Stop eating my soup!

Now that dire economic times are upon us, we must do our utmost to ensure that the comestibles upon which our hard earned money is spent do not fall into foreign hands... I am speaking, of course, of lunch theft.Lunch thievery, I suspect, has been a problem since the first human tied a bit of hide around a chunk of mammoth jerky to be consumed during a quick break from hunting, foraging and dragging his or her woman around by the hair. And as long as there are those thrifty and thoughtful enough to bring their lunch from home, there will be those ballsy enough to consume said lunch without hesitation or remorse. But fear not, there are solutions...Pack a lunch that is just too weird to steal. I'm not sure how appealing it would be to snag a lunch that has the ability to stare you down. Back in the day, it helped to have a mother that packed a lunch that no one else would eat. Alice Waters started her daughter Fanny off right. Fanny remembers how she'd carry "a 10-pound lunchbox" to school, filled with Alice's big salads topped with prosciutto or fresh mozzarella, macerated fruit for dessert and linen napkins. "I never got teased," Fanny says. "Most of my friends were envious." I never had that problem. My mother was of the Tony Bourdain "Anything Goes" school of lunch thought, providing me with big thick beef tongue sandwiches on dark pumpernickel bread, dressed with a hearty mustard. Trust me, no one ever asked for tradesies...(Psssst! Click on my tongue for a tasty recipe!)Of course, you can always let the lunch container itself be your line of defense...This plan works especially well if you know someone who can get you some "lunch bags" that no one in their right mind would explore... But if all of these suggestions fail, there is always one tried and true recipe for success...That's right, I'm talking about the ever popular "Ex-Lax Brownie". Now mind you, it's not an instant fix, but once word of what happens when folks eat your cooking gets around, not only will your lunches be left untouched, but you'll also never get stuck in the dread office pot-luck loop again!

I hope this has been helpful to those of you who bring their lunch (or have ever considered stealing mine...) Carry on!