A longstanding dream of ours — to eat lunch with Stephen Colbert — has come true for us all.

Sad desk salads are getting a lot less sad with the launch of the future Late Show host‘s new “daily, week-long” series, “Lunch with Stephen.” (Otherwise known as “Stephen Colbert Has Stephen Colbert’s Lunch with You, Starring Stephen Colbert.”)

“I am so excited to launch the late show coming this September, but before I do that, I want to get to know my audience just a little bit better,” Colbert says at the beginning of his first video, posted on Monday. “I’ve already met some of you — Texas Jim, Harmonica Lou, Big Mama Jean. I hop a rail car to work everyday. I tell you, you cannot beat the taste of beans fresh out of the boot.”

Colbert came up with the idea as a way to get to know his viewers on a more casual, mano a mano level before his show debuts in the fall.

“I thought: what better way to bond with you than over lunch,” he says. “After all, these days, a lot of people eat their lunch alone at their desks, watching videos like these.”

Got the drop at People . . .