My Trick for Free Lunch

I'm all about saving money, especially these days. I accomplish this mostly -- as you've seen in this journal -- by cooking large batches of food to feed me through a week, not eating out for lunch, and bringing home leftovers on the rare times I eat out.

But a lesser-appreciated method of saving a buck while not getting stuck in the PB&J trap can be summed up in one beautiful word: friendship. Making friends with those who work -- and eat -- at the desk next door often results in anything from the rest of their fries, to a few pieces of their gourmet bacon chocolate discovery, to (in my case) full home-cooked meals.

Today, one of the developers on my team brought me homemade lentil soup and some sort of Indian buns made of lentil flour with sides of spicy coriander sauce and a sweeter lentil chickpea sauce. (I think maybe her lentil tree just had a new crop)


If you find yourself wasting away at work, you're probably not well liked and need to sew seeds of harmony ... or just get really rich so people will be nice to you. Though at that point, I guess you can just buy your own food ... but then where's the love?