5 days ago
15
Even if you have no truck with Blue Monday, Quitter’s Day or any of the other new-year wheezes concocted by enterprising marketeers, the last weeks of January can feel like a bit of a confused slog. Seasonal colds and lurgies abound. The weather is generally at its rain-lashed and blackly overcast worst. Well-intentioned attempts at self-improvement or abstemiousness are starting to creak in the face of a desire for whatever scraps of midwinter comfort we can find.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to food and, more specifically, the daily puzzle of how to have something nourishing as a working lunch. These can feel like lean days in more ways than one – characterised by tax payments or a painfully slow creep towards the first payday of 2026. And that’s only more apparent now that, after the remote working and pyjama-clad Zoom calls of the post-pandemic era, lots of us have returned to the office for at least the bulk of the week. Even as someone who effectively eats out for a living, there have been plenty of times when I have stood up from the desk of my chosen workspace (often one of the oversubscribed tables at the British Library) with no real plan and wandered aimlessly, only to end up forking out for some insipid sandwich, tepid heat-lamp soup or tray of indeterminate vegetable mulch that is both expensive and unsatisfying.
The answer, for a healthier bank balance and general disposition, is to come prepared and embrace the primped packed lunch. This, of course, is where gutsy, smartly constructed winter salads come into play. Not a dismal punishment tub of undressed baby spinach and slimy sweet potato chunks. But, rather, punchy, textural riots such as Nigel Slater’s smoked mackerel and bean affair, Georgia Levy’s loose method for cold soba noodles and shaved, crunchy veg cloaked in a tahini and sesame dressing, or Rosie Birkett’s celeriac, apple and lentil salad, brightened by lemony mayonnaise and an enlivening lick of dijon mustard.
Elsewhere, Rukmini Iyer’s chapati omelette rolls are a simple, hugely satisfying alternative to a sandwich, seemingly built for the age of healthful protein-maxxing. Bento boxes also often feature delectable, soy sauce-enriched folds of egg – and are like dopamine-boosting activity centres for adults. Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing’s approachable bento-building guide deftly simplifies what can feel like a fiddly process. Through a different cultural lens, Peter Gordon’s bacon, pea and shallot muffins make a similar case for hearty cooked items that are just as enjoyable at room temperature, having been entombed in a lunchbox for a few hours. Have access to a kettle? Well, you could do worse than construct Tamal Ray’s veg-filled, rainbow-hued riff on everyone’s favourite additive-stuffed hangover salve: the noodle pot.
These days, it is possible to have something hot for an office lunch without having to subject the rest of the kitchenette to the powerful scent of microwaved mulligatawny. Invest in an insulated flask, as I have, and you can slip off to a quiet spot for a private moment with something warming. Yotam Ottolenghi’s sour lentil soup, a version of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s chicken and winter veg broth rolled over from a Sunday roast, or a rice dish – Akwasi Brenya-Mensa’s plant-based dirty Cajun rice, maybe – that will retain its heat and hold your interest to the last, scraped spoonful.
The first month of 2026 is almost done, and it may well be that the promised equine momentum of the Year of the Horse is yet to fully materialise for you. All the more reason to make time for a lunch that soothes, coddles and surprises.
My week in food
Graphic gastronomy | A melding of food and literary graphic fiction is a combination basically lab-engineered for my particular cultural sensibilities. So one of my absolute favourite Christmas presents (from my very observant wife) was a copy of Cannon by Lee Lai: an acclaimed 2025 work about a female Chinese-Canadian chef grappling with identity, romance, friendships and an encroaching nervous breakdown amid the pressure-cooker heat of Montreal’s restaurant scene. Think The Bear meets Alison Bechdel and you’re on the right track. I savoured it, so I only finished it this week and can’t recommend it enough if you love food-service culture and inventive visual storytelling.
Drizzle kick | Speaking of mood-boosting festive gifts … another boon, within the frenetic December whirl of exchanged cards, hurriedly bought chocolates and regifted panettone boxes, was the beautiful, squat jar of Basra date syrup that Ellena, a thoughtful, Iranian-heritage neighbour, dropped at our door. What a revelation: subtle, complex and with a distinct, humming note of fruity, toffee sweetness. I’ve been trickling it over roasted carrots, spooning it on to yoghurt and basically whacking it on everything in sight. I’m very grateful and completely hooked.
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