Second Helpings of our GenX School Lunches
Kristin Nilsen 0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome to an encore presentation of episode 113 tater tots and Turkey a la King the Gen X school lunch. I am so excited to revisit this one, and I'm actually going to read the description that we wrote because it's so funny. I don't know which one of us wrote this, but whoever did it like let's pat ourselves on the back, because this is funny. It was you in today's episode, we'll be saving the one constant in everybody's life from ages five to 18, that daily meal taken at long tables and basement cafeterias and converted gyms, the school lunch, not Michelle Obama's school lunch or the farm to table locally sourced, fully compostable school lunch of the new millennium, more like the grease filled pepperoni cups on your rectangle pizza school lunch that was the jewel of Gen X schools across the nation. I mean, how freakishly different could it be from today?
Michelle Newman 0:52
You guys? I live near a high school, and when I drive past around lunchtime, there's food trucks outside and one of them is like, burgers and, you know, chicken sandwiches and tacos. But I gotta tell you, I existed. We had a snack bar when I was in high school in Scottsdale, and I existed probably every day for six months of my sophomore year on a Little Debbie nutty bar and an orange slushie that was my lunch.
Kristin Nilsen 1:20
That's nutrition right there. I'm sure, I'm sure I say this in the episode, but most the time, I didn't even eat lunch. And then I had practice after school. So I went from like like 630 I literally went to school at 650 in the morning, like I arrived there at 650 I would go from 630 in the morning until 530 at night without eating lunch. If I did eat lunch, it would be a chocolate shaken french fries.
Michelle Newman 1:44
Did you dip the french fries? Oh, yes,
Kristin Nilsen 1:47
we did. Yes. You got to dip them. You got to dip the fries. That's why you buy the two together.
Michelle Newman 1:51
It's so good. Or, like we just talked about Cameron Crowe for right when he was writing fast times, when he was writing fast times he went back to high school. Do you think? Do you think that no, that I was No?
Carolyn Cochrane 2:05
Well, maybe if you wore a hat and some big glasses
Unknown Speaker 2:10
and your Lululemon, yeah, with Karen,
Carolyn Cochrane 2:13
your Stanley and all that, yeah, yeah, I
Michelle Newman 2:16
go get all of those things.
Carolyn Cochrane 2:18
The other reason we're excited to revisit this one is because our guest on the episode has raised her profile significantly since we recorded this. You guys, she was in the process of exploding when we talked to her, but now she is on a whole different level. We're talking, I have to take a breath here. I'm
Michelle Newman 2:35
so excited for it. You guys, we're
Carolyn Cochrane 2:37
talking the Today Show, The Today Show. People, okay, our guest was Erica weids. Erica started on social media giving cooking tips from her little, tiny home kitchen in Brooklyn, and then one day, her video about poaching an egg in the microwave that went viral, and now she does cooking segments on the freaking Today Show, like, story, yes, Roker has sampled her food. She's, like, lived with those guys. I just, I just love it, and she's so good at that's one of her gifts. She's so, you know, witty and off the cuff. She's so
Michelle Newman 3:16
cute and funny on the Today Show with them so well, I hate how they rush her. Don't you hate this? So Erica has over a million followers on Instagram and Tiktok, I know all because of that. Poached
Carolyn Cochrane 3:32
eggless, where is our poached egg? People?
Michelle Newman 3:34
I've watched it to help me make a better poached egg. I'll be honest. Oh,
Kristin Nilsen 3:39
it works. It works. Yeah, I think we do talk about that in one of our episodes. I don't know if it's this one with Erica or the other one with Erica. And to be fair, yes, the poached egg is what is what grease the wheels. But people are flocking to her because she's so good at what she does. She's super funny and personable and relatable, and
Carolyn Cochrane 3:57
nothing is complicated. I want to say that to all the nice chef cookie people out there, and I'm raising my hand, she makes everything so simple, and she doesn't make you feel you're right.
Michelle Newman 4:08
I've I mean, it's things like how to chop an onion the right way, or how to, you know, best get the pit out of your avocado. And you guys like us. Erica is a solid Gen Xer, and this episode was actually her idea, and you'll hear in this episode that she's not only a chef, she's like a food historian. I guarantee you, she knows more about school lunches in the 70s than anyone you know. It's actually really fascinating. Erica is also a really good friend to us. We've become like we always say that's one the biggest gift we've all gotten from this podcast is the friends we've made along the way, and Erica is definitely in that group. We've visited her in Brooklyn and even filmed a quick cooking segment with her for one of our social media posts. And if you check our YouTube page, you'll see it. We cooked tofu, and it was mind blowing.
Kristin Nilsen 4:58
It was so good. Good, and it was good. Yes, I don't know what to do with tofu. I have no idea. And I was standing in that tiny kitchen going, oh my god, I can make tofu. That was pretty
Michelle Newman 5:09
good. Yeah. So it's been really fun for us to watch her success. We're all subscribers to her sub stack, where she shares not just cooking videos, but also really personal insights into her life and the state of the world. She's a really good writer. Do you guys remember when she talked about the husband who was cheating on his wife, and everyone thought they were the perfect couple?
Speaker 1 5:31
She's like, sharing news of her neighborhood. It's like a soap opera. And I was like, Oh my God, what did he do? What did he do? What did he do? And this has been her substack newsletter.
Michelle Newman 5:40
No, it's very it's a very entertaining read.
Carolyn Cochrane 5:43
Always really, yeah,
Michelle Newman 5:45
and now, as if the woman is not busy enough, she's just launched a YouTube channel showcasing her cooking videos. I was last week years old when I learned how to use a knife the right way, you guys, and that's one of my favorite
Carolyn Cochrane 5:58
things that she does, it's those knife tips.
Kristin Nilsen 6:01
And I know this sounds crazy, but that knife tips thing is very important to me, because I'm only five feet tall and to chop something on a board, I try to tell this to Mike, he's like Kristen. It's not harder for you than it is for me. Yes, it is. I have to put my body in a different way. Erica is also five feet tall, so I can see how she's doing it. To do it more efficiently. It's crazy. It makes a big difference.
Carolyn Cochrane 6:26
Bad. I bet there's a whole like physics thing about it, and like, force, and I don't know, fulcrums and all that kind of the physicality
Kristin Nilsen 6:34
of it, fulcrums. That's physics. Yeah. Fulcrum
Speaker 1 6:39
levers do with the way you do a knife. Yeah, that is simple.
