After a quarter of a century on residential building crews, I thought I’d ask what everyone eats for lunch? Some of the crews I’ve been on take 30min. lunch breaks with not much time for going of site and some crews take an hour but they are in remote locations and can’t leave the site either. So this means “lunch bucket” as the old carpenters used to say.I was recently diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes and if there are are any dieticians out there I would greatly appericate any suggestions on lunch on the job and like the rest of you I’m not to worried about getting enough exercise. Thanks and be kind to yourself.
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This could be the start of a long thread.
Construction jobs do not seem to include paid lunch time. Thus you might work from 7 am to 3:30 pm for 8 hours. However you do get a legally mandated 15 minute break which may stretch somewhat.
As for meals, larger sites are visited by the "roach coach" which is patronized by the young bucks, of another thread, who haven't yet developed the skills needed to make a sandwich. On smaller jobs, some designated party makes the lunch run. On a day when things get too pressed for time - a concrete pour perhaps - a supply of emergency, preservable rations such as sardines [canned] or power bars is a good idea. (Where do you get fresh sardines?)
For myself, I know how to boil water. In the morning, I fill up two Thermos bottles with the stuff. There are a lot of freeze dried option now available. Instant noodles, soup in a cup and so on. I have a jar of instant cofee, a box of sugar cubes and a container of coffee creamer. That's my usual lunch.
-Peter
Tuperware of leftovers, fruit, slice of cabbage, handful of baby carrots, bag of nuts,
Now wait a minute piff,.... that is exellence ????
"Now wait a minute piff,.... that is exellence ???? "
To my pallette, yes. I've refined it from the days when I would pack a can of cold beans, a can of sardines, and a can of peaches or pineapple chunks.
some days I stop at the store for a sandwhich.
Yesterday was good. I was working on the place where a clients French chef lives. It was his day off but just like it is our nature to build on our days off, it is his to feed people on his day off, I guess.
There was this thick cold soup that was a spicy sort of tomatoe greul with chunks of lobster in it, served on the verge of frozen with a few ice crystals in it. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, oh my!
The there were some exquisitely toasted bagels with a spread made from clams.
Diced beets that were sweetened somehow but not syrupy like usually.
Some slices of a kind of seafood burrito with green stuff and rolled in sturgeon roe (gee, what are those oily little black seeds?)
A bowl of diced fruit.
Wash it down with all the cranberry juice you can drink.
And I almost turned it down because I had to hurry up to meet another sub on a different job. What a mistake that would've been!
Excellence is its own reward!
Im with out words . I dont get that treatment on a day off!!!!!!! Never!!!!
Tim Mooney
You guys stop to eat lunch??? Us DIYs do without so we can have a longer drunk in the PM (just starting)
bean burritos so I can get even with the boss.
Man ..its 7:15 and I've still got to get my lunch together?God I hate that!
I am so over sandwiches unless they get some exotic fillings.P.B. and jelly is my last resort if the cupboards are bare.I now find myself at dinner looking at that last serving and saying.."I could pig out now..orthat would be great for an easy lunch".
The jobsite microwave has been a godsend..really opens up the lunch horizons.Altho before we had one the dash on the truck was a good solar cooker.Wish oodles of noodles were easier..those styrofoam cup ones suck.Pork roll? Wow i loved that stuff when i grew up in N.J. but its amazing here in WV where they eat evrypart of the hog...they never heard of it.
When you work in rural areas way the hell up a mt. you have to bring it all yourself cuz subway may be 2hrs. there and back.Plus you learn to protect ur lunch.Its no fun chasing a dog around the house with ur lunch in his mouth.
P,B, & J doesn't put any twinkle in my eyes. I like to chew my own nuts. Pre-chewed just doesn't turn my taste buds on. I might consider eating it if I was stranded on a desert Isle, peanut butter was the only meal on the menu and a hot babe spread it for me.
Can't believe I just wrote that - must've been the monkey on the keyboard thing...
Excellence is its own reward!
"and a hot babe spread it for me."
Spread it on what???
Wait - Never mind - Gotta keep it PG-13 in here..........
Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.
My girlfriend brought me lunch the other day. Beer and potato chips. The bag of chips was open so they scattered everywhere when she threw them at me from the car window. The beer hit me right across the head. I think I'll put in a few more days of overtime to let he cool off - then go home and find out just what I did this time. I hope it wasn't my spending too much time at work.
