Lunchtime

February 20, 2006

In my classroom around 12:20, I start smelling all the smells of lunchtime. At my school we eat lunch in our classroom, and our classrooms aren’t just square rooms with linoleum floors filled with desks. For example, my classroom has three smallish rooms, and in the main rooms there is a circle of couches, not desks or tables and chairs, couches.

During a typical week you bring a lunch on Monday, and there is a pizza sale option on Tuesday. On Wednesday you can order Chik-fil-a (a fast food chicken restaurant chain) or bring a lunch, and Thursday you can order either Dock Chey (a Chinese restaurant chain), Roly Poly (a wrap sandwich restaurant), or bring a lunch. On Friday, you bring a lunch.

On any given day, if you walk into my classroom between 12:20 and 12:40, you can smell an array of smells. For example, my friend brings a thermos of leftovers from dinner the night before, anything from boxed macaroni and cheese to Asian chicken and couscous to black bean soup. My other friend usually brings a microwavable ramen noodle soup cup for lunch (our classroom has 3 microwaves). My teacher brings anything from fried chicken to egg salad (we also have a mini refrigerator).

I think it is nice not having a cafeteria because it allows you to have the freedom of choosing what you eat. I think that it is cool that anyone can eat what he or she wants to without eating in a cold cafeteria. In my opinion eating should be a pleasurable experience, and at my school it is.

Isis is fourteen years old and is really interested in food because her dad is a good cook. She was practically raised in a Vietnamese restaurant, and as a baby ate her first solid foods there, which were rice noodles. She tries most foods that are offered to her and her parents urge her to also. For example, when she was 7 years old, she was at a French restaurant and her parents were having snails and they easily talked her into trying them. They ended up being pretty good! Isis takes ballet, plays soccer, sings in a choir, and loves to travel. Isis went to Italy for two weeks and when she came back she went on and on about the food, especially the gelato. Isis thinks that if you are going to eat, why not eat well if you can? There seems to be no reason not to.

Email questions or comments for these two young women to webmaster@drgourmet.com.