Her life is not better than yours

The competition for most alarming food blog is fierce, but new Cod commenter AgentFour is a solid contender:

"I can't belive I paid $1.99 for this."

If you’ve ever said the above about a frozen meal, maybe you should be reading AgentFour. Our mission is to eat at work, then report back to you on ease of preparation, deliciousness, and bang for the buck.

We’re a team of dedicated non-profit employees willing to sacrifice our tastebuds and stomachs so that you don’t have to walk down the frozen food aisle wondering what is good. Also, we’re a bunch of dedicated non-profit employees, which means that we can’t afford to eat gourmet salads every day of the week.

Let us make your life easier; read AgentFour. We eat Salisbury Steak and microwaved Palak Paneer so that you don’t have to.

That's right. Abi of Agent Four is the Robert Parker of Hot Pockets, or possibly a modern-day sin eater. You can read a review of Lean Cuisine chicken spinach mushrooom panini right here.

    If something can be laudable and dismaying, this is it. I love the narrow focus, and the emphasis on providing information that will make people's lives more bearable, but no one has to eat this crap. I can't accept the fancy salad/microwaveable poison dichotomy. Our friend  Max has opined now and again on the subject of office lunches:

If, say, it is 90 degrees out and you are late for work, you will want to make yourself the easiest lunch possible. You will put a tomato (maybe even an heirloom, as long as it doesn't suck) in a bag with 2 slices of bread. Because you live in a less pleasant part of the world, current temperatures notwithstanding, you will have to settle for some simulacrum of Acme pain au levain. Come lunchtime, you will grab a paper packet of salt from the cafe and pour most of it over the tomato you have carefully sliced with your dedicated pocket knife, and thoroughly squish the result between said slices of bread. Yuppies will substitute sea salt. You will have a tiny bottle of Catalan arbequina olive oil sitting in your office for just such an occasion. You may have planned ahead and brought a substantial slice of pecorino fresco with you, but this is not stricly necessary. Refreshed, you are now ready to return to counting the hours until you can shower again.

This approach requires a little bit of planning, and your mileage may vary if you live outside the precincts of Watersistan,* but it is something to shoot for, and seems more satisfying than running the risk of gradually turning into Lot's wife.
*Tip of the fin to Big Pun for catching the Walker/Waters typo. If you post stuff before your 3rd cup of coffee, these things can happen.

Comments

[Abi]

Thanks for the mention. I think two people outside of my office have read the blog: you and the winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Seriously, she loves it. While it looks like we eat a lot of frozen food, the consumption probably only works out to 2 meals per person/week. Fortunately, AgentFour.com has ten contributors. Unfortunately, we're lazy (thus the obsession with frozen food) and when you're lazy it is hard to convince yourself to try new and untested foods.

[max]

I am the laziest person I know, which is why I prefer slicing a tomato on my desk to walking over to the microwave.

The problem with that lunch, however, is that it's only good for maybe 4 months of the year. I wouldn't bother with tomatoes until July.

By pure coincidence, today I picked a handful of favas on the way to work, and ate them at my desk. An admirable lunch in terms of laziness, though less so for flavor: there is no easy way to get enough salt onto the beans. A few chunks of aged pecorino might solve the problem, by approximating this.

Also, of course, you can only pull these off with very early favas (which are late this year because of the rain).

[max]

Shit, the link to horrors of old favas should go here. Sorry.