Family objects to lunchbox gourmet

Just when I was feeling pretty satisfied about my ability to fix school lunches for Becca and Bailey, along comes a national news story that suggests we should all become lunchbox gourmets.

Chefs, cookbook authors and other food experts have all sorts of advice on preparing a better school lunch.

One national news magazine reports that one food magazine editor always includes a protein, like a thin slice of meatloaf with cranberry chutney on whole-wheat bread or stir-fried steak in peanut sauce on a bran muffin sliced horizontally and covered with cream cheese.

Are you kidding me?

Becca and Bailey would gag if I packed such meals in their lunchboxes.

As veteran readers of my column know, 12-year-old Becca can't be bribed to eat pizza, much less meatloaf.

She does like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but only those where the peanut butter and jelly are mixed together.

She also dines on ready-to-eat sliced cheese and crackers, complete with a cookie for dessert. She likes bottled water, too.

Becca's been known to go hungry rather than eat something she doesn't like. So there's no point sending her to school with Tuscan pasta or barbecue beef.

One food expert on the Food Network packs taco kits for her teenage daughter, complete with salsa and precooked rotisserie chicken.

Joni and I don't go to such an extreme. When you're rushing around in the morning trying to make lunch, wake up the kids and feed the dog, it's best to go with the simple approach.

Bailey, our 8-year-old, loves those small, make-your-own cheese pizza in seconds with ready-to-spread pizza sauce.

A Chicago chef suggests sending your kid to school with such munchy items as sesame sticks, low-fat popcorn or flavored rice cakes.

Please, enough is enough. In our household that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Becca and Bailey like popcorn, the messy, buttery kind. They would ignore the low-fat stuff.

About the only thing worse in my book would be to pack grits in their lunchboxes.

While Becca refuses to eat any school cafeteria food, Bailey will eat a few dishes such as pizza baked by school cooks. But for the most part she brings her lunch, too.

Frankly, Joni and I will never resort to being lunchbox gourmet cooks. In our home, there's no demand for it.

Bailey does like Chinese food, but we're not about to order out at 7 a.m. Besides, it's too messy for Bailey's lunchbox.

Still, all this talk about gourmet meals for kids is just one more thing to make parents feel guilty.

Next thing you know, the parental advise experts will be telling us we need to send our children to school with metal lunchboxes like I carried around when I was in elementary school.

Personally, I like metal lunchboxes when they're miniature sized and sold as Hallmark Christmas ornaments. But you can't pack a lunch in them.

Becca and Bailey like the soft lunch containers which fit more easily in their backpacks.

As we all know, kids don't eat school lunches in a gourmet atmosphere.

Lunchtime isn't a marathon, it's a sprint to the finish.

In such situations, peanut butter and jelly doesn't seem so bad.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.