Bento #108: Random Junk from the Fridge

Citizens, this is a weird one.  Our fridge was full of random stuffs, and We had not been shopping in a while, so here is a Very Strange Lunch.

The left tier has kind of a deconstructed California roll: sushi-seasoned brown rice, fake krab sticks leftover from something else, and avocado.  The right tier has greek yogurt, frozen blueberries, and plums.

This is not Our best lunch, citizens.  We admit to a certain lack of planning and forethought.  Fruit salad doesn't really go with fallen-apart sushi.  This is also not the most nutritionally sound lunch either, somehow.  Something is off.  We are somewhat shamed.

Bento #105: Shamewich

Here you see a veggie burger on shame bread, with ketchup, deli mustard, and, if We recall correctly, smoked cheese. Holy crap, that's a lot of processed food! Not a single unprocessed ingredient in there. Yikes. Check it out:

Backing up the shamewich is an apple, celery, and dried apricots. At least the fruit and veg is unprocessed.

We know, We know, that eating lots and lots of processed foods is bad for Us. But dang, those veggie burgers are hella tasty.

Bento #101: Burger Time!

For this post, today We have a delicious burger-based lunch!  Along with the burger, which We will detail shortly, We have the eternal apple and carrots.  The water in Our bottle is cloudy because We have a shameful weakness for the Propel packets of powder that you chuck in a bottle and thus produce sports drink.  However, We put them in a full liter of water instead of the ridiculous 16 oz. they recommend.  That would produce a hideous thick syrup. 

Every now and then, We get a craving for a burger.  However, do We want actual animal product?  Clearly not!  So what is it We are missing?  The device, naturally!  So here is a stunt meat burger--We believe it's one of the Amy's ones, but We are not certain--on shame bread.  Underneath the burger is a nice thin layer of Rhinegeld, one of Our favorite grainy mustards.  On top is cheese that failed to melt, ketchup, and sweet pickled daikon radish.

Now wait a minute, you may say.  Sweet pickled daikon?  Isn't that stuff stinky and thus bad for burgerdom? Yes, dear citizen, it surely is stinky.  And it is also delicious, with a nice bitter/sour/sweet edge that, strangely enough, is perfect against ketchup.  As you will no doubt remember, there is a vast and abiding love of pickled items in the Sneaky Kingdom.  Frankly, if you soak anything in either salt or vinegar or both, We will probably eat it with joy.  And so We do indeed make many of Our own pickles, because honestly, the store thinks the only thing that can be pickled is cucumber.  Fools!

Bento #100: In Which King Asher Did Not Plan An Awesome Celebratory Lunch

Here is TMT with green onion, carrots as a nice little barrier, Irish soda bread, and an apple.

The soda bread is indeed homemade, but We think it is an error.  We made it because We wanted bread, stat! but did not want to have to knead or fuss about with biscuits.  The result: the world's biggest, heaviest biscuit.  It was okay, but deeply, profoundly dense.  And unfortunately, because of its crumbly-biscuity texture, cannot be sliced super-thin, which is what one does with super-dense bread.  So big hunks of too-dense bread product.  Kind of gross.  Kind of shameful, We think.

TMT, however, will never let Us down.

Laziness Roundup #2: Bentos #85-97

Citizens, let's talk lunches.  Here's another slacker roundup--all the lunches since the last roundup, actually.  Again, organized by device for your convenience.

First off, because it is cold outside, the Soup Device:

We believe this is borscht, with sour cream and carrots.  In the back, notice Gary Snyder, a poet who We have a love-hate relationship with.  No nature, indeed--but less in the way you mean it, and more in the way Timothy Morton means it.

This is chili, with what We believe is shame bread and an orange.  Behind Our shame is the Thirsty Bat of tea or something, and behind the orange is the rose bowl of chocolate eyeballs We had on Our desk all Halloween and post-H season.  Hooray bowl of eyeballs!

