School Cafeteria - a poem

As it is Back-to-School time in our household I've been thinking a lot about school lunches, once again.


www.clipartheaven.com/.../ school_lunch_1.gif

It's always a challenge to come up with the perfect solution. It seems once we fall into a groove with food that works, boredom kicks in and a strong resistance is built up. Now what? Really, what's a mom to do?

I remember back to when my grandmother made my lunches for me. Often she'd fall into a pattern of sending me with buttered Saltines and a cut-up apple. Anything to get Picky Me to eat, and anything to avoid buying School Lunch, which is often really what I wanted.


** Question of the day **

When was catsup officially declared a school lunch vegetable?



Here's a poem for the day, and for all of you with kids returning to school.



School Cafeteria
by Douglas Florian

Nothing is drearier than my school cafeteria-
The food there is really the pits.
The bread is as hard as a brick in a yard;
The cake is all crumbled to bits.
The rotten old cheeses can give you diseases;
The pudding is rancid and runny.
And if you should dare to bite into a pear,
The taste is so bad it's not funny.
The chicken and rice are served cold as ice;
The soups could send groups to the nurse.
The carrots and peas make you whimper and wheeze;
The broccoli comes with a curse.
The pizza, I'm told, is covered with mold;
The salad is pallid and stale.
The dried-out roast beef fills your belly with grief;
They're taking the cook off to jail.
The citrus fruit cup will make you throw up;
The cookies are made out of clay.
The mere thought of lunch
Makes my weak stomach scrunch-
But it's still the best part of the day.