment of kosher tuna /egg salad type “Roux” brand sandwiches in the Primo Cappucino stores. When I looked today I could not find ANY Roux sandwiches! A woman working in the store asked me if I needed help and I told her that I was looking for a kosher sandwich. She directed me to their brand new kosher offering – Yummy Sandwiches! This is exciting because of the nostalgia factor (we ate these in college) but also because Yummy Sandwiches are in fact, yummy. There were not too many options so I decided to try the Black Pepper Crusted Turkey Sandwich with Lemon Caper Aioli. This was a pretty big decision for me, because I am very wary of trying new foods, especially ones with names that I don’t understand. I had a lot of trouble getting the container open but once I got past that, the sandwich was very good. I don’t really love pepper crusted turkey; I can do without the spicy kick at the end of each piece. I also removed the roasted pepper from the sandwich. But overall, the sandwich tasted fresh, the turkey was not dry, and whatever aioli is added a nice flavor.

Day 14: Can you please show me ID for that order?

I had plans to eat lunch today with my coworker, Clare. She wanted to check out Rosa's because they have a lot of avocado items on the menu and she is a big avocado fan. We went right in the middle of the lunch rush and the place was packed. I ordered the Penne ala Vodka (I figured it was OK to carbo load since I had a volleyball game after work). The sauce was light but tasted good. It was a thinner sauce that Circa's vodka sauce. It also came with half a loaf of bread which was light and fluffy. I left the meal very full and satisfied.