Penn Manor High School - School lunch

A few weeks ago I was asked by a former teacher of mine to come back to high school to speak for career day. In addition to this food blog, I am also a "pro" (in the sense that I get paid to do it) DJ, weddings, bars, parties, etc. and for years I have been marketing myself and doing my best to avoid adult responsibility. It has become, over the years, a fairly lucrative way to make a living, now if only I was a little better at saving money... 
So I was asked to participate in Career Day at Penn Manor High School, a place I have not been since 1996. Weird. Immediately after my class graduated, the school began an extensive MEGA renovation, and now everything is different and insane. I won't get into the details of my return, how it was SO different from what I remembered it to be, or how I was having Vietnam like flashbacks of places that were slightly familiar to me... and I won't get into the discussions that I had with the kids. I will not bore you with these details. Not here, not now.  I will simply say that, I think it went really well. 


After it was over (the three 40 minute blocks of time allotted to me to speak to each group of students) I was pretty hungry and it was lunch time. Did I also mention that I had to wake up at 6:30AM and I have not seen that time on a clock for, oh, I don't know, 6 or 7 years... yuck. So, by 11:30am, I was ready for some lunch. So I snuck down to the cafeteria, I think by this point most of the more "official" career day speakers had packed up and left for the day, not me, though... no way. 



I felt like Billy Madison when he goes back to high school (minus the REO Speedwagon T-shirt and the Firebird). I had a cocky confidence walking the halls again. Then I got to the cafeteria. Chaos. Mass chaos everywhere, this cafeteria was completely new to me, so I had no idea where to go, where to line up, what was what, or what to do, I just followed a group of kids and did what they did. 
It was a "half day" because of the whole career day business, so lunch (instead of it being typical friday=pizza) was a "breakfast menu" which consisted of pancakes, 2 hash browns, a sausage patty, and orange juice. 


I noticed a fry station as well, which offered french fries (which were very popular) and other fried delights including SHRIMP! "Well I have to get those" I thought, "and cocktail sauce?!"... awesome. They never had that kind of stuff when I went here. What gives?
The next hurdle I faced was the line in which to pay... again, a total mess. People everywhere and there was this bell ringing over and over again all around me, driving me absolutely insane. I soon found out that the bell is some sort of high tech Orwellian device where you scan your thumbprint and it brings up your "student profile" on the register computer and that's how you pay for lunch. ...Uhh... what?... I thought about bribing the kid behind me to scan twice to cover for me, so as not to stir up commotion in a line that was already full of madness... But alas, I didn't, and I gummed up the works anyway, which drew unwanted attention to me, but it wasn't like I dropped my tray or anything, so it was fine, I paid and was on my way to find a seat, still as cocky as can be. 

I stepped into the cold black darkness of the cafeteria floor, and it was, at that moment that I remembered the crippling fear that goes along with being the "new kid" on the first day of school. Where... OH GOD WHERE do I sit? 
I looked out into a sea of kids, all comfortable within their "cliques". I felt lost, and suddenly... alone. 

My cocky swagger replaced by an outspoken prayer of "Oh please, just don't drop the tray" I found a seat at the first completely empty table that I could.

 And I sat there alone and eating. Yes I felt creepy, and yes, suddenly I felt as though I no longer "belonged" My goal at this point was to eat as fast as I could, take some pictures of my food (for this blog) and get the "F" outta dodge. 
I started with the sausage patty (my advice: always start with the greasy  patty of meat... its like a spoonful of [greasy meat] sugar- sorry) in this case the "sausage" was really just a hamburger patty slightly seasoned to somewhat resemble sausage. 
Wawa has better sausage... At 4am.
Absolutely horrible. 

I was about halfway through choking this "hot disc of garbage" down when suddenly I looked up from my very lonely table to find one of the girls from one of the groups I "lectured" (really? lectured?) standing there and she said "Would you like to come eat lunch with us?" (meaning her and her friends) I felt accepted. A rush of joy swept over me, and I felt like maybe  things weren't so bad after all. 
So I finished my lunch in the company of high school students, who were eating, as far as I could tell - french fries and popsicles. Was I the healthiest eater there? What was going on? Is that how you kids live your lives? Hey, maybe you need to eat better! (yes, I fully realize how ridiculous that sounds coming from someone who started a blog based on hot dogs.. but still... c'mon kids!). 