Kristin Nilsen 6:44
And I am no cook, you guys, but these are the kinds of videos just like Carolyn, I do. I do not do the cooking in my house at all, but these are the kind of videos that make me think I can do it yes. And sometimes we
Carolyn Cochrane 6:56
can Yes, and it's entertaining. It's not like you're watching some dry person, just tell you, Okay, pull out the knife. Do this. It's like, yeah, you they're
Kristin Nilsen 7:05
very quick and very accessible. She made me want to roast a cabbage. I'm not even kidding. And she's like, this is how she does it. She's not she's not elitist at all about her cooking skills. She's like, let's see what I have in my fridge. Oh god, look, there's this cabbage in the back of the fridge. What am I gonna do? She literally comes up with a video by digging through her fridge. And it was so easy. She's like, chop, oil, seasoning, oven, my God, I can do that. And it's like a real side dish that's healthy for me. And it's amazing. I'm just, I'm just amazed. Yeah, we love her. But wait, there's more. There's always more. Erica. Erica has also achieved her bucket list item of leading people on these food centric trips around the world. I really hope to do this one day. She's like, she's like, Rick Steves, if Rick Steves were a foodie, she'll take you and like 10 or 20 other hungry people on a guided adventure, highlighting all of the history, the culture and the food that these places have to offer. She really has so much knowledge in her head. She can tell you about the history of like, the Acropolis or something you're like, where did you How do you remember that? So she's taken people to Spain and Portugal and Greece. And today I got an email from her saying she's going to Italy today, and then next she's going to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, South Korea and Japan and Ireland. Oh, I would like to go
Michelle Newman 8:34
to Ireland cabbage. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 8:37
that's probably where she got all the cabbage information, Ireland. No,
Michelle Newman 8:40
they look super fun. I'm not a foodie at all, but I guarantee if I went on one of these trips with Erica, I would broaden my taste buds. Yes, because I'm not, I'm not scared to try new food. I just, I'm not a fan of, you know, cabbage and potatoes and in Ireland. But if I was with Erica, I would try it. Well, she
Carolyn Cochrane 8:58
makes it accessible. That's kind of her gift is that it's not she's not talking above my head saying, then you blanch this, and you do that. I don't even know what's
Kristin Nilsen 9:08
blanching. I know she and I feel like this. I feel like these trips would be very accessible to people who have not traveled out of the country very much, because that's that can be very intimidating. You don't know the language. You don't know how to the transportation. Erica does all of that for you, and she will make you eat really well too. Yes, that's
Michelle Newman 9:29
true, honestly. And
Carolyn Cochrane 9:30
you learn stuff, I mean, you come back smarter and maybe a couple pounds heavier, but that's okay, because you walk a lot, I'm sure on these. Yeah. So very, very fun. I would love to do that one day. Well, as you can tell, we are so honored to know Erica and to watch her success. She's such a good friend to the PCPs. She truly is one of us, you guys, and we really think you would enjoy having a little more Erica in your life. We'll put all of her information in our show notes. Include. Watching the poached egg video, her social media, her sub stack, her YouTube channel and links to those travel adventures. Because after listening to this episode, you'll see why the Today Show keeps calling her back with that. Let's travel back in time to experience the culinary heights of school lunch in the 70s and 80s. Please enjoy this encore presentation of tater tots and Turkey a la King the Gen X school lunch.
I gotta say the next most dreaded experience in the school cafeteria has to do with carrying that tray, and right now my stomach hurts. God forbid you dropped it, or someone dropped the tray. I mean, I think this is when I experienced vicarious embarrassment for the first time. You know, everyone would applaud. I never applauded. I want to go on the record saying I never applauded. I even now I could just be sick to my stomach.
Kristin Nilsen 11:17
Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who have lots of uses for pennies, like buying your milk at school. We
Carolyn Cochrane 11:26
believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition,
Michelle Newman 11:38
and today, we'll be saving the one constant in everybody's life from ages five to 18. That would be the daily meal taken at long tables in basement cafeterias and converted gems the school lunch.
Carolyn Cochrane 11:52
I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and
Michelle Newman 11:54
I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists.
Speaker 2 12:00
Oh, hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders. Navy beans, navy beans, navy beans, navy beans, hoagies and grinders, fogies and grinders, navy beans, navy beans, redo sandwich, cobbid. Up.
Kristin Nilsen 12:24
So today, I think we've stumbled upon what might be the number one most universal thing amongst Gen Xers, because if you went to school, which we all did by law, you have experience with school lunch, whether you bought or brought your lunch, you had to eat in the middle of the day, and that singular act created memories that came flooding in when we posted a simple question about school lunch on our social media, we came very close to breaking the internet. And we have to give credit where credit is due, because today's topic comes courtesy of one of our listeners, slash followers, who was also a former guest on the show when we talked about the crazy food fads of the Gen X era. So naturally, when she sent us this idea, we invited her back on the show today, our special guest is actor, comedian and Chef Erica weids, the host of funny people making food on YouTube and Instagram. Erica, welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society.
Speaker 3 13:19
Thank you, friends. Oh my god, can you hear the sirens in the background?
Kristin Nilsen 13:23
Oh, hello, New York City.
Michelle Newman 13:26
That's so exciting. We've got some atmosphere going so
Unknown Speaker 13:29
you're trying to sleep. Can
Kristin Nilsen 13:30
you tell us, Erica, tell us a little bit about funny people making food. So
Speaker 3 13:34
funny people making food is so it was a web series that I created a few years ago on YouTube. It was sort of inspired by Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Jerry Seinfeld's Netflix series, because I love food and I love comedy, and I'm also like a commercial actor, and what I wanted to do was kind of create a little series where I went into the homes of comedians and cooked with them and talked with them and joked around with them. And what I really wanted to kind of get at was, like the heart of whether their food influenced their comedy, like if their food life, like childhood food life and experience, influenced their comedy, or not, or not at all. And so we did, like six complete episodes of that. They're on YouTube, but those are very long and very expensive to produce. So then what I decided a few months ago was to just basically chop those up and put them on Instagram in little tiny clips. And then we ran out of material, so then I just started doing food content on Instagram. So anyway, that's what's both accounts are funny people making food and on Tiktok also, but the original OG six episodes are on YouTube, and you should all go watch them and subscribe and comment and like.
