It’s Totus Tuus week! We haven’t been for a few years, so we were delighted to sign up again for this Catholic day camp. Well, I was delighted. The kids were jerky about it in that very specific way that signals to parents that it’s actually a good thing, but they don’t want you to feel like you’ve done something right.
The only catch is that the church is 35 minutes away, and we have kids in the day and evening programs, so that makes . . . a lot of driving. That means it’s week for easy peasy meals. Here’s what we had:
SATURDAY
Steak sandwiches, fries, watermelon
Well, this was before camp week started, so Damien grilled some steaks and sliced them up, and we had the meat on toasted rolls with mayo, provolone, and roasted red peppers. Mighty tasty.
I love sandwiches that look like they’ve been tucked into bed with a blanket of cheese, and also I don’t really understand why all my pants are tight. In this essay I will explain
SUNDAY
Vermonter sandwiches
A favorite cold sandwich, great for prepping ahead of time. I usually use ciabatta rolls, but had sourdough bread this time. Cold chicken, bacon, thick slices of cheddar and green apple, and honey mustard. I took a picture of the fixins
But not the sandwich. Here is a Vermonter of ages past:
Shoutout to everyone who’s recently accused me of journalistic sloppiness, when in fact I’m the kind of person who feels the need to disclose that the sandwich pictured above is a previous sandwich and varies slightly from the current one.
Anyway. Such a pleasant combination of sweet and savory, and all kinds of textures.
MONDAY
Chicken caesar wraps
I forget who suggested this on Facebook, but thank you, genius! Really trying to use up leftovers, rather than throw them away. We had chicken left over from the Vermonter sandwiches and from whatever chicken dish we had last week, as well as some freshly-grated parmesan cheese from the pasta on Friday, so I just bought a bunch of pita bread, romaine lettuce, bottled dressing, and cherry tomatoes, and it went very nicely together, very pretty.
I know tomatoes don’t go on caesar salad, but it was a very good addition to this wrap, which just about everyone liked. It turns out almost no one in the family likes the kind of flatbread they sell around here, but they do like pita. You hear that, pita?
It’s funny, I’ve been making all these salads that are modified versions of full, carbier meals, and now lately I’ve been reverting them back into sandwiches. It’s the circle of salad (ingonyama nengw’ enamabala).
TUESDAY
Burgers, veg and dip
Nothing to report. Lots of vegetable action happening around here lately.
This is the proper amount of ketchup and mustard, by the way. I am a professional and I should know.
WEDNESDAY
Domino’s pizza
I know it’s not exquisite, but I like Domino’s pizza. I like how pillowy soft it is, and I like the salty, somewhat gritty crust. There is far better pizzas in the world, and I like them too, but Domino’s pleases me.
Also, Damien discovered that, if you order it online, it’s $12 a pizza, but if you call up the local store, it’s $7. We did the math and it turns out we’re not quite willing to pay $20 for the privilege of not talking to anybody. But there was a struggle.
THURSDAY
Whatever you want from the fancy part of the supermarket.
Listen, Biden just paid us to be lazy, and I’m not made of stone. On the way home home from camp session one, I turned them loose in the supermarket and we came home with an assortment sushi, pizza rolls, chicken tenders, pizza, and misc.
Then Damien and I both dropped off the older kids at session two and got Chinese food while we sat back and waited for a couple of seminarians to secure our children’s spiritual future.
This particular restaurant mayyyy be a grandparent restaurant. They don’t give you chopsticks, and everything is sweet, sweet, sweet, and we’re pretty sure the music they were playing was a jazzy synth version of “How can I keep from singing?” for some reason; but the food was hot and delicious and nobody yelled at me. That has been my standard for an excellent experience lately: Did anybody yell at me? No? Then A+. I had some kind of prawn and vegetable thing that was very tasty, and it did not yell at me.
Then we killed some time at a sort of rural Walmart store called Runnings, which featured some unsettling taxidermy and the biggest frying pan I’ve ever seen. You’ll have to imagine it, because I do have a photo, but while we were out yesterday, someone, reportedly “maybe the cat” knelt on my computer and now it doesn’t work. It’s under warranty, and Lena’s graciously letting me use her computer for now. I don’t know any of my own passwords and I don’t know how to do anything and am suffering greatly. Anyway the upshot is that if I have to process one more photo on an unfamiliar laptop, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.
FRIDAY
Spaghetti? I don’t know. Maybe I will just put out all the extra snacks and lunch treats I bought while suffering from inappropriate guilt over making them go to fun camp for five days! How about that! How about that!