Emergency Meal

After reading this post a couple of years ago about making an effort, I like to think I've been trying to improve my food presentation. Even if I haven't cooked anything all that special, it lends some ceremony to transfer it into serving dishes.

However, I probably enjoyed even more the reference to emergency meals. Defined by Rachel as:

*An emergency meal is what you eat when you arrive home from work and you are dying. Ideally, an emergency meal should provide actual sustenance (pickles, though tempting, do not work well), should not require heating or chopping and must be able to be eaten with a single utensil or your fingers.

I have been thinking about what my emergency meal is, and ironically, it includes pickles - usually at least one of several varieties always in the fridge. While I like to think my emergency meal is a riff on a ploughman's lunch (which I learned about from this photo), it is probably closer to a bologna roll-up.

My emergency meal is salami, smeared with cream cheese, usually with a few pickles, and sometimes an apple. It only requires one utensil (a butter knife), and I usually don't assemble a bunch before digging in - I stand at the butcher block and eat as I go. I almost always have all on hand for exactly this purpose - the dying that will inevitably occur if I'm not able to eat something immediately upon walking in the door. My current favorite pickle is the okra pickle pictured above - in hot (of course) - which they sell at my local grocery store.

I'll have to try the peanut butter with chocolate chips next time I'm in need of an emergency meal.