Sweet memories
Do you have fond memories of grade school cafeteria food?
Yeah, I don't either. More than a decade removed from middle school, I can still do without the monotony of pepperoni pizza rectangles every Monday; hot dogs, fixings and crinkle fries on Wednesdays and vegetable soup with grilled cheese sandwiches most Fridays.
But sometimes the lunch ladies would make a glorious dish, the memory of which stays with you long after you've forgotten those algebra equations. For students in Los Angeles, it was the school district's Old Fashioned Coffee Cake.
For me, its the Apple Brown Betty the cafeteria ladies at the former Lincoln Middle School in Ruffin used to make. The dessert had warm apple slices spiced with cinnamon and sugar and topped with an oats and brown sugar crumb mixture that was to die for. On days when the treat was on the menu, I carefully examined the rows and rows of desserts, looking for one that had more of the Brown Betty and less of the apple.
The Lincoln Middle I went to is gone, replaced years ago with a gleaming new elementary school that shares the Lincoln name. But the memory of the Apple Brown Betty, that'll stay with me for a lifetime.