Lunch

If what you crave is serious comfort with a kick, a pat of butter and a sprinkle of chile flakes will take you there. Think of the comfort you get from plain buttered noodles — it’s even better when savory broth and a bit of spice is involved. The richness from the butter complements and balances the spice from the chile flakes for an instant ramen experience that’s just a little more luxurious. Prepare the instant ramen according to the instructions on the package.

With bagged broccoli slaw and a spoonful of red curry paste, you’re two ingredients away from totally transforming instant ramen into a veggie-packed noodle soup with a warm curry flavor. Bagged broccoli slaw has proved its worth time and again with salads and stir-fries, and this quick noodle soup is yet another way to put it to work. Contrasting with the chewy noodles, thin strips of broccoli, carrots, and cabbage bring a fresh, crunchy bite to the soup.

When you want to up the ante and turn this instant noodle soup from snack to satisfying meal, look to baked tofu cubes. With crisp outsides and a tender center, baked tofu cubes are a satisfying way to add texture and a boost of protein to a cup of ramen. Consider this your reason to stock the fridge with a batch or two of make-ahead baked tofu. Get a recipe: How To Make Baked Tofu for Salads, Sandwiches & Snacks Prepare the instant ramen according to the instructions on the package.

We already know that the combination of noodles and peanut sauce is a winning one, so don’t skip on bringing that magic to ramen soup. Sounds odd at first, but the resulting rich and nutty broth will have you thinking otherwise. Stirred into a pot of just-cooked ramen, peanut butter easily softens from the heat of the stovetop. It offers a little boost of protein, but, best of all, it brings flavor and body to the broth.

Just like that, your simple bowl of ramen goes from hearty snack to a satisfying meal — and all it takes is an egg. When you’re craving a filling bowl of noodle soup that can hold its weight as a meal, protein is what you want to get the job done. An egg is the easiest way to make it happen. Go for a fried or poached egg, and let the runny yolk add a silky coating to the noodles and richness to the broth. Prepare the instant ramen according to the package instructions.

Sometimes all you need is a single ingredient to give instant ramen a bold upgrade. Reach for kimchi to bring an intensely funky, spicy twist to a simple bowl of noodle soup and never go back to kimchi-free ramen again. Consider this just one of many ways to put that jar of kimchi in the fridge to work. The salty ramen broth balances the pungent flavor of the kimchi, while the fermented cabbage adds more texture to the soup. Get ready for a nose-clearing ramen soup experience!

This is just one more reason to keep a knob of fresh ginger in the kitchen at all times. A few slices of fresh ginger are an instant upgrade, bringing a fresh and zippy flavor boost. Just a small amount of ginger makes a big difference when added to quick cup of ramen. Let it simmer a few minutes until the broth picks up the ginger’s flavor. Stick with rounds for a lighter aroma with less spice, or if you like more zing, add in minced or grated ginger.

Inspired by our favorite Thai soup, canned coconut milk ups the ante on instant ramen with a rich, luxurious broth. Yes, coconut milk is great for its sweet, nutty flavor, but the real power behind this pantry staple comes from the fat. Stirred into simmering ramen, coconut milk takes the broth to another level with its extra-rich flavor. It’s a simple addition that makes ramen indulgent.

Instant ramen is all about simple comfort, and deserves a like-minded topping to match. Top off the bowl with American cheese and watch how it melts into the soup to form a creamy broth. It’s simple comfort food that invokes the nostalgia of childhood grilled cheese sandwiches. The best thing about American cheese is its meltability. Layered over the noodles in a hot bowl of ramen, it almost instantly succumbs to the heat of the broth, and softens into the noodles for a creamy twist.

If what you crave is crunch, look to the pantry for a container of crispy fried onions. We’re bringing the classic casserole topping to ramen with equally savory results. Crispy fried onions bring a welcome contrast to the tender bite of the noodles. As they soften into the broth, the onion flavor creates another layer of savory richness. Prepare the instant ramen according to the package instructions. Pour into a bowl and top with up to 1/4 cup of crispy fried onions.

Packing lunch every day can get boring, but here’s a fun and inexpensive way to make it more fun. My colleague Meghan makes lunch for her kids each day and, on a hunt to keep her “lunch-packing spark alive,” she stumbled on the cutest little way to pack up condiments for lunch boxes. Meghan stumbled upon these condiment containers made for Japanese bento boxes and instantly fell in love.

