The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 22, 2026, 1:33 p.m.

While we’re slogging through the long, dark days of January, a little preparation can make your midday meal a source of comfort and joy • Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast Even if you have no truck with Blue Monday, Quitter’s Day or any of the other new-year wheezes concocted by enterprising marketeers, the last weeks of January can feel like a bit of a confused slog. Seasonal colds and lurgies abound.

The weather is generally at its rain-lashed and blackly overcast worst. Well-intentioned attempts at self-improvement or abstemiousness are starting to creak in the face of a desire for whatever scraps of midwinter comfort we can find.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when it comes to food and, more specifically, the daily puzzle of how to have something nourishing as a working lunch.

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