Tales from the Cafeteria

I started this school year with a big volunteer project, one that I am truly enjoying. I'm the assistant lunch lady at the girls' school. I help the paid staff person prep and serve, and I write the monthly lunch menu and order the food from vendors. This may not sound like a fun gig to most people, but it is perfect for me.

I helped to set up the lunch program at a previous school, and I have a long history of food-related projects. I'm good at shaving food costs and maintaining inventory. But that isn't why I enjoy it so much. It's the diners who make the job so much fun.

At 11:30 the first students arrive in a surprisingly orderly fashion. If you packed your lunch, find a seat with your classmates. If you are purchasing lunch, form a line in front of the serving area. The youngest kids are just adorable, and some of them are really hearty eaters for little people! We had some communication issues in the beginning. It can be loud in the cafeteria with the oven vents on so we have to speak up. But after just a few weeks even the three year olds say 'yes, please' and 'no, thank you.'

Yesterday was a school favorite, chicken strips or chicken nuggets with macaroni and cheese. These kids can eat some macaroni and cheese, let me tell you! Each day brings something funny to the serving line. Sometimes we lunch ladies have to hold back a full-on giggle fit. Yesterday's joke was this:

Me: Would you like strips or nuggets?
Kid: No, thank you. I'll just have chicken.

This conversation happened many, many times over the hour of lunch service.

Each class sits together to eat, joined by their teacher. It is calm and surprisingly quiet. If things get too loud, it is quickly hushed. Tables are wiped, lines re-formed, and the students file out with their friends. They often wave and thank us. These are some polite students. I am impressed by them each day.

It's all over by 12:40 or so. At the end of it I am generally tired, hot, and my feet hurt. But I also feel happy and satisfied to have used my skills to help my daughters' school (by donating my time and experience) and to provide a nice meal to some nice kids.

On the first day of classes this year, on pasta and meatball day, one 5th grader saw the pile of freshly baked garlic bread sticks I added to the usual offerings and said 'This is going to be the best year ever.....we have bread sticks!!' This job reminds me that, yes, it's the little things that make life fun.

Dear Fall...

It is with regret that I must inform you, fall, or autumn, as you are sometimes called, that after a long and passionate relationship I am breaking up with you.

Yes, I'm sure it comes as a shock. I was definitely one of your biggest fans. Remember all those pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin scones from the various Starbucks in Frederick, almost every morning after I dropped the girls at preschool? And all those decorative pumpkins and gourds that I purchased each year to pile high on every fireplace mantle and flat surface large enough to hold them. I know, I know....but sorry, I'm just truly over you.

I blame Facebook for some of it. Since August each morning's news feed has displayed some traditional food item now available in pumpkin spice flavor, and it just started to get to me. Hey, I'm all for pumpkin bread and flavored coffees and all, but pumpkin pie spice just really doesn't belong in every single thing we eat. Seriously, it just doesn't. It's getting creepy.

Also, after living in Key West for a bit over five years now, I'm just not into celebrating a season we don't really have here. Early fall is our rainy season, a time for storm tracking and hurricane parties. And later fall, after Halloween and Fantasy Fest are over, is the beginning of our best weather of the year. Warm days, cool nights, windows open. By Thanksgiving I'm sure we will have a few jack be littles and gourds on the table. By then I'll be ready. It will finally be fall here on the island by then.

It seems like fall has gotten so commercial. We are bombarded with Halloween craft ideas and recipes for a perfect pumpkin patch picnic while the kids are still in the pool and people are at the beach on summer vacation. None of us really need to buy more stuff, do we? Just go outside and enjoy the changes. And if you don't buy a bunch of fall stuff, you won't have to buy those black and orange bins at Target to store it all in. I've got a stack of them in a house in Frederick, filled to the brim with the decorations of autumns past.

So, thank you, fall, or autumn, for the many, many years of cinnamon-scented memories, piles of perfect pumpkins, and wreaths of orange leaves. It's not you. It's me. I'm truly an island girl now.