Lunches are almost as important as dinners to me. But not quite.

During the work week, once I’ve had my bowl of Cheerios or raisin bran, with the requisite frozen blueberries beneath, making the milk icy-cold, I check the fridge for leftovers from the night, or sometimes week, before.

Sarah Morley has a problem with the week-old food thing. She’s paranoid about consuming anything that’s more than a few hours old, so of course I love telling her about eating old leftovers. If it doesn’t smell bad, it’s not unnaturally slippery, as in the case of sliced deli turkey, and there’s nothing off-color growing on it, I’ll eat it. I’m cheap, remember?

So if there’s something remotely edible in the refrigerator, I’ll pack it up and take it in to work. Soups and chowders are good winter lunches. I recently made a big pot of pea soup. It made a good week’s worth of lunches. Of course pea soup doesn’t smell that great even when fresh, so it’s hard to determine if it’s still good without tasting it.

Sometimes I luck out and find something relatively fresh, like pizza from the night before, or sandwich material. I keep bread in the freezer. Why more people don’t do this is beyond me. Wrap the bag tight, throw another plastic bag over it, and put it in the freezer. When you want a piece or two, take it out, rewrap the loaf, and throw it back in the freezer. It’s simple. The bread thaws in about two minutes, and it’s as fresh as the day you bought it. Hello.

Sandwiches are a little more time-consuming than just throwing leftovers in a container to heat up. Making a sandwich can take 10 minutes out of my precious before-work time. I have to do it before feeding my cats, Pokey and Ruby, and my dog, Elliot, showering, and applying the much needed makeup, and of course, eating my cereal. Oh, and getting dressed. Since starting this food column my jeans are getting tighter by the day, so it can take time to find a comfortable fit. All those biscuits and cream pies have taken a toll.

I have to have skim milk to go with lunch. My co-workers have stopped making fun of me for drinking milk from peanut butter jars. In a pinch I can get by with lunch without milk, but you’ll never see me eating a piece of cake or a cookie (must be homemade, unless it’s an Oreo or a Girl Scout Thin Mint) without milk. I’d sooner forgo the dessert if I can’t have milk with it.

My co-workers differ in their approaches to lunch, but none skip it. Sue usually works from home, and says her lunches are frequently about leftovers. “And if they’re GOOD leftovers, it’s all about who gets them first.” She and her husband, Jon, are both great cooks, so she needs to get to the refrigerator early.

The front office crew is mostly about leftovers too. Like Sue, Pat tries to get to the remnants of the previous night’s dinner before her husband, Matt does. This morning she lost the race, so she made a sandwich. One of the Lindas is on a strict diet and has been having small salads for lunch. Kind of boring, but healthy. The other Linda is another leftover girl, and can usually dig up something for a sandwich in her fridge.

Lisa runs home for lunch most days. She says that if there are leftovers, she’ll eat them. If not it’s usually a PB&J. “It has to be strawberry jam, 15 grain bread and Skippy peanut butter.” And once a week she rewards herself with a salad from Hannaford.

Matt has only been working at the Boothbay Register for a month, and he hasn’t nailed down his lunch habits yet. He says he’s good with leftovers, but sometimes leaves them in the car and springs for a sandwich from a local restaurant instead. He thinks he deserves a decent lunch after working hard all morning.

Bill doesn’t go in for leftovers much. It might be because he never has any, but he doesn’t admit it. His favorite take-out lunch is soup and a sandwich. Preferably tuna.

Anyway, if I can’t find any leftovers or sandwich materials to pack up, I’ll generally start thinking about what I’m going to get for lunch by around 11. As I’ve said more than once, I like to eat. And getting something from a local restaurant is generally more exciting than leftovers. Of course being a skinflint, it’s painful for me to spring for an expensive lunch, so my options are limited.

But for a small town, there’s a pretty good choice of restaurants in Boothbay Harbor, especially during the summer. Working in a small coastal Maine town has its perks.

By 11:30 I’ve usually narrowed down the choices, and I’m getting hungry. If I can’t come up with a decision by noon I might ask a co-worker what she or he is having, just for inspiration. If one is in the process of eating lunch, I might ask what it is and where it was purchased.

But don’t ever do that to me. As with the cereal, I hate being interrupted when I’m eating. Plus, for some reason, I find it embarrassing.

Once lunch has been obtained, whether from a local restaurant or my canvas Zabars bag (thanks to my New York friends Janet and Scott Flagg), I usually sit at my desk and enjoy it, unless I’m trying to finish an especially mind-boggling story, or being inundated with texts, emails and calls.

In that case lunch simply becomes, as my first husband called it, a gut-filler. I served the last gut-filler I ever made for him just before jumping onto a dock from the sailboat we had sailed into Boothbay Harbor, tying the boat up, and splitting, in pursuit of greener pastures. (He didn’t appreciate good food like I do.)

Weekend lunches are usually more fun and creative than workday ones. I can spend time preparing them, and might even have a glass of wine. Because I can.

Disclaimer: I’m not a chef. I lay no claim to being an authority on food or cooking. I’m a good cook, and a lover of good food. And I know how to spell and put a sentence together. This column is simply meant to be fun, and hopefully inspiring. So to anyone reading this whose hackles are raised because you know more about the subject of food than I, relax. I believe you.