Lunch

Boy do I have a treat for you. Let's say you have an opportunity to have an extended lunch one day, and you really want to give it a go.

Try this:

Get some of that wheat multi-grain sandwich bread from the local grocer, and pop two slices into the toaster. Key timing issue here: while bread is toasting, immediately prepare 1 large cup full of pg tips tea. While the teamaker gets to work, reach into the fridge and grab your deli-cut choice of meat and cheese. This time I went with Sante Fe Turkey (sliced thin of course) with fairly thickly sliced Baby Swiss. The Baby Swiss s a young, semi-soft whole milk cheese distinguishable by its myriad of small holes. The cheese is closely related to Swiss cheese, but has a very mild taste, with a buttery aroma. You likely will have forgotten about your toasting bread by now, so when it surprisingly pops up, it will be just a hair more toasted than you would have liked, which is actually a good thing for this delicate meal. Compile your sandwich, topping it with a few thin rings of fresh onion and a thin strip or two of spicy brown deli mustard (optional suggestion: try to throw the mustard on the cheese side, for a nice pairing of flavors). Be sure to cut the sandwich corner to corner with a sharp knife.

Grab your favorite french onion dip and slap a spoonful or two onto some ruffles (healthy alternative: try the baked lays ruffles, and trust me, they didn't take out the flavor, these chips are delicious). Grab a pickle or two and throw it on the plate to really fill out your meal. By now, the pg tips tea is coming around. The next step is probably the most critical of the entire preparation. Grab a decent sized coffee mug, and first, fill it about a quarter full of skim milk, then quickly pour the pg tips on the milk. You won't need to stir it at all, and the addition of the tea to the milk, and not the other way around, really activates the taste. Pretty soon, you'll be able to tell the quality of the tea, just from the color. Your lunch is nearly set. If your wife knows that you occasionally have a sweet tooth and leaves a couple starburst by the table, grab a few to really set your meal off.

Now onto the eating. Start with a half of a pickle, to cleanse that pallet, then dig right into the first half of your sandwich. You'll be surprised to note that the french onion dip on your plate is still chilled. Mix it up with a few slurps of your pg tips, and maybe even take another pickle break, before diving in to finish off the sandwich. Now that your plate is clean, you might have thought ahead enough to brew two cups of tea, so you can enjoy a few moments with a second cup. This serves as a good time to plan out the rest of your day, prioritize a few things you need to get done, and even think about what you might cook for dinner. Then it's back to work.