School lunch horrors
In general, my memories of life in elementary school have always been positive.
Instead of groaning about summer being over, I celebrated days spent reading, spelling and laboring over long division.
Well, mostly celebrated.
While life as a model student was something I reveled in, life as the cool kid was out of the question.
Nowhere was this reaffirmed more than in the school cafeteria, where hierarchy was quickly established on the basis of which table you sat at and what you brought for lunch.
I was a pretty shy kid. And because I was prohibited from watching TV during the week and didn’t have cable, I couldn’t really contribute much to conversations about “Double Dare” and “Thundercats.”
I was what some might call “a nerd.”
The lunches my mother lovingly prepared for me each day didn’t help.
Generally she’d make me a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich on bread she made from scratch, which always crumbled at the first bite.
Sometimes she’d include applesauce in a small Tupperware container. My parents made applesauce in the fall, and because they didn’t peel the apples, it was not the golden color of Motts fame, but reddish-brown, which really grossed out my table mates.
Now grossing out your table mates may have been common practice at the boys’ table, but where I sat with the girls, it was terribly uncouth.
My mother also packed some tortilla chips in a plastic baggie, which often got crushed.
The other kids’ lunchboxes were filled with Twinkies, air-filled snack-sized bags of potato chips, and store-bought white bread — a luxury I coveted.
I was always embarrassed by the pile of crumbs that amassed at my seat and by my lack of name-brand food.
Of course now that I’m living off of cereal and yogurt, I crave my mother’s hearty homemade bread, crumbs and all. And I’ve always found that store-bought applesauce pales in comparison to the tastiness of the kind my parents made.
As usual, she was spot-on, packing me a healthful lunch, often with a napkin which had notes on it like, “Have a good day! love Mom.”
In this back-to-school issue of Smart, you can learn how to pack a great lunch for your kids, just like Mom made. We also take a look at how to help your children deal with classroom jitters.
We realize your kids aren’t the only ones who are stressed out this time of year, so there’s also advice for you on everything from organizing your time, to starting a cooking exchange, to quick makeup tips.
And if you have a little extra time while your kids are at school, try making my mom’s homemade bread. Find the recipe under “Mom’s Bread” at www.smartmagpa.com.
Just make sure to eat it over a napkin.
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