Don’t let your desk lunch get you down. Here are five pantry items to keep on hand to have a better lunch at work. Save the kosher or fine salt for cooking and baking. Instead, keep a packet of something that feels a little more special, like Maldon, fleur de sel, or flavored sea salt, in your desk drawer. It’s an easy way to have a well-seasoned lunch that feels fancy.

Some weekends fly by so quickly that Monday hits and you realize you didn’t do a thing to prepare for the week ahead. Thankfully Monday is a perfect day to jump-start the rest of the week by making dinner and packing yourself a few workday lunches at the same time. Here are five quick ways to turn Monday’s dinner into lunch for the rest of the week. Double one or two components from dinner and turn those into lunch for the week.

This year my youngest started full-time preschool and I went from packing his sister’s five lunches a week to packing 10 lunches a week for both of them. I realized I could save time each morning (not to mention my sanity and some dishwashing) if I packed all 10 of those lunches at once. I started slowly, by packing three days at a time and working my way up to a full week of lunches packed in about an hour on Sunday.

Let us begin with a cautionary tale from Ester Bloom, aka Aunt Acid, internet-age advice columnist at The Daily Dot. At my last office job, there was a woman who vocally disapproved of other people’s lunch choices. Let’s call her Betsy. The office was a small non-profit. None of us made much money, so lots of staff members brought food and ate either at their desks or together in the kitchen. Our food choices were thus public, and subject to Betsy’s scorn.

There are a few frozen food hacks that can improve your lunch. Freezing a water bottle to serve as both an ice pack and cool refreshment is one, and freezing soups, yogurts, and even smoothies so they don’t slosh around is another — but what about foods you can pack completely frozen that will thaw to eat by lunchtime? Here are 10 frozen foods you can pack for lunches without thawing.

Whether you’re packing lunches for yourself or your family, packing a whole week’s worth of lunches is more efficient and will save you time each day. These 10 simple rules will ensure that your lunch is as tasty Friday as it was on Monday. There is no way around this — in order to pack a week’s worth of lunches, you are going to need a week’s worth of containers.

Every school year starts optimistically. Sure, it’s hard to wake up earlier, but if you’re anything like me, the start of a new routine is energizing. I return to meal planning, relish fixed hours to get work done, and even devote myself to beautiful packed lunches — for the kids and myself — that will make us all thrilled to eat well, even in the middle of a busy day.

In my home, meal planning goes beyond dinner. Just as important as making the week run like a smooth, well-oiled machine, is lunch prep. Unlike dinner, I tackle my midday meal by preparing a whole week’s worth of lunches in one fell swoop. These are the five ways I make it happen, and how you can do it too. Admittedly this seems so obvious and should go without saying, but it’s easy to forget when we’re in a mad dash to pack lunch.

As we head into the back-to-school season, the idea of independence has been weighing on my mind. Maybe it’s because my boys are getting older — the “little” one is on the verge of 7 and his brother is chasing 10 — or maybe it’s that a backlash against helicopter parenting is bubbling. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to spend the next year nurturing my boys’ independence, even when it’s uncomfortable and, yes, even around food.

Whether you slow-cooked a pork shoulder or roasted a chicken on Sunday or you simply picked up rotisserie chicken on your weekly shopping trip, shredded pork and chicken are smart tools to have around. When weekday lunches all too often feel uninspiring and stale, both versatile proteins spice up the norm. Combine them with a few additional ingredients to make lunch something you actually look forward to. Here are 10 ideas to get you started.

What we put into our bodies can make or break our day. This is especially true for kids, who have to juggle the demands of school, extracurricular activities, and friends (and frenemies). Parents and guardians can usually maintain a watchful eye over what kids eat for breakfast and dinner, but lunchtime can sometimes be a free-for-all. And while packing lunch is almost always the healthiest option, it’s not always a realistic one.

For many families, back to school means a return to packing lunches. Making sure that your children are well-fed 365 days of every year is hard enough, but adding 180 school lunches can feel downright relentless. I understand and am here to offer relief. Get ready for the most liberating school lunch advice you’ll ever receive: Let your kid pack their own lunch box.

