Law & Order: L-U-N-C-H

Please excuse the shabby picture. I had jury duty today and instead of packing anything to eat I decided to do a little experiment. I bought my lunch from one of the steam table/salad bars/weigh n' pay delis. I wanted to eat pretty much what I would have packed for myself, except a bit more special.

• broccoli (steamed but with some sort of flavor or oil on it)
• 3 or 4 spears of asparagus and a button mushroom (swimming in oil)
• grilled (?) salmon
• Greek salad
• grapes and a strawberry
• watermelon chunks
• a bottle of water
  

I thought it was going to cost a lot of money so that I could smugly go back to packing my lunches and say that I have been to the Dark Side and can confirm that it is very bleak, indeed. But, surprisingly this entire lunch only cost $7.24 in all. I guess that is more than nothing but it's certainly not the bank breaker I thought it would be. I'd kick myself if I spent that amount every day, five days a week. But, for just one day, it wasn't too expensive.

My main complaint was the quality of the food. Everything cooked was overcooked and everything raw was soggy and overexposed. The best thing was the bottle of water. Thus, the takeaway from this little experiment still lets me be smug. The quality of food that I make at home is so much better than what the lunch wagons of New York City has to offer.
I took a sneaky snap of the famous courthouse steps. I was too busy enjoying today's rare spring sunshine during our lunch break to get off my duff and take a more compelling photo. I think they use a lot of exterior shots of this courthouse on Law & Order and some movies.

Back to the salt mines tomorrow.