Since
when are there red beans in tuna salad? Come to think of it, this sausage is
probably barely 15% fish. And what about the sides — cole slaw that
looks like corn, macaroni and cheese bearing a striking resemblance to boiled
cabbage, bizarrely fruitlike cookies?
Egad, the old switcheroo! This is a completely different meal!
The ERDCC kitchen
diverges from its posted menu with irritating frequency. Some days you trek
across the yard, through pelting rain or blazing heat, having put off some
important bit of personal business, anticipating one of the especially edible
meals on the six-week menu cycle, only to be greeted by an unexpected smell and
a surprise foodstuff. No warning was given. You just got duped.
Similarly, there are times when you're scared of the planned meal and make
other arrangements, resolved not to even set eyes on, say, that inedible brake
pad they call meatloaf, only to find out after lunch that the kitchen manager
substituted the more palatable vegetable soup and sandwich, and that you just
cooked something with canteen foodstuffs that would've been better reserved for
leaner times.
This happened at Crossroads periodically — usually just with a side,
such as beet-and-onion salad or corn relish, which few cared about. Fresh fruit
was also substituted for cake pretty often, to the dismay of many a sweet
tooth. Here, though, it's about once a week that someone with authority veers
hard off-menu.
I haven't seen peanut butter in months, though it definitely remains part of
the printed meal plan. Instead, we've been given bologna or scrambled egg mix
on the regular. One time they slapped slices of turkey ham (something else
against which my digestive system revolts) on the trays where peanut butter
should've been. During my initial months here, the institution was out of
black-eyed peas. Because the menu didn't reflect this, I was tricked again and
again, only to wind up with trays piled with pinto beans instead, which was
fine, if not ideal. I love me some dirt-flavored legumes.
This week I skipped a movie on basic cable because there was a chance that
lunch's cardboard pizza would be replaced by that rare treat, a pepperoni pizza
pocket. It wasn't. And while this sort of thing isn't that big of a deal, it's
just another item in the long, long list of tetchy bullshit that I abide,
living this life locked away.
now that food visit for Motherday would have come in handy. Sigh
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