I Sometimes Eat Lunch at Home

As some of you may know, I once had a blog called "Westbank Lunches." It was a lot of fun simply because of the disparity between the sublimely delicious and the incomprehensibly awful lunches to be had while working on the West Bank of the Mississippi River.

When it came to Vietnamese food, I had the best of the best and the better of the bestest of the... well you get the picture. Sometimes, it's hard to translate.

There were also a few consistently good neighborhood restaurants: Da Wabbit, Tony Mandina's and Juneau's Sandwich Shop, to name a few.

Then there were the places you swear off, but your co-workers make you keep returning. You know who you are, Hooters, Chevy's, the Sicily's Pizza Buffet (although they have really great meatballs).

Once every three months, we would wander into the mouth of the beast that is the Ryan's Buffet, only to be chewed up and spit out, vowing never to return, then going back after the memory of the previous meal is overawed by the promise of all-you-can-eat Salad and Desert Bar. In the brain, there is no in-between the salad and desert, the meal, the reality that is Ryan's.

Then there are the places one can only find on the West Bank, places so wretched, that they are kept afloat by pensioners older than Great Britain itself, the blue and silver haired Gastronauts whose palates have been to Mars and back. Their dining choices show their withered bodies' lack of discernment.

To the Schnell's of the world, I say, "May your ham be fattier than a bacon and lard sandwich, and may your Seafood Gumbo be neither seafood, nor Gumbo. My your garden salad be better if it had mud in it and may your cornbread not require an IV so your mouth can be re-hydrated." I say to Schnell's, "Die, would you? Please? It's time. No, really, I'm surprised you didn't just die while I typed this sentence. Certainly if I type another one you'll die from entropy. No? Well fuck you for existing."

(I'm honestly not sure if Schnell's still exists since it's been over a year since I worked on the West Bank. To be fair to the place, there are a lot of other awful places, quality-wise on the Wank, and if I ever wanted to torture my palate over there, it wouldn't be a difficult job.) As little more said about that, the better.

So now I work in a lab. No, don't worry, same profession. They're not experimenting on me.

The lab also happens to be next door to UNO. If you've been in the neighborhood, you know there aren't many food choices. It's Burger King vs. Popeyes vs. Wendy's.

Don't get me started on Wendy's. I used to love Wendy's. Not so much now. That's a post all to itself. And it's coming. Be patient.

But because I share a tiny space with sixteen other people (I'm not joking), it sometimes gets a little difficult to concentrate. My employers, to their great credit, realize this and allow me the latitude to perform my job from home as often as I see fit. As long as work doesn't suffer, all is well. I am almost in the office in the a.m. After that, it just depends.

So sometimes, I eat lunch at home. On occasion, I have friends meet me at the numerous awesome food places in Uptown New Orleans.

This blog is going to be about all three: The fast food of the UNO area, the vast options that exist Uptown and Environs, and lastly, the adventures that take place in my kitchen. And I warn you all, the kitchen adventures can get sadly creative. Sadly, sadly creative.

So, please, enjoy, and when necessary, feel free to mock me.

Welcome to the BBC Top Gear of Crap Food Blogging!