Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1199, Eating on the Run.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1199.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Sam and Leticia about eating when you don't have very much time.
Let's get started.
Wait a second.
Is this all you're having for lunch?
This microwaved burrito?
No.
That's all I have time for.
It's better than just eating it out of the package, right?
That does not look appetizing.
I see indigestion in your future.
It's filling, and that's all I care about.
I need to gulp down something before the meeting at one o'clock.
Why don't you brown bag it?
Even if it's something pre-made, you won't have to rely on instant food.
Who has the time to prepare a lunch?
This burrito is actually more than I eat on most days.
Normally, I munch on candy bars or bags of chips and forego lunch altogether.
That's not very healthy.
No, but it keeps me going when I'm on the run on busy days like this.
I have a stash in my desk.
Do you want to take a look?
That collection makes fast food look like haute cuisine.
Sam says to Leticia, wait a second.
We sometimes say this in conversation informally, when we are surprised by something or don't understand something and need to ask someone a question, to clarify, to understand better.
Sam is apparently confused by something Leticia is doing.
He says, wait a second, is this all you're having for lunch?
This microwaved burrito?
Microwaved means something is put into an oven called a microwave, M-I-C-R-O-W-A-V-E.
Microwave is a verb in English, to microwave.
A burrito B-U-R-R-I-T-O is a food in the US normally identified with Mexico, even though the burritos you get in the US probably don't taste anything like the ones you would get in Mexico.
A burrito is a food made with a tortilla, which is a flat, thin piece of dough that is filled with beans meat, rice and cheese.
Actually, if you go to most parts of Mexico, you won't really find a burrito, at least in traditional Mexican restaurants.
They're much more popular here in the US.
You can buy frozen burritos at a grocery store in the US.
You can take them home and put them in a microwave to heat them up and eat them.
I don't, but some people do.
It's an easy, quick thing that you can heat up and eat.
Leticia says that's all I have time for, meaning she doesn't have time to prepare any other kind of food.
She says, it's better than just eating it out of the package, right?
To eat something out of the package P-A-C-K-A-G-E means to eat something without putting it on a plate first.
To buy something in some sort of container plastic or cardboard, say and eating it without putting it on a plate.
Some people do that when they are in a hurry.
They may eat food right out of the package.
Sam says, that does not look appetizing.
Appetizing A-P-P-E-T-I-Z-I-N-G means it makes you want to eat something because it looks good or it smells good.
Sam says that this microwave burrito does not look appetizing.
He says instead, I see indigestion in your future.
Indigestion, I-N-D-I-G-E-S-T-I-O-N, is pain or discomfort. discomfort you feel in your stomach after you eat food that isn't very good or food that for some reason your body doesn't like very much.
Sam is making a joke here.
He says I see indigestion in your future, meaning if you eat that, you are going to get indigestion.
You are going to get some sort of stomach pains or discomfort.
Leticia says, however, it's filling, and that's all I care about.
If you describe food as being filling, F-I-L-L-I-N-G, you mean that it makes you feel full and satisfied so that you don't need to eat anything else.
Leticia says, I need to gulp down something before the meeting at one o'clock.
To gulp, G-U-L-P, usually means to drink something very quickly.
To gulp down, D-O-W-N, is a two-word phrasal verb that means to drink or eat something very quickly.
Sam says, why don't you brown bag it?
To brown bag, B-A-G, means to prepare your own lunch at home and bring it with you.
Traditionally, at least when I was growing up, if you were going to bring your lunch to school or to your job, you would put it in a small paper bag that was brown in color.
Why brown?
I don't know.
That's just what was popular.
We now have a verb to brown bag, which means to bring your own lunch from home.
When I was in school growing up, we had to bring our lunch every day to school.
The school did not serve lunch.
You couldn't buy lunch at school.
They didn't give you anything to eat.
And since you were there from 8 o'clock in the morning until 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, you had to bring your own food to eat.
I had to brown bag it every day that I went to school.
I had to bring my own lunch.
Sam asks why Leticia doesn't bring her own lunch.
He says, even if it's something pre-made...
You won't have to rely on instant food.
Premade, P-R-E-M-A-D-E, means that it has already been prepared, usually before you buy it.
So you can buy, say, a salad in the store.
We might say the salad is pre-made.
