Sandwich Night

Grilled cheese: Pepper Jack, tomatoes and center cut bacon

Today's food was totally unplanned, but I didn't mean for it to be that way. I packed my breakfast and lunch plus snacks and brought them to work as usual. But it ended up being a team lunch for my co-workers' birthdays.

And the lunch choice? Buca di Beppo. Probably the least healthy of all the options.

Lunch with a large group of co-workers has always a challenge for me when trying to make healthier choices for myself. At a past job a co-worker asked if I had an eating disorder because I consistently made special orders. I will say the current crop of co-workers are MUCH better and there are several other than myself who make special requests. So I guess I don't worry so much anymore.

But I still try not to seem too picky. The portions of their pasta are huge and unfortunately I have always been and will most likely always be a card-carrying member of the clean plate club. The best strategy is to ask half be put in a to-go box before the food is brought to the table, but I didn't want to call attention to myself. I know I shouldn't care what people think, but I still do.

How do you handle lunch with co-workers or other situations where you have little control over what's served or when there's few healthy options? Are you one, like me, who hates making special requests?

I ended ordering the gorgonzola, apple, and walnut salad with dried cranberries and grilled chicken. The wedding soup and mixed greens salad would have been the better choice calorie-wise, but I had the soup one other time and hated it. It's not worth it if it's not enjoyable. Wasn't the best salad ever, but it was better than the soup.

Good thing was the salad was big enough that I wasn't hungry for my snack and although I was hungry for dinner, I didn't want something too heavy.

That means sandwich night. I've been craving a grilled cheese sandwich ever since I saw CHOW's You're Doing it All Wrong video on grilled cheese. I thought how to make a grilled cheese sandwich was well-known, but maybe not? At least I can rest assured I've been making it right all these years. I've been using a lid recently, too, after I saw the grill guy in the cafeteria do that. The cheese melts perfectly that way.

Mine was a bit of pepper jack, a bunch of tomato and a slice of center bacon on whole wheat with cherries on the side. Perfection.

Do you have a favorite grilled cheese?