Kristin Nilsen 14:50
They're super funny. They're very fun. And there's one thing in particular where I just found this out, because this is one thing that changed my life, and apparently it changed a lot of. People's lives, because when they saw it, your Instagram just blew up. And it was how to poach an egg in the microwave,
Speaker 3 15:06
yeah, which is something I've been doing for years. And I was just sort of like, okay, what are we going to do for today's clip? And I did the egg in the microwave, and at that point, I had about 1500 followers, and within like, two weeks, I was at 100,000 and now I'm at almost 200,000 and that video got 33 million views. Come on, population of Canada, every Canadian. Wow. I'm so
Kristin Nilsen 15:39
happy to have you here today, because I think you're going to chime in with some really interesting stuff. So let's, let's launch into the the actual school lunch. I want to start with the lunch lady. The lunch lady is a really prominent figure, like the lunch ladies, as big as the school principal, in terms of how it's burned in your brain. In my school, it was Verna, when you were all done, you could bring your tray and show Verna that you had eaten all of your lunch, and then she would take out a piece of white bread, and she would dig into a giant tub of peanut butter and give you peanut butter bread.
Michelle Newman 16:12
What the most random thing I've ever heard in my life,
Unknown Speaker 16:16
and why is a really good question. But why didn't
Michelle Newman 16:18
she, like, reach into a bag and give you, like an ice cream sandwich or a whole peanut
Kristin Nilsen 16:23
butter bread. Yeah, I'm guessing because there was excess bread and excess peanut butter. It was like, it was like a Home Depot orange bucket full of peanut butter.
Speaker 3 16:32
Wait a minute, so you eat your lunch and then you got a peanut butter sandwich. Is like a bonus, yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 16:38
it's a treat. For some reason, it was
Michelle Newman 16:43
the overweight children,
Unknown Speaker 16:45
even fatter,
Kristin Nilsen 16:47
and you had to eat. I mean, it's so old school, you had to eat all of your food, and then you'd get more food,
Michelle Newman 16:54
a sticker, maybe a pencil eraser, like one of those little pint those little pencil erasers with the wobbly legs on the arms or something that's
Unknown Speaker 17:05
insane. I think we can let Joe on that.
Kristin Nilsen 17:07
There you go, Verna. Thank you, Verna. A Tribute to Verna. I'm going to describe Verna for you, and I'm sure this is what your lunch lady was, too. Of course, you have to have a uniform. How can you serve food not wearing a uniform? And so she looks like a waitress from Alice, right? And then, and she's like shaped like an apple, and she's got a hair net on a hair net, and she's probably 93 and a half years old. Now, if I asked, they probably say she was 43
Michelle Newman 17:35
Yeah, no,
Kristin Nilsen 17:38
but she was ancient.
Carolyn Cochrane 17:40
We had more than one lunch lady. We had, like an ensemble. And there was, like the head lunch lady, like, you remember, very important, she's the one you would bring the lunch count to in the, you know, in the morning, like when your teacher would say, how many lunch count people are buying this, and you'd raise your hand, and yes, someone, the teacher's pet, probably me, got to just march down and the head, Verna, of our cafeteria, you would hand her the lunch count for the day. So I
Kristin Nilsen 18:08
totally forgot that was a job. It was like the lights person, the person who ran the movie, Director, yeah, yeah. And did you say this is something I'm very interested in. Did you guys call it hot lunch and cold lunch? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you give the hot lunch count. But
Speaker 3 18:23
also, if you were the hot lunch count person in my school, your teacher gave you, like, their bag lunch to take to the teachers lounge to put in the fridge, you'd go in and you'd, like, open the door, and it would be like you were walking into, like, like a burning coal mine, like with the smoke, like all the
Michelle Newman 18:47
cigarette smoke, like, yes,
Speaker 3 18:51
yeah, in the teacher's lounge, and put them back in the fridge retreat.
Kristin Nilsen 18:56
That's very special. And then we
Speaker 3 18:58
had AIDS who were like, the lunch ladies in the cafeteria, but they were called AIDS. Oh yeah, the lunch aid, the aid, and we called them aid,
Kristin Nilsen 19:09
thank you. Called like, address them like that. Like, hey, aid, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:12
that's horrible, very impersonal.
Carolyn Cochrane 19:15
I remember having to keep our table clean. Like, that's the way you got dismissed to go from lunch like the lunch season would come by, yes, and somebody always had to get that nasty bleach rag like, from up where you dropped off your tray, ring it out, and then wipe your table down. And then you hopefully did it well enough that the aid would come and say, Okay, you're dismissed. Dismissed.
Unknown Speaker 19:36
You just that.
Kristin Nilsen 19:38
You just like, who's screwed, me a little bit, Carolyn, because I have, I have a thing where I can walk into a restaurant and we have to leave because it smells like a wet rag. Yeah, can't eat here. They have to leave. And now I'm realizing that's where it comes from.
Carolyn Cochrane 19:53
Then your hands smell like it for the rest of the day, and it's like mildew.
Kristin Nilsen 19:57
Do you guys remember how much your lunch. Cost, no,
Michelle Newman 20:01
seven by 60 cents,
Unknown Speaker 20:03
maybe
Kristin Nilsen 20:06
50 cents. Yeah, 50 and you got a lunch ticket. So your 50 cents would buy you a lunch ticket. And my I remember milk was four cents, four pennies, like
Michelle Newman 20:16
Laura Ingalls time
Unknown Speaker 20:19
for white and six for chocolate. Yeah, it
Unknown Speaker 20:22
was more for chocolate. Yeah,
Michelle Newman 20:23
it was more for chocolate. See, I'm thinking it was, but I can't be right, because I bought chocolate. No, I took my lunch all the time, but I always bought chocolate milk. And I can always remember having a coin, and I'm assuming this was quarter, but you're telling me it was probably a dime, right? It
Kristin Nilsen 20:36
was or a
Speaker 3 20:37
nickel. Maybe it depends on where in the country or and how. So true, I don't know, but I remember it being like a dime or a nickel, like someone
Michelle Newman 20:45
check that for us.
Kristin Nilsen 20:46
I remember when it went from four cents to a nickel, and then you had to, like, there was all of this adjustment you had to do from bringing four pennies, I had to scrounge up four pennies, but now I have to scrounge up a nickel. That's different. That's totally different.