You’ve just climbed into bed with a good book, and you realize you forgot to pack lunches for your kids. Or worse, everyone wakes up late and you’re scrambling eggs, trying to find that other pink shoe, and then throw something, anything into a lunch box. Does this sound familiar? That was me at least once a week for the last three years. It took me too long to realize how much stress packing school lunch was creating every day, especially since it is something that I want to do.

Peanut butter and jelly is a comforting classic that hardly needs improving. Instead, these one-ingredient twists turn a lunch-box staple into something fun and unexpected. Are you read to liven up lunchtime? These are the single-ingredient upgrades that go beyond the simple swaps of jam and nut butter, or the extra drizzle of honey. These are the unexpected ingredients that add a crunch factor to your lunch and sneak in a pop of flavor.

One of our main goals as parents is not to simply take care of our children, but to teach them to take care of themselves. We teach them to get dressed on their own, brush their own teeth, and use the bathroom — and then we send them off to school. While I’m still trying to master teaching a 5-year-old to tie her shoes, I’ve got my eye on the real prize of teaching kids to fend for themselves: packing their own school lunches.

Don’t let Caesar salad be the meal you reserve for restaurants and dinner at home. It’s fast to prepare and only has a few ingredients, which means it has the potential to become a completely blissful lunch. But it all comes down to how you pack it. Before you even get to the ingredients, consider the container they’re packed in. When it comes to salad, we believe the very best option is a large, wide container. (Sorry, Mason jars.

Quiche fits the bill any time of day, be it breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. You can make it rich and decadent, with the butteriest crust and heaps of cheese, or you can lighten it up and pack it with flavorful veggies. Whichever way you choose, it’s a guaranteed hit. That is, as long as you avoid a few common quiche-making mistakes. Baking a quiche is really quite simple. In its most basic form, it’s a custard of eggs and milk baked in a pie crust.

After so many failed attempts, I’ve finally succeeded at meal planning. The tricky part hasn’t been sticking to it (that’s going quite well), but rather planning for lunch. Usually lunch is a salad, but it has to be one I really want to eat (read: one I won’t ditch for whatever the office decides to order).

It’s happened to all of us: You pack a salad for work in the morning, praising yourself as you walk out the door for being so put together. But when lunchtime comes around, you’re suddenly less than enthused — plus, there’s free pizza in the conference room. But wait! That salad is actually pretty great — and it could be even better. Yes, forget the subpar pizza and focus on your carefully packed salad. Bring it to life with these three simple rules.

If you’ve ever bought a big bag of mesclun greens with the hope that it will last all week in your fridge, you’ve more than likely been left sorely disappointed. By day two or three it’s usually a slimy mess. You could use one of these tips to make those greens last, but your best bet is to ditch the temperamental lettuce all together since there are plenty of other salad bases that won’t let you down mid-week.

A good lunch salad hinges on far more than its ingredients. Sure, they bring the flavor factor, but just as important (maybe more so) is how you pack them together. This can be the difference between a sad, soggy lunch and one that totally makes your coworkers jealous. Let’s all agree that it’s time to ditch the Mason jar for packing salads. It looks nice, I’ll give you that, but it’s just not practical.

Frittatas are one of the most versatile dishes. Suitable from breakfast through dinner, they can be made right before mealtime or well in advance. They’re delicious hot or cold and also the ideal canvas for all those end-of-week veggies. While a fluffy frittata isn’t terribly difficult to pull together, there are a couple missteps that could prevent this one-pan meal from reaching its potential. Here’s what you need to know to make sure that isn’t the case.

There’s something about eating food from a bowl that just makes it even more appealing, and smoothies are no exception. They’re certainly delicious in a tall glass, but pour a smoothie in a bowl and add all the toppings and you’ve got something really special to sink a spoon into. The very best smoothie bowls are thick and frosty; you don’t want to end up with a bowl of thin smoothie soup.

Tuna salad is a tried-and-true lunchtime classic. Whether you pile it into a sandwich, eat it with crackers, or mix it into your salad greens, it makes for a fast and satisfying meal. But as good as it is, I think we can agree that it’s high time things got a little more interesting. Meet five new versions of tuna salad that give the classic a major overhaul.

