Lunch Club
Cookbook author Allison Day is on a mission to bring childlike bliss back to your midday meal.
When we’re school-age children, lunch is the most exciting time of the day. We count down the minutes until the clock strikes noon, eager to share our packs of Fruit Gushers and make friends between bites of peanut butter sandwiches. But as we get older, lunch begins to lose its lustre: Our container of last night’s leftovers is fuel to get us to five o’clock rather than a social event filled with laughter, shareable components and surprising bursts of flavour.
Canadian cookbook author Allison
Day is on a mission to bring childlike bliss back to your midday meal. Modern
Lunch is a collection of her recipes, but it’s also how she describes her lunch philosophy: “It’s exciting, fresh, colourful, adaptable to personal tastes, diets and schedules and packs really beautifully. Oh, and it definitely saves you money. It’s an entirely new way of approaching lunch.”
With her 100 recipes, Day does her best to convince you that it’s possible to achieve punchy, inventive and Instagram-worthy meals that fill your belly—and fill your co-workers with envy—without breaking your budget or making you set your alarm for 5 a.m. each morning. Imagine simple proteinpacked salads (like lemony barley and roasted carrot salad with goat cheese), perfectly portioned contemporary lunch
“It definitely saves you money. It’s an entirely new way of approaching lunch.”
boxes (like walnut-crusted avocado, feta and eggs with pesto rice) and belly-warming soups (like just-add-water miso, sweet potato and soba ramen) that will become your cold-month staples.
Chances are, your container of dinner turned mystery mush won’t stand up against these mouth-watering recipes. Day, however, insists she isn’t starting a war against leftovers. “I just get really bored eating the same thing over and over again, so I try to transform leftovers into something a little bit different every time,” she says. “If you have a little bit of leftover protein, you can add it to one of the salads in the book to kind of pump it up. Or, if you have some leftover grains, add them to your lunch container.”
Modern Lunch isn’t just about food; it’s also about building community. With her Modern Lunch Club, Day challenges those who have rediscovered lunch to come together to connect, unwind and share a meal when time allows. “Modern Lunch gives you a much-deserved breather; it adds a little bit extra to your day,” she explains. “We deserve to take that moment to turn off and enjoy something really delicious.” Soon, you’ll notice yourself staring at the top right corner of your computer screen, counting the moments until lunchtime all over again.