Chrysalis on Eat: Spare a Thought for Food

Now that I’ve started work after what seems to be two long years as minister of Australian home affairs, lunch is no longer a war. Gone are the days of having to negotiate between sparring kids and a temperamental toddler trying to assert his independence at the dining table while trying to chow down my steaming hot bowl of instant noodles and mopping up the destruction left behind by my toddler who thinks it’s fun and hilarious playing catch with his own food.

However, lunch is also not a leisurely affair –- one that evokes fond memories involves bonding over a cup of teh tarik (tea with milk) after lunch with my ex-colleagues back home in Singapore.

You see, my lunch at work is only half an hour. Yes, 30 minutes and I can almost hear your collective gasp of shock and disbelief.

It seems pretty common at the Australian workplace to have half hour to forty-five minute lunch breaks, as I found out from my Aussie colleagues. The hub’s workplace also practises 30-minute lunch breaks.

The rationale is a simple one: take a shorter lunch break and go home earlier. Take my workplace for example. I have to clock 7.6 hours in a day. So I chose to start work earlier at 8 a.m. (rather than the official 9 a.m.) and end at 4 p.m. This leaves me enough time to pick up the kids from childcare and return home to prepare dinner.



One of the many advantages of leaving work early: avoid the rush-hour traffic



With lunch hour this short, most people also tend to have lunch at their desks or at the pantry. Lunch is usually leftovers from the previous night’s dinner or a simple sandwich and soup. It is just as well the lunch hour is short as eating out can be quite expensive (you won’t get away with less than ten bucks for a decent meal and drink) and you won’t find many people having lunch out more than two times a week. Well, unless they have deep pockets.

And fellow Singaporeans who are reading this blog, get ready to let out another gasp of disbelief. In Australia, it’s actually acceptable and relatively common to dabao (get a doggy bag for) what you cannot finish on your plate. The waiter’s not going to give you the look when you ask for containers to doggy-bag the leftovers. Neither will you be charged 20 cents for the empty boxes.

As much as I enjoy the convenience and easy access to cheap, delicious food back home in Singapore, gripe about expensive, below-par Asian food in Melbourne food place, and whine about having to cook even when I am tired and don’t feel like it; in the grand scheme of things, life has for us changed in more good ways than bad since moving to Melbourne in the food department.

First, I get to finally flex my dormant culinary skills (“I didn’t know you can cook!” says the hub).



All of a sudden, I have culinary superpowers

Next, I decide what goes into our meals (goodbye, MSG).

But best of all, there is a certain sense of "want not, waste not" when it comes to consuming.

In Singapore, food is so cheap that we wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving leftovers on our plates if we can’t finish it. Somehow, moving here has given us a whole new mindset toward wastage.

We don’t cook more than we can’t chew and when we do have leftovers, we turn it into our lunch for tomorrow or transform it into a different dish come tomorrow evening.



Still the best: Homecooked meals

I’ve been telling the hub that if we were to transport this lifestyle back home, we would be rich.

Now, that’s food for thought.