In theory, packing a lunch sounds like a simple thing. But it’s always those simple things that turn out to be the toughest to tackle. Even with the best of intentions and best-laid plans, packing a lunch can be a tall order. But these smart tips will make it a little easier for you. Follow Ariel’s lead and start by planning to pack your lunch a few days a week, rather than jumping into the deep end and committing to every day right off the bat.

Like Ariel, I’m on a mission to bring my lunch to work more often. One key to success? Making salads, soups, and grain bowls more luxurious and appealing with the addition of a poached egg. Yes, a warm and lovely poached egg can be yours at the office — any time you like! Here’s how I do it. I’ve learned two important things about packing my lunch: Desk lunch doesn’t have to be synonymous with boring.

You'll want to memorize these.

For the third year in a row, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to take my lunch to work. There are so many benefits this goal will have on my life — I’ll save some money, eat a little healthier, and be less wasteful. This is going to be the year that I actually follow through on my resolution, but I need your help. What’s your best advice for taking your lunch to work regularly? I want to set myself up for success this year by making things a little easier.

What makes a salad? A quick search turns up this succinct definition: “A cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients.” Perfect. That’s nice and vague, and yet when we think of salad, it’s a bowl of green lettuce that we are envisioning.

Q: I’m going to be staying at a fancy resort for a weekend wedding. I’m already dropping big bucks on the location, and I want to minimize my food costs wherever I can. Dinners will be included in the experience, but breakfasts and lunches will not. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I’ll have access to any sort of refrigeration, other than bringing a small cooler in my car.

The grilled cheese sandwich is a classic. Perfectly melted and oozy cheese, sandwiched between two golden, crisp, buttery slices of bread — it’s simple, comforting, and utterly timeless. It’s one of the first things we learn to cook, and one we carry with us through the years. But as basic as this sandwich is, there are a few hang-ups that could stand between you and the grilled cheese of your dreams. Don’t let it happen to you.

Do you know Wasa crackers? These crunchy, whole-grain crispbreads are a mild yet sturdy cracker with a touch of earthy flavor. And that is precisely what makes them the perfect base for lunch. Think of these cracker combos like an open-faced sandwich, or tartine, ready in two minutes. Here are 10 easy and delicious ways to turn any type of Wasa cracker (or another style or brand of savory cracker) into lunch. All it takes is three everyday ingredients.

Homemade soup is easy, and it’s always comforting. Whether or not my kids reach for the occasional can of soup, I want them to know how to make an economical, easy version from scratch, so they can have a healthy meal any day of the week. I like to make my own stock. (True story: I recently requested my fish in a restaurant be decapitated before it was cooked, so I could take home the raw fish head to make stock. Delicious!

Whether you’re packing a lunch for the office or lunch for the kids, you want to make sure you pack the right foods properly to help prevent food-borne illnesses. We talked to Katie Morford, registered dietitian and author of the book Best Lunch Box Ever, to share her tips on how to safely pack lunches so you keep everyone healthy and happy! “Avoid putting certain foods in lunch boxes altogether.

My sons are smart. They figured out how to make grilled cheese sandwiches on their own, but they were discerning enough to notice the sandwiches made by their parents were far superior. And they wanted to learn our secrets. We’ve had years of practice, and we agree that if there’s one thing we can teach our children, it’s how to make an excellent hot sandwich, any time of day, from breakfast to late-night snack time. Let’s start with breakfast.

September brings many things, chief among them the switch back to school — school wake-ups, school bedtimes, schoolwork, and school lunches. For many parents, this means asking a question about lunch, which theoretically constitutes about a third of the food our kids eat: Who’s going to make it? I think it’s worth parents’ time and money to pack their own kids’ lunches, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

A piece of pita bread is a little world unto itself — so round, so hollow, so open to whatever you desire for lunch. And so portable and convenient, too! But after a few too many of my old standby, kale salad-stuffed pockets, I decided I needed a little fresh inspiration for the daily marvel of the pita sandwich.

Fresh or dried, slurped or twirled, rice noodles are a great way to fill out a meal. They add texture and fun, no simmering required. What’s not to love? Here are five ways to eat more rice noodles this summer. Make a stop into your local Asian or Vietnamese market, and head for the refrigerated section first. If you’re lucky, you’ll find packages of fresh white rice noodles labelled bánh phở or bún, often translated to English as rice vermicelli.

