lunch-n-stuff

After a 15 year teaching career, you'd think I'd have school cafeterias down, but each is so different. Honestly, I could probably count on my two hands the number of times I ate a school lunch in the 5 different schools I taught in over that 15 years. I either brought mine from home, went somewhere off campus, or went home.

Sunday night I gave away free lunch coupons to everyone who brought their bible with them to "The Net." It gave the bearer the opportunity for me to bring them lunch from any fast food place they wanted one day over the next month. I've made three deliveries this week, all to Naaman Forest High School here in Garland. I wondered why my Naaman students were so quick to turn in their coupons. Most of the school cafeterias I've been in here are not bad. North Garland has a great bakery, and burrito stand. Rowlett High School and Sachse both have great deli, snack bar type lines. I have not made it to Garland HS, but my students there say it's not bad at all. Our schools in Richardson and Plano have actual restaurants bring in food on certain days. But watching the stuff that came out of the line at Naaman made me feel sorry for those kids. I was there on chicken nugget day, and with a good dose of gravy (a beverage at most schools), or ketchup, they are doable. But watching Amanda and Nadia put away Sonic and Chicken Express on Wednesday, and Meghan with her Panda Express Chinese today, I realized that there was some serious ministry happening. Hearts were being reached through the stomach, and it was a sweet sight.

For those of you who may find yourself in a school cafeteria at lunch time, I've developed some helpful hints....

1. A-lunch (10:30), while more like breakfast from a timing standpoint, has much better
quality than D-lunch (12:30). The lunches in between are okay, but quality definitely
decreases as the day moves forward.

2. Avoid shepherd's pie at all cost. While this an age old staple of most school cafeterias, the
recipe remains a secret. Frightening.

3. The red juice is always the best.

4. Pay no attention to the kid that puts hot sauce, gravy, or ketchup on his pizza. He/she is
simply disguising whatever is disgusting with his condiment of choice. Gone are the days
of the square pizza with cubed pepperonis.

5. Anything that says "special" acutally means "we need to get rid of this by this afternoon or
we're going to have problems with the health department."

Well, I'll update as I find new and exciting dishes at the schools I go to next week. For now, it's the weekend...and I'm out.