Hungry Times Two

Lunch can be a total crapfest sometimes in my workplace location - Chinatown and Mount Vernon aren't exactly culinary wonderlands. In fact, I was supremely disappointed when I discovered how sad most Asian restaurants are here in D.C. However, lunch (and dinner) is redeemed: Introducing the Korean delight Mandu . Credit: clix/SXC Lightening-fast review of Mandu's new location on K Street, near Busboys and Poets and Taylors:

I just had a moment. After retrieving my leftover brown rice and veggie stir fry from the microwave, and tossing out the empty shells of edamame I just snacked on, something occurred to me as I grabbed my reusable bamboo silverware . I am eating so freakin' crunchy right now.

I'm eating string cheese and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What am I, a fourth grader???? Just thought I'd share.

I don't really love sandwiches. It's always mystified me that some people crave Subway or Quiznos , 'cause all Subways smell like burned rubber to me and most commercially made sandwiches use crappy pressed lunch meat that taste like poo and the bread is usually overly large and dry. My one exception is a tomato sandwich in the summer, homemade, with soft white bread, or when in South Carolina, the almighty Captain Derst Bread , with some Duke's Mayo. (Speaking of which, new post coming soon re. a Duke's development. I know, get over it already .) Wraps, however, are entirely a different story. I can get into those. Stuff them with good things like sprouts, cucumber slices, salad greens and more, and we have ourselves a deal. I recently hit up Phillips Cafe , right across the street from my office & offers my workplace a 5 percent discount. I discovered they will turn a BLT into a wrap - and you can do add ons for free. SO I got up on that today, with a spina...

So what? A girl's got to have her lunch accessories. And when it's red and cute and it's one of the few things within reach at a certain controversial-at-the-moment big box store when back to school madness rears its ugly head, and you don't want to fight the parents who are looking for that one special three ring binder and graph paper, and you just want a cute lunch bag since the last one you had disintegrated , and you're now resorting to carting your lunch to work in a measly plastic bag... you wind up totally buying an insulated ladybug lunch thingy. I know. Impossibly awesome, right? It even comes with a ladybug cold pack. So there.

Pardon the pause on posts here - Scott and I visited Colorado for a little spell this past weekend and we have a wealth of photos and good food/brews to blog about -- coming soon. After a trip, it's always interesting to come home to find there's not much in the fridge or pantry to eat. I executed a small grocery run and well, I didn't purchase much for lunch. Somehow I got the idea to boil some eggs to take along with salads for a protein kick. My eggs came out fine, but I was extremely self-conscious about the odor of said eggs. You know the egg smell. It's...special. Most people at my office bring or buy lunch and eat at their desks, which is something I resisted for the first couple months at work. After spending time hangin' on my own at the dining hall tables upstairs, I started feeling very "odd girl out" a la a bad movie scene set in a high school cafeteria. Like Ally Sheedy's character in Breakfast Club , only without the dandruff issues (and ...