Help! What’s For Lunch?

Decades before becoming a lunch guy

Recently, I came across a recent headline so good that I immediately sent a screenshot to five different people: “King Charles ‘Shrieked’ When He Saw Saran Wrap for the First Time”…

“It’s cling film, darling,” Camilla purportedly explained to her 75-year-old husband. This detail is making the rounds because of a new revelation about the king: he has started eating lunch “for the first time,” according to tabloids. And, although I’ve required three to five meals daily my entire life, I’m curious what he eats because lunch always stumps me.

A few weeks ago, I dropped off some food for a friend who’d just had a baby, including lunch for the next day. I bought a sourdough loaf from a woman who sells it in my neighborhood, roasted some cauliflower, and packed goat cheese so she could make a nice little sandwich. “Is this what you normally eat for lunch?!” she texted the next day. “I wish,” I wrote back. “I’m currently having a bowl of cereal.”

Breakfast is a great moment to breathe before starting work, and the need to make dinner is a good excuse to wrap it up, but lunch often comes right when things feel most chaotic. I work from home, and I end up standing in front of my fridge or kitchen cabinets, peering around as if it’s the first time I’ve ever been tasked with making myself anything. King Charles, by the way, eats half an avocado for his lunch. I agree with the anonymous Palace source that called it “a snack, really.”

If I’m not super hungry, I’ll make a smoothie. Usually, it’s one scoop of protein powder, peanut butter, a frozen banana, frozen blueberries, a shake of ginger and cinnamon, plus water so the resulting purple mess is actually a liquid. Occasionally, I’ll make scrambled eggs and toast, though I find it more satisfying to have breakfast for dinner than for lunch. A snack-y plate with whatever pickles or olives are in the fridge, plus cheese and crackers, an apple, and pistachios is a nice low-prep lunch. I used to eat more sandwiches, but I’m trying to cut down on eating meat at home. Aside from the classic grilled cheese, I tend to think of vegetarian sandwiches as requiring advanced prep like roasting, which doesn’t fit into my lunch schedule. (Am I wrong?)

So, I need some help: What’s everyone eating for lunch? Do you eat the same thing every day? Please tell me about your midday meal that doesn’t require a ton of work, your favorite sandwich (bonus points if it’s vegetarian), or your elaborate Sunday prep routine that answers the weekday lunch question in advance.

P.S. What 15 food geniuses eat for lunch, and we went to a bodega with Smitten Kitchen.

(Photo of Prince Charles — before he was a lunch guy — by Peter Dunne/Daily Express/Getty Images.)