So lets talk about my lunch/brunch/garbage...

You already know how I felt about the "sausage" patty, so lets move on to the hash browns... ugh. I will be honest, I like some really crappy food sometimes... its the reason that I don't update this blog during the week very much.. because thats when  I am eating very poorly, and I don't feel it necessary to write about my "French Dip" sandwich from Arby's that I get every other day (it helps to put into perspective the "quality" food that I eat, and other lazy excuses). You are all just going to have to deal with primarily weekend posts for now, that is until places start giving me free meals to review - (hint hint, everywhere).   
Anyway... from time to time, I enjoy Ore Ida toaster hash browns (so what?! don't judge me!) and I think they are fine... toasted greasy potato cakes, cheap, easy, and delicious.
If I am at home, making breakfast, they are usually on the plate. And so it was, that I was given these abominations of hash browns. My Ore Ida toaster hash browns taste as though they are made with gourmet truffle oil compared to these things... Too cold, and too flaky to be a product fit for consumption, they were toasted and crisp around the edges, but really just a poorer man's version of a poor man's food. FAIL. 3.1 


No one at the table was eating the official "lunch" for the day except me, that should have told me something. 

Next I moved on to the pancakes, which were, oddly enough, sealed in plastic. Wow. You couldn't even just unwrapped them to give the illusion of "hot off the griddle"? I get it though, these lunch ladies SLAVE AWAY and it is a very thankless job, the school lunch is just probably always gross everywhere,  I do not blame the lunch ladies, doing what they must to feed the starving (up WAY to early every day) masses of kids... I will blame the school lunch program. 


Dear School Lunch Program, 


Ew. Gross.


-T 

But really... those pancakes were inedible. A syrup tub was included, and I drizzled it upon the "hot discs of doughy garbage" and for like A SECOND that first bite reminded me of a time that I might have once in my life had actual pancakes... but then it all fell apart... the whole thing turned to paste and what should have been enjoyable, all at once became impossible to swallow. I managed to, but I immediately threw in the towel, never once touching my orange juice, which, as you can see, was more of an orange block of ice rather than juice. 
Maybe if the kids had a lunch period longer than 25 minutes the juice would thaw and be a drinkable product. Or then again, maybe not.


"pancakes" 2.0
orange "juice" 1.0 (it was orange)


It didn't end there, I had also bought myself into this "Shrimp" product. I love shrimp. I will eat the shrimp out of shrimp. What I will never eat ever again though, is this foul creation. What I got was a box filled with fried bits, of all shapes and sizes, regrettably I did not take a picture (I was warned at this point by some of my new friends that cell phones were NOT ALLOWED , and though I yearned to be threatened with detention - to really round out my back to school experience - I, again, did not want undue attention put on me).
I will say this, what lived inside those balls of fried wonder was not shrimp, or, if it was - it was the lowest common denominator of shrimp available. It was instead, "fish parts - fried" the ONLY saving grace here was the cocktail sauce which had a very strong horseradish bite, strong enough to suggest that it may have actually been made "in house" if not- it was clearly the sole item on the menu of any real quality. 
"fish parts-fried" 2.1
cocktail sauce - 5.2


Admittedly I did not have any other offering put forth here today, and there was plenty to be had... a salad bar, a sandwich bar (featuring wrapped sandwiches of almost every variety - hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, BLTs) there were a few sandwiches that apparently had swiss cheese on them instead of american cheese (gasp!) and apparently needed a warning label to describe them as such (its good to know that I am not the only one that HATES cold swiss cheese) all kinds of other "bars" I merely glanced at, but today I went with what was "on the menu" with one add on. All of which was a  let down. Maybe the kids have it right, maybe french fries are the safest bet. Maybe I was just eating way too early in my day to really enjoy my choices, maybe you need to be a high school kid to enjoy this stuff... Whatever the case, I don't think I'll be going back to high school for lunch again any time soon.