Silly me and my packed lunch

MANILA, Philippines - Between a Louis Vuitton bag and a nice lunchbox, I would choose a lunchbox.  Not even an Hérmes. Seriously. Hubby Claude says I am strange, and that I carry a lot of baggage (pun intended). I say he is lucky and blame it on my childhood.  My obsession with lunchboxes started when I was in grade school. I envied my classmates who had very nice lunchboxes, especially my good friend Carol Nicdao Brill, who had one like a yellow schoolbus.   And the sight of my high school classmates’ pindang damulag (cara-beef tapa) or longganisa and salted egg and tomato on white rice was, and still is, to me the most appetizing sight ever.  Nothing excites me more than seeing the longganisa syrup coloring the rice to a rich brown.  I would be literally drooling. Never mind if the rice is cold and the longganisa is sticky.  I want it!

But my mom never bought us lunchboxes. Once, on a field trip to Baguio, our helper put my chicken pork adobo rice on a newspaper lined with clear plastic.   Every time I took a spoonful of rice, I saw the blown-up face of TV host Ike Lozada laughing at me.  I spent more time piling chicken bones and red eggshells on his round face than eating my food.  That embarrassing moment sealed my longtime love affair with lunchboxes.

We lived 15 kilometers away from school, so going home for lunch was not an option.  Our grandma, Apung Pepang, who was Chinese, could not understand why I wanted to eat cold food in a lunchbox.  Daily, they gave my two younger sisters Lorraine and Joy and I hot food to take to school.  Our lunch was placed inside a four-layer pimbrera (from the Spanish fiambrera or lunchbox): the rice at the bottom, a meat dish, a seafood dish and the top was always soup.  We were to carry it to the school canteen, which we did in the beginning. But I was embarrassed and felt awkward eating on real plates, when my classmates had their yummy-looking lunches packed in aluminum or plastic containers.  So we would later hide and eat our lunch in our jeep.  Now, while writing and reminiscing, I wonder if my classmates indeed felt sorry for us for not having lunchboxes or whether they wished they had our hot soup.

When I worked in Hong Kong, I took joy in riding the bus and bringing my lunch in nice insulated bags. I had them in different colors.  Wherever I travel, I look for nice lunch bags and my favorite of all is the red one I bought in Japan tied with a white string with matching red chopsticks. My officemates often teased me that I looked like a schoolgirl and that, to me, was the sweetest compliment ever.  And my lunch bag stood proudly next to their Louis Vuitton and Prada bags.

Now that I work at home, I still occasionally have my lunch put in a Japanese bento box or plastic container and brought to me. I do not get tired of crisp Spam with Kikkoman, adobo and pindang on rice. They all do not taste as good when served on plates. 

Recently, hubby Claude said he was developing slow-cooked, restaurant-quality Filipino meals for 7-Eleven, I got so excited at the idea of packed meals but at the same time was very skeptical. How would the food be cooked in advance and stored in chillers retain its flavor and texture? I feared his recipes would be lost in translation. Their first brainstorming and food tasting was done in our Bale Dutung and cooked in Claude’s private kitchen.

And then, on April 28, 7-Eleven came in full force with big chillers and a line of microwave ovens and a humongous generator.  

Although hubby Claude created the recipes, much credit should go to the cooking team of 7-Eleven. They were successful in replicating the flavors and textures, considering they have to pack, chill, transport and then chill again in the stores.  The rice was very white and fluffy. The portions were sufficient. These all-natural ingredients, no-preservative, sealed lunch packs are best eaten within three days.  They will be delivered daily to the 900 stores of 7-Eleven all over Luzon. I was asked if they are guaranteed to be fresh all the time. My answer was simple: “7-Eleven will not ruin its good name.”

7-Eleven has intensified my love affair with lunch packs with the handsome face of my favorite kusinero in the world on the lid. (Excuse the much in-love wifey). I will not cover his face with bones but proudly show off and brag about it. How I wish my Apu were alive today.  She would approve of these lunch packs because they are healthy and the vegetables are not, as she would describe it, “luteh-luteh” (wilted). But then she would have to send me a chiller, microwave and generator at school, like what the 7-Eleven team did for their 80 guests in Bale Dutung.

I guess, now that Claude has a line of quality packed meals in 7-Eleven no more need for the Japanese bento box or any other lunchbox for that matter.