live fast, love hard, die young...

I can't be the only person in the world to embrace the concept of a "headline sandwich", right?

Hmm.  Perhaps I'd better explain.

I generally make a pack lunch to take to work.  It's not that it's all that much cheaper than what's on offer at work - where we have an extensive selection of reasonably priced sandwiches as well as a good variety of hot cooked meals - it's just that I like the simplicity and the flexibility of choosing what I eat.  This way, if I see some home cooked ham on the bone at the Farmer's market, I can buy it and know that I've got a use for it.  Or if I see a delicious 2 year aged Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, I can go for that too.  Or even if I just fancy a bog standard tuna mayo.  It's all good.

Every day, I take into work the following foods:

• two small-sized rolls filled each filled with something interesting 
• a bag of crisps.  I'm currently going through a multi-grain phase, although I do think that the tagline they have of "tiny moments of extraordinary pleasure" is pushing it a bit
• a pot filled with three chopped carrots, three chopped sticks of celery and a handful of cherry tomatoes.  If I'm feeling really crazy, I might chop up a red pepper too, although I almost never do that.
• a banana and an orange or whatever other fruit we might have lying about the house (I'm all about my five a day).  Today I had a pineapple!
• I do drink caffeinated coffee though.  Lots of caffeinated coffee.  I'm not that clean living.

Once or twice a week, I'll also treat myself to a cup of bovril to wash it all down.  Otherwise it's just a big glass of water.  That's just how I roll: livin' in the moment.

The chopped vegetables are mainly there to act as a distraction tactic to stop me eating my rolls much before noon.  Once the clock hits twelve, unless I'm out running (Tuesdays and Fridays), all bets are off and those sandwiches are history.  Not that I'm a creature of habit or anything.

Anyway.  The headline sandwich.  As I reach for the tupperware container holding my rolls, I usually have a very clear picture in mind which of the two I'm going to eat first: it's almost always the one that I find the more interesting of the two; the one that I've been most looking forward to eating since I made it at breakfast time.  That's the headliner.  Today, for instance, was a choice between the thick-sliced farmer's market ham with sloe chutney or the buttered turkey breast with a grind of pepper, some mustardy mayonnaise and a chopped tomato.  The ham was always going to win that one... but yesterday it lost out to the vintage gruyere, sliced chorizo and chili jam roll.... you can never really tell until the day.

You all do this too, right?

Right.

Ah.  I'll get my coat.

Just imagine: this is what I look forward to every morning at work.  The hours just fly by in my office, I tell you....