No, no. I don’t mean to suggest Catie has gained fifteen pounds this year on cafeteria food. First, she only weighs around forty pounds to start. Fifteen pounds would almost double her weight. Okay, not exactly, but I’m no mathematician. And I’m never exact.
Second, this picture of her chowing down on pizza was taken at a friend’s birthday party, not in her new cafeteria. (See? The earrings are Birthday-Party Festive, not School Serious.)
But she does love the cafeteria food.
Like mommy, like daughter.
Freshman year of college, when I actually did gain fifteen (okay, twenty) pounds, it was when I discovered the beauty of institutional food and the revolving menu. Up until the first day I walked into Concordia’s cafeteria (complete with a salad station, cereal station, sandwich station, dessert station, and hot food station) I didn’t know the fun of eating whatever I wanted off a menu heavy on butter and carbs. My high school lunches had been lots of bags of Doritos and Taco Bell. As delicious as that was, every Taco Bell menu item is made with the same four ingredients. Cafeteria Food was a cornucopia of variety.
I’m a sucker for the revolving menu. The RAs would hang the week’s menu on the bathroom stalls. Cheese pizza on Monday! Kolaches for Tuesday breakfast! Loaded baked potatoes on Wednesday! I tried it all–until I realized that it wasn’t those industrial dryers shrinking my pants, but my new menu.
To be honest, Catie doesn’t follow her school cafeteria menu with this passion. I’m telling you, my kids don’t care that much about food. But she does eat the food every day. Which is a small victory since the last two years have been a game of “What Would Catie Eat For Lunch?” Cheese Tortillas? For about a week. PB&J? Maybe a day. Lunchables? Only if they’re the variety that come with a snazzy drink and dessert and cost abut $9.99.
But she loves the variety of the cafeteria. That only costs $2 a day. And features a revolving menu.
That I may or may not check for her everyday. Even though she’s kind of oblivious.
Sorry. Old habits die hard.
