Being a Lunch Lady

It started out as your average school year. Lunchtime was noisy and messy and a little crazy most days, and then it wasn't.

I remember vividly the weekend before St. Patrick's Day, my daughters that are still in elementary school were so excited and had new St. Patrick's Day shirts that I had found for them at WalMart. Then I got an email from the school district Wednesday night, letting us know that school was canceled for students on Thursday and Friday in order for employees to deep clean the school. I really had no problem with that, our school is 45 years old for crying out loud- it could use a good scrub down.

So that was it, my kids were home for a couple days and I was at work cleaning my tail off and then we had an earthquake. Not just a little rumble either, but an unnerving rumble that left the chandeliers swinging accompanied by the sickening grinding sound of rock on rock. Haha, what next? Now the school had to be closed to employees so that they could complete safety inspections. Not a big deal, the authorities took care of that and the building was sound and we were far enough from the epicenter that no one was injured.

So, on we go, the plan is to return to school Monday but then we get another last minute email over the weekend announcing that Covid cases are rising in the county and that school will now be closed for two weeks. This was early on and of course the kids were excited to have an extra vacation so no one was terribly concerned yet. But the cases and death counts kept rising and before we knew it, the announcement came that the kids would now be out of school until after Spring Break. Non-essential businesses are ordered to close and we all go into quarantine. Now the quarantine of course causes mass panic and the grocery store shelves are picked clean. Fortunately, the produce section remains relatively untouched and I stock up on tomatoes and peppers in order to bottle some salsa.

This is of course a family recipe given to me by my Mother in Law and after making some tweaks according to personal taste at our house, it has become a staple and a favorite Christmas gift for all of our friends and family. Now this recipe became a distraction and a comfort during this crazy time. When in doubt, we cook! Am I right?

Recipe is as follows:

10 quarts tomatoes, peeled

6 green peppers

10-12 other chili peppers

10-12 jalapenos (this varies depending on the time of year and what's in my garden, I grow jalapenos, serranos and Tabasco peppers and they make it SO spicy!)

1 bunch celery (trust me)

4 onions

5 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp. each- Paprika, black pepper and Cumin

1/2 c. Kosher salt

2 c. Cider vinegar

I grind it all in batches in my Ninja blender and then pour into a giant, black witches brew pot to cook and thicken for a couple hours tasting all the way and adjusting seasonings. Bottle according to your local extension service instructions. You'll thank yourself later!

The nice thing about working in an elementary school kitchen is that the school continued to feed the kids, for FREE. That's right, our state uses the taxes collected on liquor sales for school Nutrition Services and we all know where a lot of money was being spent during quarantine. We began wearing masks and soon the whole county and much of the country was under mask mandates when in public places. So I continued to go to work every day and this is what our lunchroom looked like.

Before we knew it school was moved to online instruction for the rest of the year, but the kitchen staff was allowed to work at the school making lunches for all kids ages walking to 18 that wanted them. There were times that we were handing out upwards of 700 meals in a two hour time period. It was a constant hustle!

The whole experience was both humbling and eye opening, the schools stepped up and made sure that they kept feeding the kids. I was blessed to still have a job and to able to be part of something bigger than myself. Our community was so cute, bringing us food and drinks, flowers and cookies along with thank you posters. It was a little overwhelming some days to have people so grateful that you were still willing to come to work. The news and the media made it seem like we were in grave danger, but I think in actuality we were all grateful to have a daily distraction. The friendships gained and the hilarious, off color conversations that I got to have with these women will stay with me for a lifetime.