The Setting: lunchtime on a typical weekday afternoon, Spring 2009. I’m a busy public health grad student, taking a break to have lunch with one of my peers and friends to discuss our upcoming internships in Thailand and India, respectively. Taking out my reheated meal from the night before, I ask her, “What’s for lunch today?” “A sandwich”, she says. “Oh good”, I think, musing over delicious possibilities like turkey, caramelized onion, and blue cheese with arugula mayo; tomato, mozzarella, basil; roasted eggplant and red pepper with goat cheese and pesto. And then it appears; a mouth-watering, scrumptious—wait a minute—is that sliced cheese on plain bread???
I couldn’t fathom it. How could sliced cheese on plain bread be the best that she could do when I’ve sat in her kitchen eating fantastic Nepali curry dishes? Me being me—the ever curious, ever question-at-the-ready woman—inquired as to the sad state of my friend’s lunch. The reality was, yes, for her, that truly was the best she could do…then.
