![]()
I often wonder what I should have for lunch. Sometimes I ask people what they had and then I’ll have the same thing.
There should be a website where you can look up what people are having for lunch today, and use that as inspiration for what you have for lunch. And you could look up people in your area, so the timing is closer and the food is more in season with your location.
Oh wait. twitter search can do that. Do a search for: near:chicago within:15mi lunch. But it would be cool if there was a tool where you could see what the most popular words are for this search.
It would work like this.
1. Go to website for “What should I have for lunch?”
2. Enter your city.
3. It gives you the most popular words for the past 24 hours with tweets that are about lunch. With results like:
–Pizza (6)
–Hot dog (4)
–Subway (2)
–Taco Bell (1)
4. I’m sure things like Pizza would be near the top every day. To mix things up, this website would have a “Spin the wheel” with a pie chart wheel containing all the options. The options with more results like pizza (6) would have a larger spot on the wheel. How fun would that be?!
5. Then there could be an easy link to tweet the results. Something like “What should I have for lunch told me to have a hot dog today!”

Here’s how I decide what to have for lunch: “Hmm … what’s in the fridge?” Option1: fixin’s for a sammich Result: Go home, make said sammich Option 2: nothing Result 2: Go home and spend the hour online Option 3: nothing Result 3: Walk towards home, stop at White Hen and decide between pizza and grilled flat bread chicken sandwich. Take choice home and spend 40 minutes online eating said choice Sad, I know :O(
Here’s how I decide: PB&J. PB&J. PB&J.
Tom, you are a White Henner! That reminds me of my days out in Glen Ellyn, Illinois where the only place within a one-mile radius was a White Hen. I became very familiar with their pre-made sandwiches. I always felt bad having someone make the type that was made fresh. Moose, what type of peanut butter do you use? And what type of jelly?
I use smooth peanut butter with no nut pieces and concord grape jelly. I don’t recall the brands off hand. Though the glass grape container has a purple grid pattern similar to a picnic table cloth and the peanut butter container has a red label with a teal-ish screw top.
Why did you feel bad having someone make the type that was made fresh? That White Hen in Glen Ellyn was the only place around at the time (late 90s and early 2000s). It’s commonly known as “Five Corners” to all the locals. There’s a Walgreens now at that corner. A pizzeria is about a block away, too. The center of downtown Glen Ellyn is one mile from 5 Corners which I guess is a long walk for a lunch break. You never walked to downtown G.E. for lunch? I can see why you probably didn’t because you did so much walking get to work each morning and when you left each evening.
restaurants in downtown Glen Ellyn: http://downtownglenellyn.com/Restaurants.html
after your talk of PB&J, i tried to make some that night, but found that my PB was due april 2008. I bought some at the store. I forget the type of PB, but I also bought jelly, and the jelly was sugar-free! SUGAR-FREE jelly! Although maybe it has that fake sugar. I didn’t look.
I never walked down the GE for lunch, because I never really took lunch when I worked there. Seriously. I was a hard-core worker. I worked SOLID the entire day. This was before the internet. Our modem was a dial-up and the boss wanted the sound on, so she would know when we went online. One day in 2.5 years there I took a lunch at the nearby park. it was fantastic. When I started at Tribune, I was so pleased that everyone took a real one-hour lunch every day. Oh, and the walk to downtown Glen Ellyn was about 10 blocks, so it would take me 30 minutes to get down there. And so as soon as i got down there, i’d have to turn around and go back. Well, actually, i think I had the walk down to 15 minutes. Funny how I forget these details like how long it took me to walk. It was so engrained in my head, because I had to take the Metra every day, so I knew exactly how much time it took to walk and at what pace i needed to take to achieve it.
Moose, your peanut butter is Skippy and your Jelly is Welch’s