At school the head dinner lady is known as the nutritionist. She has her own office and is responsible for planning the cafeteria lunches and in charge of the dinner ladies serving the lunches. When I first came the lunches were well balanced.

I dont eat the meat items or pork as I follow a Muslim Halal diet but there were usually vegetable dishes, soup, boiled rice, fish or seafood options each day. Usually I ate ok. On rare days I was reduced to just the rice as there was meat in all items including the soup. Other days I was stuffed.

The nutritionist was quite friendly. She spoke some english. There is a sauce I really liked and wanted to know where to buy it or how to make it. When I was told you have to make it yourself, and its difficult for koreans to make, I asked if the school could give me some. The nutritionist was kind enough to give me a massive jar of the sauce, and another one a few weeks later without asking when I had barely used a couple of spoons of the first one.

At other times, because she knew I didnt eat meat items, when there was a large meat menu she would prepare a seperate dish just for me. I was surprised as this was very considerate. I had never asked for or requested any special meals so it was nice she would remember and go to all this extra trouble.

A few months back she went on parental leave for one year and a new nutritionist came. She also speaks a little english, but she has slowly been changing the menu items. It seems she is meat obsessed and their is now a very heavy diet of meat daily on the menu.

Items that were once vegetarian are now mixed with beef. Seafood dishes I liked now have a strange beef combination so I cant eat those either. Simple vegetable soups are heavily laced with meat. Even the sacred boiled rice is sometimes mixed with pork. Its becoming very difficult to eat school lunches and its becoming more regular that I am only able to eat the boiled rice and no other menu items that day.

I'm not asking them to change the menu just for one person or to prepare special meals, but I dont think a regular combination of beef, pork, chicken, all on the menu on the same day with no vegetable options is a healthy diet. I'm having to raid and rely on my junk food stash more regularly to get me thru the day.

We normally have a full staff dinner at a restaurant after school every other month, sometimes two months in a row. I was just wondering the other day that we hadnt had one for a while this term. A day or two later I was told we were having an after school teachers lunch at a restaurant.

There is a stone pot rice restaurant close to the school that we usually goto. The main meal is a stone pot with cooked rice. You scoop the rice out into a seperate bowl and eat it with the side dishes.

Then you pour boiling water into the stone bowl and put the lid back on. It softens the cooked rice stuck to the side of the bowl. When you finish eating your rice and side dishes you take off the lid and mix the softened rice with the hot water and eat it.

I've never particularly liked the second part of the dish where you eat the leftover rice with the boiled water, but I follow the procedure to give the appearance of participating and nobody notices I didnt eat the leftover rice and water!

There is another noodle restaurant we've been to a couple of times that I much rather prefer, as well as a shabu shabu restaurant across from the school. Maybe next time, as my students often say!

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I found out parents had complained that because they paid for school dinners they wanted more meat... hency today's soya bean tofu soup was laced with beef again!

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