It's made for you.
You don't have to do anything.
You just have to open up the package and eat it.
This way, Sam says, you won't have to rely on instant, I-N-S-T-A-N-T, food.
Instant food is food that is prepared very quickly with very little time.
A microwave burrito would be an example of instant food, I guess.
There are also many kinds of soup that you can buy.
You just have to add hot water to this little cup and you get a cup of soup.
That would be instant soup.
It is made almost instantly, very quickly.
Leticia says, who has time to prepare a lunch?
This burrito is actually more than I eat on most days.
Normally, she says, I munch on candy bars or bags of chips and forego lunch altogether.
To munch M-U-N-C-H on something is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to eat a small amount of something, but not as part of your meal.
If you are, for example, sitting at your desk at work and it's 10 o'clock in the morning.
It's too early for lunch, but you're hungry.
So you decide to munch on some potato chips.
You open a bag of potato chips and you eat one or two.
You are munching on the bag of potato chips.
Well, actually, you're munching on the potato chips.
If you're eating the actual bag that the potato chips are in, you should probably go and get some real food.
Leticia says she normally munches on candy bars or bags of chips and forgoes lunch altogether.
To forego, F-O-R-G-O, means to decide not to do something that you would normally do.
To forego lunch means not to eat lunch, even though normally you would eat lunch.
Altogether, A-L-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, means completely or entirely.
Sam says that foregoing lunch altogether is not very healthy.
Leticia says, no, she agrees, but it keeps me going when I'm on the run on busy days like this.
To be on the run R-U-N here means to be doing a lot of different things and going often different places in a short amount of time.
It can just mean to be extremely busy.
Usually though, I think we use this expression when you have to move from one place to another, either within your building where you work, or perhaps outside in the city where you live.
You have to go to this appointment over here and then you have another appointment in another part of the city, and so forth.
Leticia says, I have a stash in my desk.
A stash, S-T-A-S-H, is a collection of something that you are storing in to use in the future.
However, usually a stash is put somewhere where other people can't see it or perhaps find it.
The word stash is often used when we are describing, keeping or storing something illegally or perhaps for reasons that have to do with breaking the law.
I have a stash of money that I stole from the bank buried in my backyard.
I'm just kidding.
I don't actually have a stash of money that I stole from a bank buried in my backyard.
It's somewhere else.
Leticia has a stash of candy bars, I guess, in her desk, somewhere hidden in her desk so no one can find them.
Do you want to take a look?
We can guess now that Leticia is at her desk because she is now going to show Sam her stash of food.
Sam then says after looking at it, that collection makes fast food look like haute cuisine.
Fast food is food that is prepared very quickly that is often not very healthy.
A McDonald's hamburger would be a good example of fast food.
We talk about fast food restaurants today. restaurants that will give you food very quickly.
The term haute cuisine C-U-I-S-I-N-E originally a French one.
It refers to high quality food, especially good French style food.
The French, at least in the United States, have the reputation of having excellent food, as they have that reputation in other countries as well, throughout the world.
There are actually quite a few French who live in the western part of Los Angeles, in the area where I live.
And there are some apparently excellent French restaurants here as well.
Not as good as in Paris, of course.
Sam is making a joke here.
He's comparing the candy bars and bags of chips that Leticia is showing him to fast food, saying this is even worse than fast food.
In fact, fast food compared to that looks like cuisine.
It's much higher in quality than what you are eating, which is worse than fast food.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Wait a second.
Is this all you're having for lunch?
This microwave burrito?
That's all I have time for.
It's better than just eating it out of the package, right?
That does not look appetizing.
I see indigestion in your future.
It's filling, and that's all I care about.
I need to gulp down something before the meeting at one o'clock.
Why don't you brown bag it?
Even if it's something pre-made, you won't have to rely on instant food.
Who has the time to prepare a lunch?
This burrito is actually more than I eat on most days.
Normally, I munch on candy bars or bags of chips and forgo lunch altogether.
That's not very healthy.
No, but it keeps me going when I'm on the run on busy days like this.
I have a stash in my desk.
Do you want to take a look?
That collection makes fast food look like haute cuisine.
There's nothing pre-made or instant about our dialogues.
Our script writer works long and hard in the ESL podcast script kitchen to prepare the very finest English lessons for you.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
