Lunch at the Shop - a charming book to revitalise your lunch break

If, like me, you are stuck in an office most days of the week, it's very easy to comfort eat your way out of boredom. However, most shop bought lunches tend to be pretty disappointing, unhealthy and quickly mount up to become a rather large expense. I usually allow for lunches made from leftovers in my weekly meal plans (doing this can seriously save you money) but it's great to get some occasional inspiration. A recent source has been the rather obscure but fantastically useful and rather charming book, 'Lunch at the Shop' by Peter Miller.

Now I have a very large collection of cookery books and I freely admit to being a real succour for those with lavish photographs (living with a photographer makes you highly visually aware). This smallish book is humbly lined in linen with a slight retro air reminiscent of literary classics but holds within an inspiring story of reclaiming lunch as the focal point of the working day and encouraging the renewal of social contact with your fellow co-workers with simple yet tasty lunches made with the minimum of fuss and eaten together. A real fight back to the snatched cold sandwich eaten without thinking whilst scrolling through yet more emails.

Peter Miller runs a design bookshop in Seattle and although there are tips for lunch that will relate more to an American audience (a decent burrito is still hard to come by in London, let alone the rest of the UK), there is much here to inspire a proper midday meal. Many of the lunches result from easy meals prepared the night before, simply cook a few more lentils or a little extra pasta. They are also seasonal, the perfect peach or fragrant tomato can be picked up on the way to work or brought in from your garden. It's so important to reclaim the lunch break and to reconnect with those that toil in the offices around you. Let's celebrate the midday meal with the help of this inspirational yet delightfully simple book.