It's 9AM

What's on the menu today?

I have a dozen sheet cake recipes.

All sitting, waiting to be made.

Chocolate. Lemon. Strawberry.

And brownies.

I saw one once and saved it for a someday plan.

I see. I make. I eat.

A youtube channel where I cook all my mamaw’s recipes, plus anything that I see that strikes me fancy.

And because it reminded me of my elementary school cafeteria.

When I was growing up, they didn’t offer reduced lunch.

Or if they did, my mom pulling down $2.85 cents an hour minimum age put her over the income threshold, especially with two kids.

But never let it be said that Forest Park Elementary didn’t have a will and a way.

My mom offered me up for lunchroom duty, along with three other kids with moms who had the same plan.

And the lunch ladies put our asses to work to eat.

We got dismissed from class five minutes before the lunch bell, marched to the cafeteria, and got busy.

I got dishwashing duty.

My job was to take the trays that kids threw into a receiving bin, scrape the leftovers into the trash, rinse the trays and load them into a big green plastic rack.

Shove the rack into the dishwasher when it was full and hit the Wash button.

Pull them out when they were done, and be careful because they’re steaming hot.

Stack the trays and carry them to the front of the line for the lunch ladies to fill up again.

My brother was too young to work in the cafeteria, so Mom worked it out with Mr. Smyth, our principal, so I could cover his duty too.

An hour and a half slogging, then miss recess while I ate, before going back to class.

I thought it was a blast til the end of third grade, when kids started making a lot of fun of me for it.

We had moved away, and moved back again and Mom was trying to make the deal for me to work for food.

My brother was in first grade, and old enough to do some of it, but Mom still didn’t want him in the industrial kitchen.

Too dangerous.

So I did it, and got ridiculed for it on the daily.

The only white kid in the kitchen probably made me a bigger target.

I told her I didn’t want to do it in fourth grade.

Quit and done and lunch became a brown bag carry.

Except, I had a job still.

Selling GRIT door to door and working for Papaw, who took great pride in my working for lunches.

And two days a week, we bought lunch.

Pizza day.

And Texas Sheet cake day.

I can’t recall any pizza tasting better than a big three foot by four foot pan of elementary school pizza, and I have tried it the world over.

Chicago deep Dish. New York by the Slice. Dollar deli slices on Venice Beach. Wood stove pizza in northern Italy.

A thousand places in between and none of them come close.

I wonder if it’s just the memory of it, a hot meal earned through labor, and then later, bought with my own money?

Or if it was just a magical combination of culinary talent.

I’ll find out with Sheet Cake one day soon.

Did you have a favorite school food growing up?

Did you see we took The Dipole Shield over 1k views on Youtube? Your likes got it picked up and shared! So if you haven’t heard it yet, give it a listen.

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