Here is lentil soup, kingdom bread, and the awesome power of pineapple rings.  Meanwhile, there's a cup of tea from Starbucks with a coffee-cup-protector-warmer-thingy We made on it.  The tea was a disaster.  The obviously-new barista charged Us the  tea-latte price, even after We told her that tea was usually around $2.  She argued that Starbucks only sells tea lattes, not just regular hot tea.  So We had to physically make her turn around and look at the price of tea on the board above her head.  And then she was all, "We don't have black tea."  So what do you have?  "Green, mint, Earl Grey, blah blah blah."  Rather than fight, We took the Earl Grey.  Someone else can see to her education.  We do not mean to be mean--but We were polite at first, and then when she told Us vehemently that We were wrong, We gave up.  The moral: the tea came out too strong and was some sort of super-bitter tea concentrate when We got here, so that We took about a half-cup of tea sludge, cut it with water and honey, and reheated it in Our microwave.  Not shown: the 8 Advil We took over the course of the day while drinking the Tea Disaster.

As an aside, in Our attendance book, you can see all the student absences.  Blue highlights are absent days.  So much missed class!

Next device: Pie!

Here is veggie quiche, with leftover sweet potato hiding behind it.  Just peeking out there on the right is a bottle of water.

And more quiche, with the omnipresent carrots and apples.  Dunno what We'd do w/out carrots and apples.

Next, Crackers and Sandwiches!

Beloved rye crackers, apples and carrots, and hummus.  Woo.

PB& with apples and carrots. Woo.  At least it's kingdom bread.

In case you do not know what the inside of a PB&J looks like.  (We suspect this was so We would remember the sandwich contents.)

Man, We are boring sometimes.  Desk, desk, sandwich, putter.  Gah!  New device, quick, before We are suddenly 75!  Bring on Salads!

Ah.  Salad, yogurt, and apple.  Love yogurt.  We know We bitched and moaned about the 0% stuff--and it is indeed still not as tasty as the other kind--but 2% only comes in pineapple.  We can only eat so much pineapple yogurt.  In fact, We are going to go eat a yogurt right now, while We finish this epic post.

Horrors!  It's back.  And in low-res.  Cottage cheese, frozen peas, tomato, and cucumber.

Some Miscellaneous stuffs:

A baked potato with hard-boiled egg and sour cream, with steamed carrots on the side.  We believe that there is coffee in that Thermos.  Which, don't expect to see it again.  We forgot it for some time, and the incredible funk that was in there meant We just chucked it out.  We felt bad, yes, but some things can't be saved.

This is an amazing stir-fry: cabbage, chickpeas, garlic, popped mustard, turmeric, and cayenne.  Yum!  With brown rice.  And an apple.  And tea.

This was, We believe, the last active class day of the semester, hence Our cobbled-together lunch of instant ramen, apple and peanut butter, carrots, and a donut.  The donut was purloined from the grad lounge, as many people bribe their students for good evals.  Or get good evals b/c people are happier w/ high blood sugar.  Either way, there are a lot of snackies going spare in the department on the last few days.  The ramen?  Was pretty bad.  Sorry, Senor McDougall.  Those noodles were unpleasant. Also, as you can see, I was too busy to wash a proper water bottle, so I'm using a mason jar--which I brought to school w/ breakfast in it, which was about 2 cups of soymilk, 2 cups of coffee, and a couple tablespoons of sugar.  Oh, the health, it practically exuded from my pores.

Later, I also ate Common Room Oreos. 

And finally, your friend and Ours:

What is life without fried rice?  Not worth living, We say.

Hope you enjoyed the roundup, and We'll be back soon w/ more entries.

Fall Roundup: Lunches #65-82

It's been a busy time here in the Kingdom, kids.  Your faithful King has been editing, teaching, grading, running, singing, and just generally trying to keep Her bizniz going.

As the lunch photos stacked up on Our camera, the process of pulling them off became, for some reason, a more and more daunting task.  Each additional photo meant We wanted to do it less.  For some reason, while We love taking the photo and We love posting the photo, the in-between process--the finding the camera cable, the sorting, the tiny bit of editing, etc. became too much.  We despaired.

So finally, in an effort to remedy the problem, We pulled all the photos from the past month and a half.  At once.  Right here.  So, We proudly present you with the Awesome Fall Roundup Extravaganza!

First, the Identical Salad Photos:

This is a delicious salad that We ate frequently while the weather was still hot.  Its basic components are cottage cheese, tomato, cucumber, peas, salt, and pepper.  Delicious and protein-y.

This lunch also had an apple!  So much fiber, so little time.

