What's for Lunch in America?

Does the subject of conversation always have to come back to food? Sometimes it's my fault. I am often hungry during lessons because I forget to go grocery shopping (more often than I'd like to admit) and therefore don't have any convenient snacks to fill me up. If I did, my brain could move on to other things.

Thankfully, since I am the Teacher, I can steer the conversation in the direction of my desires.

"Kebab or pizza?"

"What kind of pizza?"

"Where do you take a date for a really yummy meal?

"Like, what's the address and is dinner avilable right after this class?"

This time, however, the conversation turned to me.

"What Americans have for lunch?" asks curious studente, catching me off guard.

"Hmmm. What DO Americans have for lunch?" I am buying time.

"No. What YOU have for lunch?" and I realize this is no time to review how to ask questions. There is something bigger happening here.

Do I tell them?!

"Um. Well, in a perfect world... I would have a grilled cheese sandwich (onion, yes!) and a bowl of canned tomato soup." Because that is the truth.

But I don't say it.

See, the canned soup part sounds tacky. It's, like, too American, like America before Whole Foods, before Brie Cheese made it to Wisconsin, before they started putting fresh basil on pizzas (available in participating pizzerias in college towns near you)... It is what Americans  my age still long for (but deny as much as we deny how much we love and miss tunafish in a can), and I am an Ambassador (well, not actually, but I do feel like a small-time representative of the Stars & Stripes, especially since I am expected to explain The Trump Thing and The Gun Thing almost daily and seriously? I don't get it either).

So on some level I feel like I need to present something other than the stereotype (even if I do jones for some tomato soup and a greasy grilled cheese)...

I'm going to come clean here.

The Truth is I had cheese and crackers for lunch.

And that was only because some generous kind of kitchen goddess left the cheese in the fridge at work without a nametag on it and there was an open pack of crackers leftover from some book club meeting on the table and I was starving and I went for them.

Then Denise walks in with a bottle of Regular Coke, which she never drinks, and neither do I except for at kids' birthday parties (which parents are expected to attend) but she's had a long day and I am looking for some easy empty calories to get my oomph back  so we split that baddy and oh! It tasted good!

And now I am back in class and need to find a solution to the age old question but I have no solution. The real problem, of course, is not the food itself. Not at all. It's the randomness of it all. It's how I just leave it all to chance. Nothing is worse to Italians than an Unplanned Lunch. 

Leave your weekend plans, that coveted vacation (in August, the highest of high seasons), your retirement, to the last minute, but Please, Please Plan your Lunches, Friends!

So, I need a plan B.

Or At Least plan a decent answer that doesn't start with "McD," which is what they are really expecting to hear.

Just say SALAD. Better yet, INSALATONA. That is something they can understand and you can save face.

Let's just Never reveal the truth of what we really eat. We are going to have to agree on this one, okay? (wink)