"Everything but the Kitchen Sink"

I have not forsaken you!

First and foremost I must apologize for my inability to share with you the inner details of my fabulous life in the Hamptons...oh wait, that's because I don't have one.

This season is the three months out of the year where people come to take advantage of the gorgeous weather, their summer Fridays, and their beach houses.  It is also the one quarter of the year where I can take advantage of those people's wallets.

As many of you know I work for an interior designer on Main Street in Westhampton Beach during the day. To make some extra cash, once my day of decorating has come to a chaotic end, I hop in my car and shoot over the Rumba Rum Bar  in Hampton Bays where I plaster on a bright smile, button up my (hideous) Hawaiian shirt and serve Prickly Pear margaritas and grilled artichokes to people that actually get to enjoy their summer. I get home around 12:30-1 in the morning, rinse off the dried dirty bus bin water that splashed all over my legs, hit the pillow, wake up and do it all over again Monday through Thursday.

On my days off I tend to turn off my brain cells and bask in whatever sunlight I can find. However as my father so courteously reminded me there are a lot of hours in a week and even though I feel like most of my days consist of bouncing from one job to the next and trying to balance family, friends, boyfriend and personal time, I can dedicate at least one of them to my true passion: writing.

So, now that I have invited you all to my pity party we can move on.

Amid all the discombobulation that ensues throughout my work week, the one thing I can control is what I eat so I always make a point to pack myself a healthy lunch. Even though the deli across the street from my office has the most AMAZING whole wheat everything flagels I have ever bitten into and a crepe place called Cafe Mambo just opened up around the corner that has a nutella and banana medley that calls my name, I know that when I have a protein-packed nutritious mid day meal I feel like I can trek through my 14-hour day on a high note.

My (which I am sure is many people's) predicament is that I like to snooze as long as I possibly can in the morning barely leaving myself enough time to make a cup of coffee let alone a gourmet spread. Plus my office is half showroom half workplace and my boss prefers to teeter more on the showroom side since we don't have any the typical office appliances like a microwave, water cooler, or toaster oven. What I wouldn't give for a Keurig machine next to the $3,000 French antique mahogany bar.

My options break down to either a salad or a sandwich. Luckily for me the former is my favorite food group (most likely because it doesn't involve any actual cooking). Those create-your-own salad bars are my happy place. When I die, my personal heaven will be a 24-hour salad buffet with every vegetable, nut, and salad dressing ever imagined (and it will all be calorie free). But while I am still here on Earth I might as well share some of my quick lunch concoctions.

My salads look like I literally picked up the refrigerator and dumped all its contents into my light blue tupperware (that I fight my mother for because it truly is the perfect size). It lives up to the cliche "everything but the kitchen sink." And it is so easy and quick because I toss whatever I want over a bed of crunchy lettuce and call it creative.

Tuesday I got home from the restaurant at about 12:45 sticky, sweaty, and cranky. Although exhaustion was leading me straight to my pillow, my healthful subconscious rerouted me to the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator I quickly assessed my options. I lined my bowl with crisp Romaine lettuce then began to chop every piece of produce in the vegetable drawer like an herbivorous butcher. It was like a five year old's worst nightmare.

Juicy beets, English cucumbers, bright carrots (for crunch-so when I close my eyes I could imagine garlic croutons), red onions, sweet August corn, and leftover roasted red peppers and eggplant that were marinated in Italian dressing and grilled (which I did not do, thanks mom!). I pulled the Nature's Promise extra firm tofu from its container and threw in a cup for protein, hoping nature would keep its promise. Adding chickpeas for a punch of extra fiber, I put oil and vinegar in a miniature container and called it a night.

The next evening I sauntered through the door pulling stray bar napkins and run away straws out of my bag and faced the kitchen with the same conundrum. Washing out my same light blue bowl, I ripped up my old friend Romaine and started from scratch. I added a diced hard boiled egg (which again I did not make, thanks mom!), a quarter of a creamy avocado, baby carrots, some crunchy jicama, one diced baby bell cheese (almost with the wax on because I was bordering on delirium) and a handful of pumpkin seeds. Since the top of my tupperware snapped on without any extra force I decided to add leftover sauteed kale.

These "everything but the kitchen sink" salads are simple, brainless and steer me away from the MANY unhealthy lunch options that encompass my office like an obesity-inducing army. It does help to have a mother that prepares dinner every night therefore leaving me with a plethora of leftovers to toss over my palette of lettuce but as long as you can safely use a knife (which sometimes I still have difficulty with) and can successfully open the refrigerator, making a healthy lunch is just as easy as choosing between sesame and everything.