May Every Day | School Lunch Hero Day

May Every Day is a series of daily blog posts for May 2021 sharing days and weeks that we celebrate or observe. Some of these days are well-known holidays while others are more obscure observances, some are celebrated internationally while others are more nationally focused, some are significant while others are just plain FUN!

I had no idea there was something called School Lunch Hero Day until I started researching this series, but I immediately knew what I wanted to share when I saw it! Robbie's grandmother worked in the school lunch room of a junior high school for many years. We have a couple of her school portraits from that time, so I used inspiration from Shimelle's Half and Half class to create a layout about her and the little pizzas Robbie likes to make.

Robbie's journaling reads: In the 1950s and up to sometime in the late 60s, Grandy worked in the lunch cafeteria at Sill Junior High School in my home-town of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She was always an excellent cook, and I like to think my ability to cook and bake, as well as my talent for ‘creatively cooking,’ comes directly from her! She and the other ladies were responsible for feeding hundreds of junior high students daily, and she would come up with several unique recipes from time to time to add something a bit ‘extra’ to the then-standard daily school fare. Several of those recipes were favorites of mine (and my brother Tommy) back when we were young … and still remain so to this day. One recipe was for what she called “Little Pizzas,” which I call “Grandy’s Little Pizzas” for obvious reasons. It is made up of ground beef, ketchup, water, sugar, breadcrumbs, and oregano all cooked together and then scooped onto sliced English Muffins, covered with a slice of American Cheese, and put in the oven for 10 minutes or so. These things are addictive and are one of my favorite ‘comfort foods’ to this day. I probably make them about half a dozen times a year – with the majority being made on Sunday afternoons during football season, or if Tommy happens to be in town. When I was in elementary school and then in Junior High (long after Grandy had already retired), they still served the same “Little Pizzas” every so often – they were called “Pizza Burgers” by that time, but it was the same recipe for years until it too was finally changed. Nevertheless, I’ve been making them myself for nearly 50 years and the recipe was probably more than 20 years old by the time I started making them myself. I think Grandy would be pleased to know that Tommy and I still make them (and enjoy them) to this day. (~Robbie~ May 2021)

I love that we now have this story preserved in our scrapbook of Robbie's family stories! Have you scrapped any memories of older generations lately?