School Days

spaghetti1Jane Curtin, my former colleague on Saturday Night Live, characterized school cafeteria food in a way I’d never thought of. One day, on the set, I was waxing poetic about the fact that I loved the stuff. I think Spaghetti Day was my favorite.

“I don’t know what it is. It was pretty simple. Tomato sauce with ground beef and noodles. I usually had chocolate milk with it. You know, the holy trinity, savory, starchy and sweet. It was just so… divine..”

“Oh, yeah.” Jane said, as she tugged slowly on her cigarette. “Institutional food”.

“Hmmm.” I thought. “Really?”

I pictured all the movie close-ups I’d seen of miscellaneous slop being slammed on to metal trays in various pre-riot prison scenes. Some burly lifer upends the new ‘fish’s' meal. But what he doesn’t know is, the new “fish” was often Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris. Usually canned corn and peas, white bread and mystery meat. Probably saltpeter as well.

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meatball.jpgYou know how I made it through sophomore geometry? My mom's meatball sandwiches.

I dreaded geometry. Measures, angles, slopes, points. Coordinates? I thought they were clothes. It didn't help that my class was right before lunch, last lunch, actually, so I never knew if it was the geometry or the hypoglycemia that was causing my sweaty palms and headaches.

Nothing made me feel better than pulling my sandwich out of its paper bag. I'd take a whiff, know instantly it was a meatball sandwich, and give praise for Italian mothers. Then I'd carefully open the crinkly aluminum foil and discover three of my mom's homemade meatballs snuggled lovingly inside of a chewy Italian roll and doused with just the right amount of red gravy. It was as close to Nirvana as I would get, at least until I read Siddhartha.

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tracy_charlotte.jpgThe song you’ll hear after the jump is about driving my daughter Charlotte’s teenage carpool in 1998.  The absolute horror of it.  All I can remember about it was how much I hated it.  Then, today, I was reading through my journal from back then, and come across the following entry. I must have been writing things for Charlotte to read in later years.  She’s 26 now, so Charlotte, this is for you:

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muffins.pizza_.jpgI am going to miss our lazy days of summer.  Breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner doesn’t seem as daunting during the summer as it does during the school year.  First of all, I get a bit of help with the prep, the clean up, and my sons culinary suggestions inspire me.

The school year brings it own set of hurdles.  Breakfast and lunch have to be prepared at the same time – unless I can get my act together to prep the night before.  Then there is the after school rush. Piling them into the car only to hurry home, get their homework done, give them a healthy snack, and hustle them to their various after school activities.  Oh boy am I going to miss summer.

For the past few weeks I have been experimenting with a few ideas.  My kids love pizza, but the stuff in the box leaves much to be desired and I just don’t have enough time to make one from scratch – given our schedule and how limited our time is (sadly said).  Solution: pizza muffins.

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cap and gownAs millions of parents prepare to proudly watch their high school seniors march down the aisle toward their next academic milestone, there’s no denying that, this summer, in many homes plenty of attention will be focused on the upcoming college launch. In honor of college-bound graduates and that higher education road trip, I’d like to share one of my most popular essays from my book College Bound and Gagged: How to Help Your Kid Get into a Great College Without Losing Your Savings, Your Relationship, or Your Mind. This essay was one of the winners of the 2010 Erma Bombeck Writing Competition, which I think reflects the fact that we’re all in sticker shock.


It fell out of the most important letter of the year. A thin adhesive sticker tucked inside the anxiously awaited university acceptance letter.

“Mom, I got in!” my son exclaimed. “Now you can get off my back.”

I might have cried, but I was too busy thanking a higher power for giving me my life back. The admissions office insisted I didn’t owe them that phone call. Like proud parents everywhere, I took the highly coveted university decal mobile. Clinging to the rear window of our SUV, the victory sticker symbolized closure from a process I thought would never end. This would be the last and most expensive decal on the journey of parenthood. Soon the nest and the bank account would be empty.

“What will you do with your time now that you won’t have to nag him to write essays and study SAT words?” my mother asked.

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