The gold standard.

Just the peas, please.  We believe that Our fridge was very empty and that We were in a serious hurry that morning.  This is not enough lunch, We know.  Still, better than nothing.

Our friend, M, was having a rough day this day so We walked over to her building and brought her a Diet Coke (which We do not usually drink) and some Combos (which We do not usually eat).  Naughty!  So We finished the Coke with Our lunch.

This lunch, taken at home because transit would surely have shaken up the pretty little pattern, is in a new box the Queen sent Us in the mail!  What a great random gift, Queen!  We love it.  We used it four times in the first week We owned it.  It's a Fit and Fresh sandwich box, with the gel-cool in the lid--but it really comes into its own as a bento box, b/c it's the perfect size.  Hooray!

And now, the Parade of Sandwiches:

Fried egg on Kingdom bread with a banana.  Not very much lunch, but at least it's got protein and whole grains for staying power.

Tofurkey on Shame bread with mayo, mustard, spinach, and tomato.  This was part of Our Vegan-Except-For-Eggs-And-Also-Only-Whole-Grains-Plus-No-Caffeine-But-Tea Cleanse.  It was very effective, and We felt much better about two days into the program.  Sandwich is backed up by apples and carrots.

 The innards!  Gosh, looking at that makes Us hungry.

Just can't get enough stunt meat.  Another Tofurkey on Shame.

We were particularly pleased with this lunch.  The salad is spinach and tomato with a little orange tulip of Newman's Raspberry Vinaigrette.  The sandwich is a fried egg on Kingdom with mayo and mustard.  Then there's an apple.  The cup is green tea--We were at Starbucks, grading.  We were suprised and pleased that the baristas did not get all up ons for Us bringing Our own lunch.

Here is a peanut butter and blackberry preserves on Kingdom, with baby carrots, blueberry yogurt, and a banana.  There is tea in the Santa mug.  Because We are on a serious running training program now, We find that We need food almost constantly or We start to fall down.  So some of the beefier lunches are a result of that.

Now, Rice is Nice!

Ah, rice is nice.  Here's brown rice w/ ebi furikake, tamagoyaki, apple slices, and instant miso soup.  Oh, and a BC Powder, because We had things to do.  And Our head was bad. 

Check out Our not-very-good rolling skillz.  Who cares?  It was delicious.  Check out the Thirsty Bat hovering over the lunch.  Bat want nomz?  Well, too bad!

This lunch was so good it was almost unholy.  Spinach, onion, and tofu stir fry with brown rice and green tea.  Why was this so delicious?  We do not know, but it was one of the most satisfying lunches We had made in a long time.  Bonus: vegan!

Ah, what would the Sneaky Kingdom be without fried rice?  Also, check out Our homemade daikon pickles.  We think We did an okay job.  We will tweak the recipe later.  We also made some righteous pickled garlic, but that is far too pungent for lunch!  It is available only in the Royal Castle, where We will not offend the citizenry with Our Fire Breath of Doom.

Fried Rice and Fried Rice Alone day!

And, the Lunches of Less-Commonly-Used Device:

That's right.  Lentil soup.  Yum!  With a homemade biscuit, apple slices, and coffee candy.

More of the same!  But also with some carrots in there.  We love how the little mushroom guy on the lid of this bowl is so enthusiastic.

This was a weird choice.  We made a squash stuffed with apple slices one day during the Vegan Cleanse.  It was good, but would have been better with butter.  To back it up, there was a hard-boiled egg and some carrots.  This was a little awkward to eat at Our desk, and We got olive oil on Our pants, and then had to teach with Conspicuous Crotch Blots.  The shame!

Okay, there you go, citizens: the King's Fall Lunches.  We hope that you have enjoyed this glut of lunch, you hedonists!  We hope to resume regular posting soon, now that this backlog is no longer hanging over Our head, so please do not think that We have abandoned you!

Bento #35: No "protein" tag for this lunch. Uh-oh.

We usually pride ourselves here at the sneaky kingdom on eating fairly balanced (nutritionally, that is) lunches.  We like to think there's some fruit and veggie, some carbs, and some protein in almost every lunch we pack.