Carolyn Cochrane 21:01
I just, I remember the lunch ticket thing being for, like, a whole month. I never got one, because I, you know, I only bought lunch occasionally, and then they, you know, Verna, our friend, she would be hole punching like the day, and so everybody would be digging out their ticket out of their pocket. We just,
Kristin Nilsen 21:20
we had, you bought, like, if you wanted to get 10 hot lunches, you bought 10 tickets. Like, like, at a carnival, we had carnival tickets for our school lunches.
Speaker 3 21:28
Wow, regional differences. It's so interesting. Yeah, okay,
Kristin Nilsen 21:33
once high school came, then everything changes, right? Because now we have a la carte
Speaker 3 21:38
and open we didn't have
Kristin Nilsen 21:41
that, but so you guys got to leave. Yeah, we would go the bagel store. And was that, could you walk to that? Or did somebody have to have a car? You'd have to walk
Speaker 3 21:49
through the woods. It would take a little while, but you could
Unknown Speaker 21:54
prairies
Michelle Newman 21:56
that sounds like uphill, but treacherous. No, it was like big
Speaker 3 22:00
suburban, Long Island, like there was like a was like a big, you know, playing field kind of lawn around the school. But then you could go out onto the road and walk to the bagel store, but it was a lot faster if you took the shortcut through the woods. You know, you'd go out in the woods, you'd, you know, smoke a little weed, you'd walk to the bagel store, naturally
Kristin Nilsen 22:16
get 18 bagels.
Speaker 3 22:22
Yeah, or that was, like, when the McNugget was first launched, like, oh, yeah, 384, and they were 99 cents. I remember first six McNuggets, and I had a lot of McNuggets. I'm really
Kristin Nilsen 22:33
chicken at McDonald's, yeah, but yeah, my high school was, like, a big, it was a big prison, no windows can't leave all the doors locked. If there was a fire, I don't know what we would do. So I was all about the A La Carte line. If I ate lunch, it was not uncommon for me not to eat breakfast and then not eat lunch, yeah, and then I'd have practice after school and go home at 530 for dinner. So if I ate lunch, I would always get a chocolate shake and french fries. Did
Michelle Newman 23:01
you dip the chocolate the fries in the shake? Right? Of course, yeah. Of course, yeah. I
Speaker 3 23:07
went through a one Snickers bar for breakfast and lunch phase that's now called eating, you know, disordered eating, disorder eating. And then I was like, No, it's okay. Yeah, no breakfast, one Snickers
Michelle Newman 23:19
in all the food groups I would go to the snack bar and buy an orange slushie and a Little Debbie nutty bar and go sit on the bleachers like the baseball bleachers by myself and write letters to my friends back in Washington. How sad I know it wasn't Carolyn in this part. Could you? Could you put a sad violin over that story as I tell it,
Speaker 3 23:41
wow, that was definitely pre Michelle Obama and the read,
Unknown Speaker 23:46
oh God, visiting. Do
Kristin Nilsen 23:47
we even have a la carte anymore? Yeah, it's too dangerous. Okay, one thing that Erica mentioned when she suggested this topic was junior high lunch table ostracism. And I swear, if you hadn't said that, I would never have come up with that as a topic of conversation, and yet that was very real, and so much so that I even wrote about it in my new book worldwide. Crush, just excuse me for a second while I promote my book, but it's so funny, because if you are going to write about middle schoolers, you have to have a lunchroom scene. A lot of your life takes place in the cafeteria. But I think it speaks to what you said, Erica, about lunchroom ostracism. Well,
Speaker 3 24:24
I think, like entire adult life actually is just the middle school lunchroom playing itself out over and over again. Oh, my God, you might change status and you change positions throughout different phases of your life. Yeah, like you never escape that.
Michelle Newman 24:40
Why do you think I went out to the baseball bleachers in high school? I mean, think about it, you guys. I was a new kid at this enormous High School. The last thing I was going to do as the new student was go into that cafeteria and have to find a place to sit. And thank goodness it was Scottsdale, Arizona where it was, you know, I could eat outside the entire
Kristin Nilsen 24:58
school year if I needed. It's like advertising that you have no friends, right? So like holding a sign saying I have no friends, but to
Michelle Newman 25:05
go sit on the bleachers, which were way behind the school, and have like a notebook out it might have looked like I was doing some extra homework out there,
Kristin Nilsen 25:12
and the act of carrying a tray feels very vulnerable to me when you don't have anyone to chit chat with and make you look nonchalant walking through the cafeteria holding a tray just looks like, I don't know, there's something very all that scene
Carolyn Cochrane 25:26
plays out in, you know, lots of movies that we watched and TV shows. And I gotta say, the next most dreaded experience in the school cafeteria has to do with carrying that tray. And right now my stomach hurts. God forbid you dropped it, or someone dropped the tray. I mean, I think this is when I experienced vicarious embarrassment for the first time. You know, everyone would applaud. I never applauded. I want to go on the record saying I never applauded. I even now I could just be sick to my stomach when I hear, when I think of that experience, you felt, I would assume, since I don't think I ever dropped a tray, because, man, I got to tell you, I held onto those trays so hard when I lost hands like granny steps, because I just I assumed, if that was me and everyone was clapping and staring at me, it would be The most humiliating thing that could possibly ever happen. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 26:23
I mean, you're like, you're walking, like, walking out of the little door where you pick up the food with that tray. And also, like, if you didn't have, like, a regular table with like, a crew of friends, you'd have to stand there and, like, scan the room. Oh, god,
Carolyn Cochrane 26:37
that was and what if they didn't let you sit there? Or, like you went to go sit in an open spot, and they said the dreaded, oh, saved, yeah, merrier.
Michelle Newman 26:49
And it's so universal with the humiliation. Because, if you guys think about it, every single movie to this day is if they need to kind of hammer, you know, hammer in that this is gonna, you know, this kid is being humiliated or being bullied or something. They do a lunchroom scene. They write a lunchroom scene for it. That's where it almost always is. If I need to do
Speaker 3 27:08
play out lunchroom trauma for the rest of your life, think about
Kristin Nilsen 27:13
that, that we've we're carrying that with this. Carolyn is carrying with her the fear of dropping her lunch tray.
