Eating Habits

Here, we get really excited for Sunday nights. Why? Well, it’s simple really. The food at JPUSA on the weekends is, well, how do I put this, less than to be desired. Unless we decide to go out to eat, I find that I barely eat on the weekends. That is until Sunday evening supper when we remember three wonderful words: Grill your own.

Grill your own. When we hear that we remember the light at the end of the tasteless food weekends. Grill. your. own. You wouldn’t believe exactly how psyched we get until you’ve had the “mushroom” gravy on Saturday (which tends to have no mushrooms in it but tons of salt), the under cooked zucchini muffins for breakfast, and the beans and rice for Sunday lunch (which aren’t even seasoned with salt).

But then Sunday evening comes and the smoke and smell from the charcoal grill rises from the JPUSA playground area. And we remember to hope again.

I realize I am being overdramatic, but it’s rather easy to do that when I am hungry. It’s important for you to know that I love food – cooking it, serving it, eating it, whatever I love it all. So adjusting to all the dirt on the dining room floor is an uphill battle. Yep. Way up hill.

For some reason, this weekend there have been no mugs (which we use as cups for everything). Instead, we use the tiniest Styrofoam cups I’ve ever seen. The other morning, I ate my cereal with a fork. (The spoons like to disappear. A lot).

My favorite thing yet is this ridiculous peanut butter mix that we “RJ-ers” have been making and inhaling at quick rates. It’s our attempt at making “granola.” (Well, I guess you can call it that. I am not sure if it has a name yet). This is what we do. We take a bowl and spoon out a huge chunk of peanut butter. In this bowl we combine plain oats (yep that’s right – plain, uncoaked oats), crasins, tiny chocolate chips, and maybe sunflower seeds. We mix it all together and rather eat it right away or pop it in the fridge in our “kitchen” (aka the room with the ridge since that’s basically the only thing that makes that room a kitchen). It’s easier to eat if it’s cold so the peanut butter clumps.

Yum.

I am not sure if this is really good or if we are so deprived that we have convinced ourselves that it is. Either way, there is typically someone sitting around the flat eating a huge bowl of it. I often find myself sitting on the couch with a huge spoonful of peanut butter, wondering why in the world I am eating it. I have no idea. So I spoon in another bite.

These great food moments, like grill your own and homemade “granola” help us get through eating at JPUSA. That and for a good three days we had nine cartons of ice cream in the freezer. We consumed that really fast. Seriously fast. There is nothing like a group of girls sitting around the table with cartons of ice cream and individual spoons.

It’s beautiful.

(Disclaimer: I am grateful for JPUSA’s willingness to have us here. And this blog is meant to be more humorous than me just complaining, even if my writing can be sarcastic).