“mish mosh.”
kale and millet tossed in flax oil, lemon juice, and sea salt; topped by bell pepper, portobello mushroom, heirloom tomato, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, avocado, sundried tomatoes, tarragon pesto.
As someone to whom aesthetics mean an awful lot, I am not exactly the neatest person. Mentally, I am an organizational machine. Outwardly, I like to think I look put together. But.
I carry a bottomless pit of a purse, a well of crumpled receipts and pens I thought I lost long ago. Making my bed is a task I have found arduous since pre-adolescence: I do it, and yet, I find it immensely irritating to pretty up a mattress that will only be disturbed the next time I lay eyes on it. My clothes tend to spend an equal amount of time on their wire hangers as they do slung across my bedroom chair. [This is the chair that perhaps you know: the one that seemed a nice complement to your room's decor but serves no actual function, and as a result, it becomes an extension of your closet.]
Then there’s lunch. Though I prefer to view food in a mindful manner, somehow lunch tends to miss out. Typically, my midday meal is a haphazard tupperware affair.
It’s rather formulaic, a predictable blend of my favorite leafy greens [kale has my heart], a grain, a legume, a nut or a seed, a medley of vegetables, and plenty of [always homemade] dressing. I treat the tupperware to fun garnishes, like avocado and hummus and pesto, depending on what is on hand. I pack it into a container three sizes too small for the amount of food involved, and then I play the squishing game, forcing the cover to close.
Thrown together as it always is, lunch can seem quite the mess. It is eaten at my desk, computer screen in front, notepad to one side, papers full of numbers and words to the other. The meal may be disorderly, but its components are simple. In this setting, that is all I really need.
Like my cluttered dressers and messy bed, I don’t mind the lunch mess. The disarray satisfies my hunger. It is whole and real and healthy. It is colorful, which makes me smile. It always leaves me content, and it saves me a heck of a lot of money.
Messes and mish moshes always have their place. I’m looking forward to the one waiting for me today.
Related posts:
My lunches are usually messy, hodgepodge affairs. And that’s quite alright, given how ceremonious I make each dinner (when I can)! Your meal looks like heaven, so who cares how messy it is.
my lunches are also usually quite messy– but i make them messy into my own organized appeal… so rather than thinking of them as a ‘hodgepodge mess’, I see unique organization ;)
[...] on a plate. There are plenty of occasions on which I simply eat out of tupperware: my typical mess of a lunch, for instance, or the pumpkin muesli I am currently eating for breakfast, which I threw in a [...]