Carolyn Cochrane 27:19
I am
Speaker 3 27:20
but what's now though, like, you can sort of deal with, like, social isolation because you have your phone, right? So, like, if you're sitting by yourself somewhere, you're just looking at your phone, you're engaged. But back then, it was like, you know, maybe you had a book with you, but then people would be like, teasing you for nerd. And I
Kristin Nilsen 27:38
think that's why I became a book nerd, because I had to hide in something, and that's all I had, yeah, always I didn't have anything else to hide behind, unless you were going to skip lunch. What they
Unknown Speaker 27:47
should do is serve alcohol in middle school.
Carolyn Cochrane 27:51
There you go, middle school teacher, I really would appreciate that having drunk kids come back,
Kristin Nilsen 27:59
they should have COVID. I think we've sort of hit on why this exploded on Instagram the other day, why we got so many comments from people. Because people have feelings about the cafeteria, whether it's the food or whether it's something
Speaker 3 28:13
social. And it was like, only, what 30 minutes of your day? But it was like, Oh, if or 17 high school, we had like, 17 minutes. And I remember one year in high school, in high school, my lunch period was 1045 in the morning. Yes, yes, 1032 Yeah.
Michelle Newman 28:31
So dumb. So school lunches for us, Gen Xers meant one of two things, either hot lunch and work. We'll get to the items that you all listeners remember the most in just a bit, or for those of us who were picky eaters and who would have basically starved if forced to eat hot lunch every day, it meant lunch from home in a lunch box. But school lunches weren't always like that. And Erica, you're more than a chef, you're also sort of a food historian. When did the school lunch as we know it come to be okay.
Speaker 3 29:03
So I did a little research on this, of course, because, you know, I'm like, You guys love the research. You know, though, in the Depression hit, kids were coming to school really, really hungry, but also farmers were really suffering, and so state governments started implementing a school lunch program as a way to a get the kids fed, but also to support the farmers to, like, buy up. Oh, that's interesting, food from local farmers, and also to just keep local people employed. And so there was serious problems with malnutrition. And so as a way to address that, more and more states implemented a, you know, universal school lunch. And then in 1946 Harry Truman signed it into law, a nationwide law that schools had to provide food in public schools. Also, interestingly, the school lunch standards, the nutritional standards were created based on malnutrition and kids coming off the depression and so they were very caloric. Back then, because often that was the only meal that kids were getting, you know, solid meal. And then leading up to World War Two, they were trying to fatten up the boys for the draft, because a lot of boys back then wouldn't pass the army physical because they were too thin. Wow, yeah. Now it's the opposite. The army can't get anybody. You can do the, you know, 20 push ups and isn't fat. But back then, people were so skinny that the army said, you know, let's get these kids fattened up so we can get them in the draft and get them into the war. So, yeah, and
Kristin Nilsen 30:32
just to clarify, like the the kids who are who are fat and can't do any push ups, that's a function of poverty to that is absolutely
Speaker 3 30:38
a function of poverty and of terrible food policy over the last and that's a whole other show and story. Isn't that funny,
Kristin Nilsen 30:46
though. Like, would you have looking back, would you have classified your school lunches as caloric? I mean, now I look at it and it's obvious, but at the time, I had no idea
Speaker 3 30:54
the amount of butter they used to slather on stuff, and it was super caloric. Yeah. And my mom always like, because I was this fat, you know, little kid, she always blamed it on school lunches. She was like, Well, that's because you always wanted to buy lunch, and I let you eat those lunches. And so you're fat and like a way to not take responsibility for anything, mom. But you know, when Michelle Obama, that was one of her big platforms was to change standards, and I think in a lot of places that work, but they got a lot. There was a lot of blow back in more conservative areas. And they were also finding that a lot of the kids were just throwing away the healthier food. They just didn't want it. I know ways gotta
Michelle Newman 31:35
be tremendous. My
Carolyn Cochrane 31:36
kids would call it, and we like Michelle Obama, but they would call it Michelle's lunch, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 31:42
oh, really.
Carolyn Cochrane 31:44
I mean, that's because, yeah, I guess that is frustrating, isn't it, though. So among
Kristin Nilsen 31:49
this highly caloric and highly processed food, everyone had their favorites and their least favorites, their favorite hot lunch. Some people took their cold lunch every day, but then got money for hot lunch. When they saw you'd get your lunch calendar right, and you'd see what was going to be on the calendar, and then you'd take your money to buy a ticket for hot lunch. So do you guys remember what your favorites were
Unknown Speaker 32:10
thinking about ravioli?
Carolyn Cochrane 32:15
Smell of that,
Unknown Speaker 32:16
I know the smell, it's like, Puke
Kristin Nilsen 32:18
smelling. Smell is like, it's like, is it ravioli, or is it vomit that? Like,
Speaker 3 32:22
you know how, like, parmesan cheese can sometimes smell great, but it can also sometimes smell pukey. It was like, that, yeah, totally, yeah. It
Michelle Newman 32:29
was so bad. It's
Speaker 3 32:31
good, oh, man, I love that. Canned ravioli. It was like, crack. It was meat. Ravi, I would like a piece of bread, like a baguette. It wasn't a baguette, like Italian bread with like a half an inch of butter on it. And I that's the best part. Remember, that's the best part in that buttery baguette and mopping up that ravioli sauce, oh my God, and
Kristin Nilsen 32:53
the spaghetti. In the same category, the spaghetti was very hamburger centric. It was really more like sloppy joe on top of the bottles. But I'm still, to this day, I'm chasing that school spaghetti taste. I could go to the best Italian restaurant in the world and I'm and I'd be like, it was okay, right? Or just not sloppy joe. I need hamburger spaghetti. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, it was always
Unknown Speaker 33:20
very watery, yeah?
Carolyn Cochrane 33:22
Like, when you're done with the noodles, there'd be, yeah, water, yeah. Like, they
Speaker 3 33:28
just dream it was not possibly pasta. No,
Kristin Nilsen 33:31
it was not. It was else.
Michelle Newman 33:36
For me, the things I would definitely circle on my school lunch calendar, which was kind of a joke to get because, you know, only, like, twice a month I would buy a hot lunch. But it was definitely the soft, warm hamburgers. And they were like, wrapped in, like a foil thing, but I can still smell them. The patty is, I don't even know if it's a meat patty, right, but it was just it would they were, because they were all pre wrapped. They were so, yeah, they were so soft. And then you guys tater tots. Anytime tater tots was a side dish. I don't care what the main dish was. I would buy whatever they served with them. And I would probably tell my mom, no, no, I love the creamed Turkey on whatever. And I would just eat the tater tots.
