I was a "brown bagger" for my first 12 years of school. Actually for the first three I had lunch boxes, The Partridge Family was my last one. Sadly, I had to retire the Partridges when it was no longer cool to carry a lunch box and moved on to a brown bag. I'll admit it, I was a huge Partridge Family fan, first the TV show, which segued into the album, trading cards, a poster and finally I got to see the Partridges "live", thanks to my cousin, Brenda. David Cassidy, with his feathered hair and pastel bell-bottoms was every girl's dream. Truth be told, my real favorite was Danny Bonaduce. The red hair and devil-may-care attitude drew me in. Who knew back in the day he'd turn out to be an on-again-off-again drug addled pseudo-celebrity. But I digress. I proudly displayed my fan loyalty through my choice of lunch box.
Selecting the right lunch box at the beginning of the school year caused me great angst. The pressure was on. Without a lot of finagling with Mom, I couldn't willy-nilly swap out Bobby Sherman for the Partridges mid-school year. I had to pick correctly in August while shopping for all my other school supplies. My only out was breakage; after Thermos switched from glass to plastic the whole set up was practically indestructible. I could have easily gone a full 12 years toting Shirley, Ruben and the gang, but that would have been a deal breaker in the lunch room. Friendships were built on cool. Really, the Mondrian square inspired school bus only had about a grade's worth of cool until the next hot lunch box came along.
The option of the school prepared lunch never wowed me. Not even on special days when the dittoed menu promised pizza or cheeseburgers. The rectangle shaped slab of anemic pizza didn't appeal. I never developed a fondness for tater tots, a major selling point for the cheeseburger entree. I stayed true to the brown bag and Mom obliged, packing my lunch every day. I consumed a lot of PB&J on white bread, the only bread in the 70's. She would mix things up a bit throwing in an occasional lunch-meat combo sans condiments, maybe tuna fish, but it didn't hold up well in a locker all day. Along with a sandwich, I'd get Fritos if I was lucky, maybe a Zinger or Devil Dog and a fruit cup (the kind in the can with the pull tab.) Without a Thermos, I'd buy milk. I didn't much care for milk back then, it was always warmish and tasted like the paperboard carton it was sold in. A whopping six cents bought milk in 1973 and I had issues keeping up with the nickel and penny prior to lunch. Unable to locate my funds most days due to the deep pockets of my book bag, I'd bypass the milk. This must have been foreshadowing, some years later, I'm still not good with money, but I do like a bargain, and back then milk was a bargain.
School officially starts this week, in honor of school lunches everywhere this week's cupcake is aptly named Brown Bag Lunch - a peanut butter cupcake filled with grape jelly, topped with a layer of vanilla cream and finished with a chocolate chip cookie. Lunch never tasted so good.
Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes
To your favorite yellow cupcake recipe add 1 cup peanut butter. Fill wells of cupcake pan 1/2 full add 1 t grape jelly, top with more batter. Bake 20-23 minutes.
Frost with vanilla buttercream and top with homemade chocolate chip cookie. I've been dying to trying this recent recipe from the NY Times A bit more involved than the Toll House recipe, but it paid off.
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