Rotf, at least what she threw at you was edible.
Piff, that ain't food your eating, that's what the rabbits eat. Nuts, fruit, leftovers in the tupperare???????? Cabbage??????
I get up a 1/2 hour after the missus.......ramble down to the breakfast table, eat a well balanced ,FULL breakfast...read some of the news, see what the FHB is up to....then I pick up my lunch pail...pat my belly and say" this is the gas tank to the love machine, filler up today I hope".....I always eat a good lunch.
Gotta be careful not to let your gas tank get too big, Buddy. It'll get in the way of your drive shaft.Excellence is its own reward!
For me, it varies from job to job. I get tired of sandwiches pretty fast. Usually make my own lunch, but when my wife makes it with the same combinations and ingredients, it tastes better.
I have some jobs where a microwave is available so I can bring leftovers to reheat.
It's hard to beat leftover meatloaf and a good homemade potato salad, or Navy beans and hamhocks, or blackeyed peas and so forth...especially on a cold snotty day.
Built one new home where the owner would come by about once a week and fire up his new fireplace and barbeque steaks or fresh tuna filets for us. After that one, I was considering putting out a lawn sign that said "Will Work for Food."
Will work for Food!!
If you are like the rest of the tradesman that I know there is no way that the general public would be able to afford to hire any of you guys!
Hey! When you live by the coast and you have clients offering clams and salmon and abalone and such and you don't have time to go after those things yourself, it's a great motivator for doing ones best!
And, after all, it would be a crime to see good chow like that go to waste! (Besides, it beats the hell out of peanut butter).
In regards to the tastiness of your wife making your lunch, that's the estrogen additive! ;-)
Left over Pasta with a good sauce is good hot or cold. Beats a ham sandwich everyday. When my father had some work done the GC had a small microwave that he kept in van he would plug it into an extention cord for lunch...his only rule I guess was no fish.
Cold grilled chicken sandwich works for me. Grill a couple breasts on Sunday and use them during the week. Left over pizza works as well.
SJ
An old box or piece of ductwork with a carefully placed 60 watt lightbulb aglow in it makes a great temp oven... give it a few minutes to warm up your foil-wrapped grub.
We had a recent thread over in Cooks Talk about diabetes. Listed some good web sites to find info. Hop on over and check it out.
junk food. The hell with the chloesterol, the greasier the better mmmmmmmnnnnnnnn, yup the 15 min break gets stretched, sometimes big time, if thre's no junk food around I'll buy it at 7/11 in the morning, it can sit in the truck,
no turn left unstoned
Piece of cheese (incredible variety available), piece of bread (lots of variety available), a few pickles, a thermos of tea, and a square of chocolat; a Melton Mowbray slice once in a while, or sub crackers/ryevita now and then, for a change of pace. Add thermos of soup in the cold weather - life is good.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
I had to look at where you're from ----- you gotta tell me what "Melton Mowbray" is, I'm from central Illinois and it sounds pretty exotic. Also a friend called and said a good idea for cold weather lunch is a mini crock pot , plug it in the morning and add Dinty Moore Stew,etc.
I never thought of a crock pot or slow cooker. That is a great idea.
A traditional English pub pie, can be used in a plowman's lunch. Popular around the more English parts of the English-speaking world (although in some parts of the US they just call it "Traditional Pork Pie" - we found it in Boston, Seattle, and Fl., but not in Texas). Here, these will tell you more than you ever wanted to know:
http://www.outlawcook.com/Page0120.html
http://www.porkpie.co.uk/
http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/gbk/recipes/pork/meltonmowbrayporkpie.htm.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
I'm from Pittsburgh. Brunswieger (liverworst) on seeded rye with hot red onions and hot mustard. Makes your butt sing!!
Usually, a sandwich, with fresh veggies if available, yougurt, friut, and an occasional Little Debbie. Know a tin knocker who used to bring a couple of beers in his box, never had the nerve myself.
Brudoggie
Porkroll (Taylor ham) and egg on a hard roll, for morning coffee break, which usually holds me over till mid-afternoon. But can't get it anywhere except NJ/NYC/So. CT. Talk about junk food.
Be seeing you...
I usually find a resturant .