Unknown Speaker 34:12
Pauline, give me some your tots. No, go, find your own. Come on. Give me some your tots. No,
Carolyn Cochrane 34:18
I still love tater tots. I mean, I think Michelle knows she's told me great places to get tater tots. And I almost have the exact wording that you just said about you would buy anything when tater tots were the side. I would do the same, except when it was the potato wedge. Do you remember it was like a triangle potato that was like a hash brown, kind of it was almost like the McDonald's hash brown, but they were triangles, and we called them potato wedges, and oh my gosh, that was what I would not skip. I bought lunch every time that was one of the sides was the potato. I care what else was being served on there, potato wedges and tater tots. So. Fried potatoes, but not French fries, because those were smushy and wet, crunchy french fries. They were just like, limp.
Michelle Newman 35:08
Always they were undercooked. Yeah, they were undercooked. They weren't under cooked steam
Speaker 3 35:12
table. That's why they keep them hot on the steam table, not under, like steamed fries. They were got steamy. That's why everything was like, that's why the burger French steam gray. But I that just reminded me that in my high school you could buy things off the hot lunch line, sort of a la carte, like on the down low, like you weren't supposed to, but the lunch ladies would do it. And I remember buying, like a Styrofoam cup of tater tots, like I'd forgotten all about that just the top. I do
Carolyn Cochrane 35:38
that. Just open a restaurant called just the tots, and I
Speaker 3 35:43
sat, did you know my purple Mohawk eating my tots feeling like the coolest bad? Yep.
Kristin Nilsen 35:50
Okay, my least favorite was definitely Turkey, Allah King. I think a lot of the hot lunch was just like if you had mashed potatoes and you had some stringy meat and you had some gravy, you have a hot lunch. And so Turkey ala King, I think, also included, like, some peas and carrots, maybe. And I didn't get it. And I when I was reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch is offering the kids Turkish Delight. And I didn't know, I thought Turkish Delight was Turkey ala King. I thought it was the same thing. And she's using the Turkish delight to lure the children into Narnia. And I'm like, I don't understand why this is a draw. I'm like, Why do they want to go to Narnia for the turkey ala King?
Michelle Newman 36:34
I don't understand also, you guys things like turkey ala King for school lunch. Those aren't lunch to me. That's like dinner. Some of the lunches were, like, full on, like, old people dinner, like the dinners they would serve at, like the nursing home,
Speaker 3 36:46
and then the kids would be, like, nodding out, like methadone.
Kristin Nilsen 36:53
I hope there are lots of Narnia readers out there. They're like, they're lost right now, when
Speaker 3 36:56
I was a kid, I couldn't, I didn't know the difference between the word Gentile and genital, like I thought, and my grandfather used to refer to it because we were Jewish, like non Jews as the Gentile genital. I was like, Grandpa, what do you
Michelle Newman 37:23
do? Don't call people genitals. Well, of course, we had to ask our society members on social media about their favorite hot lunch. And I want to ask you three, what do you think came in first place? I
Kristin Nilsen 37:36
just think pizza. It's got to be the rectangle. Pizza.
Michelle Newman 37:40
You got to be right, wrong. It's not. It was high. It was very close. But you guys, okay, you know what got the most love? And I think we will all agree that this is well deserved, the school lunch hot rolls. What, I don't know what that is, the hot rolls that would come like on the side, like, say, you it was like chicken, something like a dinner roll, like the hot roll, yeah, we
Carolyn Cochrane 38:03
could have included sides. Oh, people had feelings about the feelings.
Michelle Newman 38:07
Everybody it was the most mentioned Second Coming up a close second was the little carton of chocolate milk. Yeah, right. But the school lunch hot rolls, people have memories and feelings, and then, yes, pizza, Fridays, pizza, whatever, square pizza. And I love so many people mentioned always with corn. Why corn? Pizza and corn? It
Carolyn Cochrane 38:30
was cheap. What makes sense? Yeah, we just heard what Erica shared, and everything
Speaker 3 38:36
you know, why it was pizza on Friday? No, because of Catholics. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 38:42
I tell you about my cold lunch,
Speaker 3 38:43
not even lent. Like, if you were a Catholic, you didn't eat meat on Well, that's true, yeah, yeah. So pizza, but yeah right.
Kristin Nilsen 38:53
I remember getting fish sticks a lot in March. Oh, and that must be a Catholic because
Michelle Newman 38:57
of Lent. Yeah, you guys, thank you so much for your just your very enthusiastic response to our school lunch crowdsourcing. I just couldn't possibly get everything down. But things that were mentioned more than a big handful of times were burritos, English muffin pizzas. Now that was something we made at home. A lot we made that home, but a lot of apparently, a lot of people got them in school lunch, which is lovely, B for Roni. But who? The person who said that called it bar for Roni, but however, said she actually loved the bar for Roni. I liked barf Ferroni.
Kristin Nilsen 39:31
I liked it
Michelle Newman 39:32
tacos. That was another one. I did like I did like taco day. I did like taco day.
Kristin Nilsen 39:37
And the little, the little squeeze tube of sour cream. We never had tacos. I
Michelle Newman 39:41
don't have sour cream. You know what? I wouldn't have eaten sour cream as a kid. Though,
Speaker 3 39:45
I never even heard of a burrito until probably I was, like, well, into high school, like, I
Kristin Nilsen 39:50
feel like there were only tacos. Yeah, we didn't have burritos. We
Unknown Speaker 39:52
only had heart, yeah,
Michelle Newman 39:55
that's all. That's what we had in school. Okay? Mac and cheese. Tater tots, Carolyn, sloppy joes, mashed potatoes, gravy and a roll. The roll came up a lot. Kate reminded us of the hot lunch cinnamon rolls that serve for dessert. Do you guys remember those? No, the cinnamon rolls. And several people mentioned this too, that they always seem to be served with chili or spaghetti, always. And it's true, it was like, if it was like, chilly day we were going to have. And I just that, I that who screwed me a lot. I was like, what? I totally remember that now, Chris says their Monday hot lunch was always the Fonz. It was sloppy joe on half a bun with shredded lettuce and cheese, probably left over from sloppy joe Thursdays. How Gen X can you get? She said, I love that. They
Kristin Nilsen 40:45
think it's not a sloppy joe like that's just a sloppy joe without a top. But
Michelle Newman 40:51
Chris, one, why did they call that the funds? And two, if you're going to call a school lunch, the Fonz should not have been served on Tuesdays instead of Mondays,
Unknown Speaker 41:00
right at eight o'clock.