That is obviously not the case here.  Macaroni and cheese (from a box--We hadn't eaten it in so long We had to spend ten minutes walking around the store trying to find it when We got a craving for it) and grapes.  And a cookie from a freezer cookie stash.

There were no good food options in the fridge.  We didn't want to eat out.  The mac 'n cheese, which was leftover from a "just got out of the car after driving home from a trip and now We are staaaarving" attack late the night before needed to be eaten up.  So We were embarrassed.  We thought about the blog--that this would have to go up there!  We decided to try to "pretty" it up with one lonely tomato and a cheese "A" for Asher. 

Alas, it did not work.  Ill-conceived from start to finish.  As it turns out, We no longer like eating like We are three years old.  Also, this carb-bomb of a lunch left Us dragging at first, followed by starving as soon as the simple carbs wore off.    Well, lesson learned--no more of this!

Bento #34: Defense Lunch

So this is the sad little "lunch" We packed the day of Our defense.  We were thinking that maybe We would be too nervous to eat anything at all, so We threw the last of the tempeh in a bun and whipped some grapes alongside it.  Then We smashed it down into an old takeout container--hence the somewhat battered look of the sandwich.  What a crappy lunch! 

But We were really, really busy that AM.  We brought two kinds of homemade cookies and coffee to Our defense for Our committee, and We were way more caught up in all the other stuff than of thinking about a perfect lunch that We might not eat anyway.  So We think this shame lunch is OK.  And at least the bread is home-baked--so there's that, anyway.

(And did We eat it, you ask?  Of course We did.  Let's be honest, it takes a lot to put Us off Our feed here in the Sneaky Kingdom.)

Bento #28: Cobbled Together

Man, were We busy that day.  It was 5 days before prelims, and We had to somehow sling together a lunch and rush off to school--gah.  No good.  Stress was very, very high.  Evidence: bringing Our lunch in an old miso container.  Yes, We had not done the dishes in quite some time.  Also note the plastic spoon, for the same reasons. 

Enter a no-brainer lunch: fried rice.  Sweet Jesus.  Meanwhile, one of the the other grad students has a sister who had a Chinese-food-themed birthday party, and he brought a huge box of leftover fortune cookies to school.  Of course, these fortunes were custom-printed and were all about how awesome his sister is, but still, fun to get a cookie to go with Our fried rice.

Hm, does this count as a shame lunch?  Let Us sum up: plastic spoon, weird container, fried rice (not in itself shameful, of course, and yet indicative of a certain je ne sais quoi mais j'ai des soupçons), no sides of fruit or more veggies--not even instant miso or something, scavenged cookie--yes, yes, I think this is officially a shame lunch.

*click!*  Yep, We have now added the shame tag to you, little lunch.

In the background is a Nalgene of tea and the graduate student lounge/computer room.  And Our keys--that's right, keys to the castle, right there.  Such power to be contained in so ordinary an object.

Bento #24: TMT and Pudding

Continuing to wade through the lunch backlog, here you see a closeup of a very similar lunch to the one We ate in the science library.  It is not the same exact lunch in material existence, We assure you, because We at this one in Our office, but it's the same lunch concept.  Although, come to thnk of it, there was an apple in that lunch and the pudding was a snack for later.  Either way: TMT on Shame Bread with spinach, carrot bits, and chocolate pudding.  And coffee, because We had not yet had Our catastrophic moment.

More gratuitous pudding shots!  (Ew, We have just grossed Ourself out.)  But We think this one is cool, because if you look closely, you can see a blurry, upside-down image of the King in the bowl of the spoon!  Yes, We Snuck into this picture!  Hooray!  We are so clever.

Back to studying.  We are making a quick "cheat sheet" of poetics.  Anyone care to know anything about Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (a complete mess of a text) or how it prefigures Frost's and eventually people like Olson and Ginsberg's poetics and finally all the way through to LANGUAGE poets by suggesting that the poem, rather than the poet, provides direction for the work, thus establishing (or at least reifying) a tradition where the poet is not the guide/sage/ultimate knower, but rather just a conduit for the forces of language to act upon/through?  No?  No one's interested?  Okay then, We will save it for Our committee. 

