Guest Blogger: Rebecca Katz

Working as a server at the Retirement Center has taught me several things about eating from a kitchen that is not your own:
1. Never trust food being served to you by a teenager.
2. Employees working at the RC often play by the motto, "Eh, It's clean enough"
and
3. The RC kitchen is one of the dirtiest places this side of the
Mississippi.

That being said, I have eaten at my place of employment many times. Today was one of those days. Working from 7am to 1pm, I was at the RC for breakfast and lunch. It being Sunday, we were serving French toast. Now I find it important to tell you that the bread that we always use for this meal claims to be "Texas Toast." This irks me because there is nothing Texas about it besides that it is bigger, faker, and more obnoxious looking than the other breads. Anyway, at about 8 o'clock I eyed the leftover French toast with disdain and decided, like always, to skip it and dine on cream of wheat. I seasoned said creamed wheat with salt, brown sugar, and half and half the way my grandmother used to make it. I eagerly dove in. While the extras were nothing short of delicious the sticky consistency of the cream of wheat put me off. When I stirred it around it all clumped together into one extremely unappetizing mass, which was disappointing, but not unexpected. Dissatisfied... again. I scraped out my bowl with higher hopes for lunch.

As lunchtime rolled around, the cook decided to make tomato basil soup and cold ham sandwiches. I was excited because the sandwiches at the RC are usually pretty good and the cook let me make them. After completing my sandwich I decided that while good, the bread was so soft that it sticks to your teeth a little and the ham was cut too thick for my liking. Like the French toast I promptly decided to skip the soup as there were canned tomato chucks which I do not like in the least. All in all the day was disappointing food-wise, but I didn't have to peel 30 potatoes like I usually do, so I was satisfied.

As an aside, I think it is important to state that all the cooks at the RC are great while the supplies and budget are, well, not so much...

Sticky, Plain Cream of Wheat: D
Cream of Wheat Extras: A+
Ham sandwich: B
Sticky bread: C-
Tomato chunks: F
Not having to peel potatoes: A++