We’ve all encountered a wimpy bowl of greens with a few slices of cucumber and a piece of tomato, trying to pass as a salad, at some point or another. Forget satisfying — that’s not even appetizing, and it gives salads everywhere a bad name. A good salad is a wonderful and glorious thing. It has a place as an appetizer, side dish, go-to weekday lunch, and, when made right, it can even hold its own as dinner.

I like to think I have a pretty good sense of what will freeze well and what won’t. So you could have knocked me over with a spatula when I discovered, during prep for my recent freezer meal party, that twice-baked potatoes freeze beautifully and heat up perfectly. I had no idea! Twice-baked potatoes take a fair amount of work and time to make, but making them in bulk and freezing makes so much sense. Here’s how to freeze stuffed potatoes — they’re my new favorite lunch!

I resolved to pack a lot more vegetables into my meals this year, and an obvious assistant in this goal is the omnipresent lunch salad. There’s only one problem: salads are cold. And when I’m cold too, shivering at my desk with my hands wrapped around a mug of tea, the last thing I want is a bowl of chilly greens. But there are a few easy tricks to warm up a salad, and I’ve been using these to help me eat (and love) my greens all winter long.

Q: I have transitioned to being a stay-at-home mom and have enjoyed the challenge of cooking more of our meals from scratch. My biggest problem is weekend lunches. Inevitably, we finally get out the door to have fun or run errands, and breakfast was hours ago and dinner is far away. What can I grab for us to eat? I am looking for five-minute-or-less prep — including any cooking in advance! — and able to be eaten in the car. Our only standby is a turkey sandwich. Help!

Q: My department at work (about 30 people) holds frequent lunch potlucks at staff meetings. I’ve exhausted my cache of recipes that fit the necessary constraints: …must be made the night before (bonus points if parts of it can be made two nights before), must be served cold or room temp, must work on a buffet table (easy to serve quickly), and must feed a lot of people. Salads and desserts are obvious choices, but I’m looking for new and impressive dishes that taste great.

I’m always looking for ways to get more produce into my diet. Whether it’s keeping a crudité platter in the fridge, adding cooked carrots to a sweet afternoon snack, or swapping spiraled zucchini for noodles, I’ll use any trick I can to fill my days with lots of vegetables. Here’s my favorite new way to swap out starch for greens in my lunchtime routine — turn a classic sandwich into a salad!

Consider the lunchbox. That’s right: picture it. If you’re not the parent of school-aged kids, you may feel a tug of nostalgia. The box in your mind is cheery and bright, adorned, perhaps, with upbeat stickers, a favorite TV cast, or a superhero saving the world. If you are the parent of school-aged kids, you’ll likely have a different response: sweaty palms, heart palpitations, and cortisol streaming through your blood.

South Carolina doesn’t have much of a winter, and I like it that way. We don’t have much of an autumn, either, so when I woke up today and temperatures were in the mid-sixties, it felt chilly. So chilly, that I immediately wanted pumpkin soup. Though fall doesn’t officially begin for a few more days, it started at lunchtime today in my house. Pumpkin soup is a very easy soup, and I like using fresh pumpkin, because the roasted seeds are such a delicious bonus.

Close your eyes. Imagine the best meal you’ve ever eaten. Maybe you were in Paris, lingering in a cafe just one block from the chic flat your friend lent you for the week. Perhaps you were in New York or San Francisco, where the chef boasted a Michelin star or three, and each course was perfectly paired with a new glass of wine.

The grilled cheese is the little black dress of sandwiches with good reason: it’s classic and never goes out of style. There’s just something about the simple-yet-unbeatable combination of buttered, toasted bread with gooey cheese in the middle. But what if you could up your grilled cheese game by making them even cheesier? A sprinkling of a hard, aged cheese like Parmesan or Pecorino Romano onto the buttered bread before you toast it adds an amazing dimension to the final sandwich.

Dips are an easy way to jazz up raw vegetables and make your afternoon snack a little more substantial. And the easiest way to make veggies and dip an on-the-go snack? Pack them together in a jar! Small mason jars are leak-proof and sturdy, and storing the veggies and dip together means you don’t have to carry an extra container in your lunch bag. Just spoon your dip into the bottom of the jar, fill the jar with the raw vegetables of your choice, screw on the lid, and go.

