When you arrive at a new workplace, lunch is one of the essential parts of the daily integration process (if you don't smoke, of course). It's a chance to talk to your new colleagues more informally and get to know them, and they you.
In addition to the socializing process, lunch is an excellent opportunity to explore the area around your new workplace and to satisfy your gastronomic curiosity by sampling the catering outlets in the area. This can be an exciting process lasting from a few weeks to several months, depending on the opportunities in the area and how quickly you settle in, and how welcoming your new community is. But sooner or later, there will come a time when you find yourself always choosing the nearest eatery, reading the daily menu in boredom, and then munching on the fried meat with your favorite colleague, and nodding in agreement at how badly they cook here. We realize that even though it's the kitchen of a fancy wellness establishment, the scenario is the same as the primary school canteen. Monday is roast meat, Tuesday stew, Wednesday goulash, Thursday pancakes from Hortobágy, Friday macaroni from Milan, or the combo of bacon, Brasso, rice, and rice pudding. And then you realize that they all taste the same, and they charge a lot of money for it. It's the same with order; after a while, you're not only memorizing the menu, but you can recall the flavors and ingredients of any dish from a dream. Of course, those who have the time cook at home and bring in the goodies, but few people have that extra time every day. So after a while, lunch becomes dull and, contrary to the initial excitement, becomes a routine nutritional intake.
It's only made more difficult if you suffer from food allergies of some kind, as most places are not prepared for them, so the number of choices is drastically reduced, and in bad cases, you are limited to a natural chicken and rice pairing.
This lunch crisis was just about to hit me when, at a company get-together, one of my colleagues came up with the brilliant idea of cooking lunch in turns.
The perfect solution! We quickly gathered the applicants, and finally, seven of us joined the initiative. To ensure everyone could eat everything, we had to lay down some ground rules: we would cook gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, and sugar-free. So every week and a half we have to prepare lunch for seven people, and in return, we get to eat home-cooked food every day, healthy and not least delicious. The excel spreadsheet was quickly created, allowing us to track who is next, what the menu will be, who is on holiday, and all the relevant information.
After three weeks, I am happy to say that IV has great chefs; the food is quite varied, from the Indian curry chicken to the cinnamon infused red wine beef to the freshly caught pesto fried fish; all the lunches so far have been delicious!
Although we started the project on a trial basis, given the tremendous success of the past few weeks, I think it's safe to say that everyone has passed the test and we're finalizing the new job, which we'll take in turns to fill.
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