Dec 2
This story is getting a lot of play. I worked on the school lunch quality issue a good deal when my daughter was in elementary school. But it's always great to see kids taking the lead. These Chicago lunches look bad beyond anything I've personally seen.
The school lunch story makes me think back to Martha Payne of NeverSeconds (another kid who took initiative on this issue), and wonder what is happening with her these days. A quick Google search suggests she may have returned to her regular, non-famous life by now-- not a lot from the last year or two.
When we moved to Maryland from Montana, my daughter stopped eating school lunch. The lunches are terrible here, all cheeseburgers and pizza.
Breakfast: One egg fried in butter. Tiny slice of sweet potato pie with whipped cream.
Lunch: Dark chocolate-covered raisins. Cheddar cheese.
Dinner: Grilled cheese sandwiches (cheddar on onion dill bread). Homemade cabbage slaw; roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and garlic cloves.
Snacks: 1 banana (at work, feeling faint). 4 cups of coffee with half and half, 2 regular, 2 decaf, one with whipped cream. Half glass of whole milk in the night, for itchy throat.
Dec. 3
Breakfast: Leftover cabbage slaw, parmesan cheese, plain whole-milk Greek yogurt mixed with maple syrup, slice of Pepperidge Farm 12-Grain toast with butter and blackberry jam.
Lunch: From the restaurant. Kimchi fritter (really more of a pancake), vegetable mandoo (dumplings), 3 slices of grilled tofu that tasted slightly rancid. The fritter was mushy. I have not been having such good experiences lately with my own restaurant's food, and that is one of the many reasons I feel the need for more distance.
Shopping (New Grand Mart): Kellogg's corn flakes, tapioca, green raisins, 2 cans coconut milk, fennel powder, Chinese-style pork sausage, organic whole milk, Korean thin udon noodles (fresh), instant yeast packets, ground cumin, cinnamon sticks, 2-liter bottle of Brazilian guarana soda, Planters dry roasted peanuts, extra firm tofu, 2 bags of green beans, 2 mangos, 1 onion, 2 limes, 1 lemon, kaffir lime leaves, Japanese mochi filled with sweet bean paste (assorted flavors), cage-free eggs, bunch of cilantro, 1 shallot, sweet leaf, 1 stalk lemongrass, 3 Japanese eggplant, 1 "American eggplant," bag of red grapefruit, bulb of garlic, ginger root. $79. (Coop): loaf of "Six Herbs" bakery bread, crimini mushrooms, 1 lb. bag of carrots, bananas, 1 red bell pepper. $11. This is a pretty good deal for the coop, even including $2.10 for the single pepper.
Dinner: a spontaneously improvised udon noodle soup. Cooked some udon noodles, steamed some veggies (carrots, cabbage, red pepper, mushrooms) and sliced chinese sausages (the sweet kind full of red dye and additives). Made a broth that I thought would be fabulous out of water flavored with a little vegetable Better-than-Bouillon, soy sauce, sake (a mistake, I think), sesame oil (also possibly a mistake), mirin, salt, ginger powder, and cayenne pepper. Oh, and one star anise, which was the only ingredient consistently mentioned in udon broth recipes on the internet. It was not fabulous. It was edible, but not especially pleasant.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee with half and half, 2 regular, 2 decaf. One with whipped cream. 2 spoonfuls of leftover strawberry milkshake at work, which wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I feel like something has possibly changed about my tastebuds recently-- a lot of things, especially coffee, are not tasting as good as they usually do. 2 different flavors of bean-paste-filled mochi. They both tasted the same and had about a zillion calories each. Regretted. I don't know why I always think I want these. Glass of guarana soda, because I need to use it up in order to have the empty 2-liter bottle and make my own ginger ale a la Jennifer Reese.
This story is getting a lot of play. I worked on the school lunch quality issue a good deal when my daughter was in elementary school. But it's always great to see kids taking the lead. These Chicago lunches look bad beyond anything I've personally seen.
The school lunch story makes me think back to Martha Payne of NeverSeconds (another kid who took initiative on this issue), and wonder what is happening with her these days. A quick Google search suggests she may have returned to her regular, non-famous life by now-- not a lot from the last year or two.
When we moved to Maryland from Montana, my daughter stopped eating school lunch. The lunches are terrible here, all cheeseburgers and pizza.
Breakfast: One egg fried in butter. Tiny slice of sweet potato pie with whipped cream.
Lunch: Dark chocolate-covered raisins. Cheddar cheese.
Dinner: Grilled cheese sandwiches (cheddar on onion dill bread). Homemade cabbage slaw; roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and garlic cloves.
Snacks: 1 banana (at work, feeling faint). 4 cups of coffee with half and half, 2 regular, 2 decaf, one with whipped cream. Half glass of whole milk in the night, for itchy throat.
Dec. 3
Breakfast: Leftover cabbage slaw, parmesan cheese, plain whole-milk Greek yogurt mixed with maple syrup, slice of Pepperidge Farm 12-Grain toast with butter and blackberry jam.
Lunch: From the restaurant. Kimchi fritter (really more of a pancake), vegetable mandoo (dumplings), 3 slices of grilled tofu that tasted slightly rancid. The fritter was mushy. I have not been having such good experiences lately with my own restaurant's food, and that is one of the many reasons I feel the need for more distance.
Shopping (New Grand Mart): Kellogg's corn flakes, tapioca, green raisins, 2 cans coconut milk, fennel powder, Chinese-style pork sausage, organic whole milk, Korean thin udon noodles (fresh), instant yeast packets, ground cumin, cinnamon sticks, 2-liter bottle of Brazilian guarana soda, Planters dry roasted peanuts, extra firm tofu, 2 bags of green beans, 2 mangos, 1 onion, 2 limes, 1 lemon, kaffir lime leaves, Japanese mochi filled with sweet bean paste (assorted flavors), cage-free eggs, bunch of cilantro, 1 shallot, sweet leaf, 1 stalk lemongrass, 3 Japanese eggplant, 1 "American eggplant," bag of red grapefruit, bulb of garlic, ginger root. $79. (Coop): loaf of "Six Herbs" bakery bread, crimini mushrooms, 1 lb. bag of carrots, bananas, 1 red bell pepper. $11. This is a pretty good deal for the coop, even including $2.10 for the single pepper.
Dinner: a spontaneously improvised udon noodle soup. Cooked some udon noodles, steamed some veggies (carrots, cabbage, red pepper, mushrooms) and sliced chinese sausages (the sweet kind full of red dye and additives). Made a broth that I thought would be fabulous out of water flavored with a little vegetable Better-than-Bouillon, soy sauce, sake (a mistake, I think), sesame oil (also possibly a mistake), mirin, salt, ginger powder, and cayenne pepper. Oh, and one star anise, which was the only ingredient consistently mentioned in udon broth recipes on the internet. It was not fabulous. It was edible, but not especially pleasant.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee with half and half, 2 regular, 2 decaf. One with whipped cream. 2 spoonfuls of leftover strawberry milkshake at work, which wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I feel like something has possibly changed about my tastebuds recently-- a lot of things, especially coffee, are not tasting as good as they usually do. 2 different flavors of bean-paste-filled mochi. They both tasted the same and had about a zillion calories each. Regretted. I don't know why I always think I want these. Glass of guarana soda, because I need to use it up in order to have the empty 2-liter bottle and make my own ginger ale a la Jennifer Reese.