When it comes to a stylish lunch, the Japanese art of bento reigns supreme. We showed you some clever and playful bento arrangements yesterday, but today I want to just talk about the boxes. Traditionally, bento boxes were made out of wood. Here are five really beautiful examples from Japantique.

Day 9: Thursday, March 13 Assignment: Pick 1 new lunch recipe and shop for ingredients The Cooking Cure: See all assignments so far here It’s action time! Now that you’ve set yourself some brand new lunch goals and found some fresh meal ideas to shake up the lunchtime doldrums, it’s time to actually put your plan into motion. How do we do that? Grab your car keys, friends, because we’re going grocery shopping!

How is Week 2 of your Cooking Cure? How is lunch going? I sense a couple trends: Many of you are Bored With Lunch. Others of you snack your way through the afternoon. And then others, like Bright Lights, dutifully pack a lunch, but work gets in the way, and the nice lunch deteriorates in the fridge. Can you relate? Do you have any suggestions for Bright Lights and lunches that last well for a whole week in the fridge?

Yogurt with fruit and granola is perhaps one of our most basic breakfasts — I think all of us here at The Kitchn eat it from time to time, if not more frequently. But yogurt is a flexible staple, one well-suited to lunch as well as breakfast, and easily made savory, if sweet isn’t your speed. Here are five ideas for working tangy yogurt into your lunch — all savory!

What challenges are you coming up against as you look for new inspiration in your lunches? I loved this question from one of the Cure-takers about vegetarian freezer meals. Here’s what cuminafterall said: My lunch is almost always leftovers from the night before. I haven’t gotten bored with it (our dinners are quite varied!), but if we decide to eat out for dinner, it can be challenging to scrape together a lunch for the next day.

Sure, you could buy ice packs or even make your own — but you don’t have to. There are plenty of lunch items that can be frozen and packed, keeping the rest of your lunch cool as they thaw. Even better? At the end of the day there’s nothing extra to schlep home in your lunch bag. Freeze a bottle of water, juice, tea or iced coffee and sip your still-chilled drink alongside your lunch.

Day 7: Ask yourself 3 questions about your lunch habits. How sad is this lone chicken thigh? It’s the only thing leftover from last night’s dinner. We ate all the broccoli that went with it, and there wasn’t much of the freekeh and butternut squash salad to begin with, so that’s definitely gone.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I became an avid sandwich eater. Before the fateful day when I consumed The Perfect Sandwich, I never understood the appeal – why not just consume the ingredients in salad form? Why did everything turn out so soggy? But lo’, sandwiches have so much more to offer when done right. You see, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients (especially bread), and awesome spreads and lots of textures.

Day 7: Tuesday, March 1 Assignment: Review yesterday’s list and rethink your lunch habits Cooking Cure: See all assignments so far here Lunch feels to me like one of the trickiest meals of the day — it’s so easy for good intentions to go completely off the rails.

It’s Lunch Week at The Kitchn, which means that salads are the star. Oh wait, what’s that? Salads are your lunch of last resort? You’d prefer a good grilled cheese? Well, perhaps you’re not eating a swanky enough salad to keep you interested. There’s nothing so satisfying as a hearty salad chock-full of intriguing bits of nuts, fruit, cheese, and perhaps a seductive handful of bacon.

All right, we’re into Week 2 of The Cooking Cure, so it’s all lunch, all the time. Except, lunch just means leftovers, right? Oh leftovers — sometimes delicious, sometimes worn-out, always convenient. We heard from a lot of you yesterday who said you’re wishing you weren’t so dependent on leftovers for lunch. Like sparklingsapphire, for instance. sparklingsapphire says: Lately, my lunches are almost always leftovers from dinner a night or two before.

Day 6: Monday, March 10 Assignment: Make a list of what you ate for lunch last week The Cooking Cure: See all the assignments so far here. Welcome to the second week of the Cooking Cure! How was your weekend? Are you feeling prepped and primed for making all your breakfasts this week? Ready to add another layer to your Cooking Cure? This week, we’re putting our lunch routine under the microscope. We’ll be setting new goals and — yes, oh, yes!