Bento #23: King Off the Radar, now with Extra Sneaky

Dearest readers, devoted fans of the Sneaky Kingdom (all two of you--hi guys!), We apologize.  We know that there has been a dearth of lunches demonstrated here lately!  We assure you that no one has been going hungry in the Sneaky Kingdom. We have just gone a little--well, Sneaky--lately, because as We believe We have either mentioned or intimated, We are currently in a PhD program. Next week--TWTr--We will sit our preliminary exams. As a result, We are going quietly and determinedly batshit crazy in the Sneaky Kingdom, and thus almost everything We do on a regular basis that isn't sleep, eat, and read has been taken off the table. 

Allow Us to demonstrate with a lunch vignette:

The lunch itself is hard to see.  However, We assure you that it is nothing you haven't seen before, and you'll definitely see that action again: a TMT on Shame Bread, carrot sticks, and an apple. 

Over on the side there you'll see a tumbler w/ coffee, which is alarming: We are normally a low-caffeine Kingdom over here.  We used to drink crazy tons of coffee.  We used to be the kind of person who gets up in the morning and drinks a Diet Coke while We waited for the pot to perk.  We had a problem.  We did a beverage fast at one point, to get out of it: nothing but water, milk, green tea, and beer--very basic, very little processed drinks.  It was awesome.  We loved it!  We felt so much better.  And that's basically what We still drink--today, for example, We have had three cups of tea (one is herbal decaf and is at Our elbow right now) and water.  Oh, one of the cups of tea had soymilk in it. 

But studying for prelims has meant that, at times, We must be awake with full brainpower ready to go Right Now.  And sometimes that is hard, because We have not been sleeping so well--worry, worry.  Fret.  So We have started drinking coffee.  And abruptly stopped, because Tuesday, We drank too much.  We thought Our heart was going to come rocketing out of Our chest, all Aliens style.  Our resting heart rate is usually about 60 or so, maybe 65.  Tuesday it was 117.  We tried to run the energy off, which has worked in the past with sugar, but may have been a mistake here: We sweated and barfed (!) and generally got very dehydrated and had massive tummy troubles for about two days.  We are done with caffeine!  Whoo.

So here you can see where the cubicle is located: The Library.  Not just any library, but the science library.  We love the science library for its "Shut the hell up" culture.  It is not cool--Not Cool!--to make noise in this library.  Because people are working!  How unlike the main library, which is basically a meat market for undergrads looking for dates, and thus is sort of loud even on the "quiet" floors.  If people want to talk here, even if it's very quiet and just for study buddy purposes, they check out one of those closed, soundproofed rooms. 

While We were there that day, a girl sitting at a table answered her cellphone, which, to her credit, rang on vibrate, and started to talk on it.  After about two or three minutes, a really strung-out looking dude wearing medical scrubs walked over to her.  He leaned down and said something very quietly that We couldn't hear, and then walked away.  When he walked away the girl frowned, gave his back the finger, and hung up his phone.  He glanced over in Our direction and We gave him a thumbs-up.  He nodded grimly and went back to his study cube.  We love it there!

At least there was pudding for a snack. We love pudding but 1) pudding cups are expensive and often taste like plastic, and 2) that goes double for soy-based puddings.  Sometimes milk-based puddings are not cooked puddings but magically-insta-whatever thickened, and they trigger Our gentle milk-straight-up-causes-some-inner-workings-problems issues.  So We make Our own pudding snacks sometimes.  It is easy and delicious!

We have told you this mighty saga in order that you might understand why We have not been posting lately.  Also so that you might understand why We keep eating the same ridiculous lunches over and over.  It is because We are panicky about Our exam.  In fact, We are going off to study right now! 

Bento #22: Lentilloaf Sandwich

Awww, look!  The l'il Smoking Bunny is hungry!  He wants Our carrots!  Poor l'il guy.  Our heart melts.  <3

We apologize for the blurry photo.  It is hard to hold a sandwich in one hand and a camera on macro (don't shake, don't shake!) in the other when the sandwich itself is threatening to slide apart.  A small price to pay, though for a delicious sandwich.  Here is Lentil loaf, spinach, We think some cheese (it was sort of a long time ago and We kind of misremember), mayo, and ketchup on, embarrassingly, store-bought bread.

And carrots.  We have poor enough vision as it is without forgetting to eat Our carrots.

Fun fact: this lunch features a device within a device!  Rare, even in this device-filled kingdom.