Unknown Speaker 41:03
Sorry, you
Kristin Nilsen 41:04
guys too Central Time.
Michelle Newman 41:07
Too many of you out there, too many of you liked the runny beef over mashed potatoes, and it was really only, and it was really only like three of you, and that's too many.
Speaker 3 41:19
Did you ask people what their most despised thing was. No,
Michelle Newman 41:23
we just said, You're we just said your most memorable
Kristin Nilsen 41:28
chow mein. Oh, I
Speaker 3 41:29
like the chow mein. Oh, did you? I didn't like stringy meat. It had a lot of spellers though.
Kristin Nilsen 41:36
Yeah, you gotta pick that out and shove it to the side of your dinner. Yeah, our
Michelle Newman 41:41
Instagram follower Carolyn remembers something called a flying saucer. It was fried bologna topped with a dollop of mashed potatoes and covered with melted American cheese. And then, and then Instagram follower Melissa chimed in to Carolyn, yes. Yes, that in her school, they had them too, and they were called potato boats. So I think we're going back to regional,
Speaker 3 42:03
very regional. Where is that, like St Louis, that whole like fried bologna thing, that's like a St Louis thing. It's a like, lower Midwest,
Michelle Newman 42:14
okay? And then many people mentioned now, and those of you who have been longtime listeners, or have at least listened to the four episodes that I've probably mentioned this on. You're gonna know I even have a hard time mentioning it. Many of you like the school's Thanksgiving lunch, which is turkey gravy and pie. And if you know anything about me, you know I have I'm having terrible flashbacks just reading that because I I barfed that exact lunch in the school library in fourth grade while I was my first week as a new student
Kristin Nilsen 42:45
on carpet, which I'm sorry I just can't get over. Burping on the carpet was the worst.
Speaker 3 42:51
And then they would bring out, like, that barrel of that stuff that, like
Carolyn Cochrane 42:55
we talked about it, like those smelled that, and where the school like, Oh, watch
Speaker 1 43:03
where you're stepping, and it was just sitting on the ground, barrel, come and
Carolyn Cochrane 43:11
sprinkle it. Yeah.
Kristin Nilsen 43:13
So gross, awful. Well, not everyone got hot lunch. Of course, some people took their lunch from home. Do you guys remember? Were you guys hot lunch people or cold lunch people? Both cold. I was both too. I did special days. I was mostly cold, and I would circle the special days on the calendar. What was in your cold lunch? What did you bring from home?
Michelle Newman 43:35
For me, it was always a sandwich. It was like, always peanut butter and jelly. But you guys, weirdly, as a picky eater. I went through a big thuringer face, like, fifth and sixth light, big, what's like a salami thuringer. It's like, almost
Kristin Nilsen 43:48
like a, yeah, a brand or a, kind of me, no,
Michelle Newman 43:51
is Erica, isn't it a kind of mean thuringer
Unknown Speaker 43:54
Sounds like a brand name. Look
Michelle Newman 43:56
it up. It's a I've heard of. No, it's not, it's a, it's a type of. It's a type of salami, like heart salami, you could get thuringer instead. Almost no, it's not
Kristin Nilsen 44:10
Google about that I
Michelle Newman 44:11
can't stand. Yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 44:14
when I was pregnant, I was craving a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayo. And I think that is a flashback to cold lunch. Yeah,
Speaker 3 44:24
that's the classic Gen X lunch. It is. That's the classic baloney. I'm like, if my mom gave me, like, something hot in a thermos that was, like, super or soup that was, but only when I was, like, little as I got older, she gave up on that. That didn't happen. But, like, yeah, like a sandwich or Yeah, I don't even know. But then there was, like, this point where, like, I went on Weight Watchers in like, seventh grade, oh yeah. And I remember bringing cottage cheese for lunch, because that's diet for. Right, right, radish cheese. But, like, for some reason, like, we didn't have like containers, like, she didn't want me bringing like Tupperware to school in case I threw it away. So I took, like, a styrofoam coffee cup, filled it with Codd cookies, and then like, put foil over it. And I remember sitting at water table eating that. And my friends are like, What the fuck? And I'm like, Oh, I'm on Weight Watchers.
Kristin Nilsen 45:21
Was there a canned pear in there too? Yeah, that's your fruit. Probably,
Speaker 3 45:25
like, second sprinkled on it. Yeah, Sweet and Low.
Kristin Nilsen 45:30
I had an apple also in my lunch every day, and it went directly in the garden because
Speaker 3 45:33
it was always mushy, because they were terrible Macintosh apples in the 70s, they snuck or,
Kristin Nilsen 45:37
like, a Red Delicious, yeah, a red delicious. And my mom would also always put a napkin in the lunch. And that pissed me off. It was like, I don't need a napkin. No one uses a napkin. Yeah, garbage.
Carolyn Cochrane 45:51
I had Cheetos every single cold lunch I had, from like, wow, from first grade to when I took out to college, it was the same lunch. It was a ham and cheese sandwich, Cheetos and a Little Debbie star crunch, wow.
