By Altynai Melisova, Gator Galaxy Staff
“Pizza is ready!” said the female voice. Then somebody opened door and I, with my pizza friends, saw lots of human faces.
Wow! Thank the Cooks we are outside. It was too hot in the oven. Does everybody need to be burned to be born? Ohh…it was a really long journey from the huge grocery store to the LPS Distribution Center, then to the cold fridge at North Star High School. It seems that my poor nose has been frostbit. The temperature changed from -4 to 150 degrees fahrenheit so fast!
Now I’m lying on a baking stone. Fortunately, I can see everything that happens around the kitchen along with my Cheesy Taco and Sweet Chicken neighbors. I can see a huge line of students who are impatiently waiting for their turn to grab a tray. I suppose, a tall guy with a walkie-talkie in his hand controls orders here. Ha! If he doesn’t let some students go in a minute, they will be ready to eat him instead of us.
After leaving the oven, I realize I’ve lost about two thousand of my pizza friends. They were delivered to five other elementary schools and Bryan Community.
Oh my Cook! This girl is going to take me; I’m her target. I wish I could stay longer and see other funny things. She is looking at me and thinking about how many calories I have, and how much fat I will give her. Honestly, all my food friends and I contain only 27 percent fat. Moreover, I was baked, not fried, so we are pretty healthy.
While this girl was earnestly making her decision, I was picked up by the hands of another student. Hopefully they are clean, because I like clean and I’ve never been in dirty places. I found myself on a nice tray with plastic cups of sweet corn, boiled carrots and a red apple. Soon a box of fries, two ketchup cups and low fat chocolate milk joined us as well.
Again in queue. I see one woman checks out students’ IDs and types something very fast into her register. She explains to one student that he can take only two vegetables and two fruits. Fortunately, my host could differ two from three, so without any problem, we go ahead.
I try to say “Hello” to my Sweet Chicken friends, but we sat by another table with five more friends. I mean my owner’s human friends.
It seems that my host doesn’t want to eat me, so I have time to see other’s lunch. Most of the students begin with their main meal. Somebody bites and chews very fast, somebody doesn’t like today’s chicken and tries to figure out what they can eat. Probably, all these noisy students like to comment their lunch. I caught words “tasty”, “terrible”, “I like it”, “it’s tough”, “I want more” and even “disgusting”. Democratic lunch in a democratic country; each student has own opinion.
“Oops” he is chewing the first bite of me. Hehe…it’s kinda ticklish.
Still I can oversee guys throwing baby carrots and broken plastic folks to each other. At the corner some boys playing games. Is it really high school? This is so funny.
Bell is ringing. Darkness…Am I in a stomach? No, it is a garbage basket.
Interesting facts about North Star kitchen.
1. North Star is the main kitchen, that serves food for six more schools everyday.
2 Our students eat 350-400 pizzas per lunch.
3. There are three types of lunch menu : ordinary, vegetarian and gluten free.
4. School food service is SUDDENLY checked by USDA Federal agent once a month.
5. Food that students don’t eat is properly refrigerated and can be reheated only one time.
6. There are nineteen cooks who preparing food at North Star Navigator
P. S. Most of students miss breakfast and most of them have sport clubs after school, so the main meal that can give energy to not pass out during practice is LUNCH! Go Gators!
