I bought a few of these: http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless-King-SK3000MB4-Midnight/dp/B0017IFSIS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320542508&sr=8-3 My kids/DH tell me that their lunches are still piping hot when they're opened. I make soups or stews and freeze them. In the morning, I pop the frozen square (if I've forgotten to thaw it) into a pot or the microwave and warm it up. Add noodles if needed, put into preheated thermos and we're good to go. My teens like it. I pack a tuna noodle salad about every other week. I will sometimes use canned salmon instead, but they prefer the tuna. Some days, my husband will make a frozen pizza early in the morning, let it cool and the kids take slices of that to eat cold. They really love that. They get hot lunch at school once a week, on "Chef Day", when there's something really good that they want. Once in awhile I still buy lunchmeat and let them make a few sandwiches with it, but it's not very often. We can't send PB&J with my daughter because there are several kids at her school with severe nut allergies and she worries about causing a problem for them. Carrots are the usual veg of choice for the lunchboxes, and they prefer to have a fruit snack when they get home so I have stopped trying to get them to pack fruit in their lunches. I am less strict about lunches than I am about breakfast and dinner, the goal is to get something fairly healthy that they will actually eat and enjoy into the lunchbox. Gloved and gowned, I once dug through the luncheon garbage from grades 1-5, looking for a lost retainer. I was horrified at the number of whole apples and bananas thrown away, and the number of lunches that were not even opened. Bag after bag lunch, obviously lovingly packed, some with cheery notes or hearts on them! Baggies with whole sandwiches, or whole bags of vegetables or fruits. I felt so bad for those moms, and for the teachers who had to deal with hungry, crabby kids for the afternoon. And irritated with the unknown kids, who were wasting so much nutritious food when so many children in the world go hungry every day. It was disgusting. Cj Here is a link that might be useful: Thermos

Well, my handyman notched in all the wiring that was in a jumble in the kitchen soffits I removed, replaced the badly worn junction box, removed the hard wired undercabinet wiring he had installed 13 years ago (it will go back on new cabinets), added a pot light to the ones he had installed 13 yrs ago, and pulled the wires for both the undercabinet light and plugmold that will go under a new cabinet. Oh - also added an outlet to plug in my DustBuster. Tomorrow, he will unwire a kitchen outlet I don't want, and run that wire (in basement) to an outlet in an adjoining room where the outlet is not working. No, he's not licensed- could easily pass the exam, but at his age (late 50's) does not want to give up his income and lucrative business to do the required apprenticeship. He's invaluable.

I attended high school in the 1950s and our school did not have a lunch room. The students brought a bag lunch from home and ate in the bleachers in the gym. My typical lunch was a sandwich, a fruit, and a pastry. We high school kids carried our lunch in paper bags. If I was careful with my bag, it could be folded after use and slipped inot my back pocket to be used again. I usually got 3 days of use out or one bag. My one room country grade school lunch experience was different. I carried a lunch box with themos. The thermos liner never lasted an entire school year before it was broken. Most of the time it broke when dropped of when I fell during my journey between home and school. One time it was broken when I used my steel lunch box as a weapon to defend my self from the school bully. Times were difficult for my family during my grade school days. My sandwiches were made with cuts of cooked, home cured pork on slices of home-made bread, I remember once when we ran low on luncheon material, I had a bean sandwich. This was navy beans between two slices of bread, one slice was buttered with home made butter. During those times, once I had a raw turnip to munch on. In the fall, I'd grab an apple or two from a tree in our small orchard on my way to school.

Looks great. And yes, shepherd's pie done right IS made with lamb. (Otherwise the proper term is "cottage pie", although I don't see why "cowboy's pie" isn't a thing as a name... shepherds don't move cattle around...) The fish and chips look lovely! Scones were indeed dry. When I've been in Scotland and England, I simply loved haggis. I had two or three different preparations, and liked them all. I did NOT like the blood sausage. I had that with a Full English Breakfast one morning, and it was the only part I didn't finish. Did you get kippers? I tried them the last morning I was in Scotland prior to flying home. I liked them, but it wouldn't be something I'd want often. I didn't have Scotch eggs over there, but made them here at home once (using duck eggs). Enjoyable. The salmon is great over there! I also like the English tea sandwiches.