Kristin Nilsen 46:08
Carolyn, except Fridays, no kidding, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 46:12
except it was, I mean, the same thing every time, except again on Fridays, because I was Catholic, we so during Lent, we actually meet the rest of the time on Fridays, but it was just a cheese sandwich, exact same one, just minus the ham, just cheese
Kristin Nilsen 46:26
on white bread. I
Michelle Newman 46:27
need to share one of our Instagram followers. Christy commented, and she said, hoping someone else also carried in their lunches these little individually wrapped Apple Cinnamon, soft cookie cake things. The wrappers were green. They were so delicious, and my mom packed one every day. But we cannot, for the life of us, remember or find the brand or name of them. We know they were not grandma's peach or almost home anyone. It's been haunting me for years, so if you know what, what Christie is talking about, the little apple cinnamon soft cookie cake thing in a green wrapper. Send us a DM on Instagram or an email or something, because this has been, you know, you could solve Christy's lifelong question,
Kristin Nilsen 47:12
okay, listeners, it's on you. We're waiting. We're waiting. Okay? So I would say far more important than what was in your cold lunch was, what was your cold lunch in? Okay,
Carolyn Cochrane 47:26
so when we asked our followers on social media about their lunch boxes growing up, as you can imagine, the response was huge. And when we started researching, it turns out there is a lot of history surrounding that little tin lunch box. We found so much good stuff, you know, as we do so, the truth is, there's way too much lunch box talk to fit into this episode. We seriously got enough good lunch box scoop that we are going to devote an entire episode just to lunch boxes, and we're saving that episode to bring to you this fall at back to school time. So stay tuned for Charlie's Angels, Holly hobby Happy Days and all the different ways we got our lunches to school coming to you in the fall of 2023
Kristin Nilsen 48:22
you Oh, so tonight, I invite all of you listeners to make yourself a bologna sandwich on white bread with Miracle Whip, or maybe some pizza on A rectangular baking sheet. And then you cut that pizza in a big rectangle. And when your kids are like, what's with this giant rectangle pizza, you just start singing memories.
Unknown Speaker 48:51
And then you give them some corn.
Michelle Newman 48:57
Serve it with corn, a
Kristin Nilsen 49:00
bite of corn for your pizza. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for listening, and thank you Erica for joining us today. Can you tell us where people can find
Speaker 3 49:07
Oh, of course. Okay. So you can find me on Instagram, at funny people making food, also on YouTube. You can find the full length episodes of the show, plus YouTube shorts. I'm also on Tiktok, same thing, funny people making food. And now I also have a sub stack newsletter that you can subscribe for free, or you can pay. You can cough up a few bucks a month, because you get extra bonus video content if you pay on sub stack. And you can find me on sub stack at funny people making food. But this sub stack newsletter is actually called the chef smarty pants Academy, because I am Chef smarty pants and it's like a teaching newsletter and video. So yeah, all of those places, or right here in downtown Brooklyn, if you happen to be in New York, you know, give me a call. We'll hang out. Also, you might occasionally see me in commercials for things like menopause. Drugs or retirement planning for Gen X,
Michelle Newman 50:04
yeah, that's so much. And actually, if
Speaker 3 50:06
you follow me my personal Instagram, which is Erica, s wise, E, R, I C, A, S, W, I, D, E, S, my commercial real is pinned on that so you can see all of those just
Michelle Newman 50:18
watched it. That's awesome. So I'm going to look for that right after this. Erica, great. Oh, thanks.
Carolyn Cochrane 50:24
And I want all of our listeners to know Don't worry about having to write all that down and remember it that Erica just told you. It'll all be in our show notes, and so we'll have links to all of your social accounts, and we'll put that in our Weekly Reader as well.
Speaker 3 50:39
And I just have to say, like, I love you guys, and I love the podcast so much, and You crack me up, and you make me cry, and I wish I lived in Minneapolis so we could hang out, because, like, You are my people, and Erica that back at you. So I'm gonna find a reason to come to Minneapolis and we're gonna hang out. Yes, please do that better.
Michelle Newman 51:01
I think I was just about I think the better idea is that we should find a reason to go to New York City. Ladies, sure,
Speaker 3 51:08
and we will shoot a video in my beautiful kitchen of like, like school lunch classics, or something
Michelle Newman 51:18
like hostess cupcakes and stuff, whatever
Unknown Speaker 51:21
you want. We'll do it Okay.
Kristin Nilsen 51:23
Would be so that would be so fun. It would be great. That would be a blast.
Carolyn Cochrane 51:28
So like I told you, guys, are all those links to Erica's fun social media and our sub stack newsletter will be in our newsletter, so in this week's Weekly Reader, we'll send you all of that, plus some links to some of the things we talked about in today's episode. And you can subscribe to our newsletter by visiting our website, pop preservationist.com or you can, what can you do? Or
Michelle Newman 51:55
you can find it in our Instagram our link tree, link in our Instagram bio. We might
Carolyn Cochrane 51:59
even send you a little Chris Farley and Adam Sandler and lunch lady land too, sloppy
Kristin Nilsen 52:04
joe. Sloppy sloppy joe. Sloppy Joe.
Michelle Newman 52:08
And if you like what you hear, and we always hope you do, please subscribe to the podcast where you listen and click the stars leave a review. It only takes a minute, and you guys, it is tremendously helpful to us. We would also, as always, like to give a super sized thank you to our supporters on Patreon who honestly keep this whole thing trucking. And today, we are giving a high five to Diane Jill, Sean, Kathleen, Mark, Angie, Joanne, MP and Erica this Erica is you, because you are such a wonderful supporter on Patreon. So thank you so so much. I'm
Speaker 3 52:48
happy to do it. You know, I give to NPR and I give to you guys, you know,
Kristin Nilsen 52:52
oh my god,
Carolyn Cochrane 52:55
oh my gosh. Our work here is done. I
Unknown Speaker 52:56
know, banging
Michelle Newman 52:57
it up right? Our work here is never done. In
Kristin Nilsen 53:00
the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast first to Erica.
Unknown Speaker 53:06
So much, so much fun.
Kristin Nilsen 53:07
And from the cast of wait and courtesy, shit, man,
Michelle Newman 53:15
it's been a long one, Erica, why
Unknown Speaker 53:17
don't you do it? Let's raise a class.
Unknown Speaker 53:20
Let's raise a glass to the Oh,
Unknown Speaker 53:25
Regal Beagle
Unknown Speaker 53:31
and little house.
Michelle Newman 53:35
So not it we've
Speaker 1 53:38
been drinking love boats.
Speaker 3 53:48
Right, Little House on the prayer like
Unknown Speaker 53:55
she's gonna cry. Okay,
Kristin Nilsen 53:58
all right, in the meantime, let's raise a glass. God damn it. Last time, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the cast of Threes Company, first to our friend Erica wides, two good times,
Michelle Newman 54:12
two Happy Days,
Carolyn Cochrane 54:13
Two Little House on the Prairie. We did
Michelle Newman 54:18
it. Wrap this little sucker up the
Kristin Nilsen 54:20
information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belong solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we're always right, there's always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanny. Nanny, keep on trucking and may the Force be with you.