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Sparkle (6)
Mrs. Q, the teacher and blogger behind Fed Up With Lunch who kept her identity hidden while she spent a year documenting her experiences eating the cafeteria lunches being served at the school where she worked, has finally let the cat out of the bag.
She’s just released a new book, also called Fed Up With Lunch that goes into further detail about her year-long experiment where she ate what the kids ate, every single day. On her blog, she detailed the food’s flavor, taste, texture, appearance, and how it made her feel. Needless to say, she was pretty appalled by what was being served. She gained weight, her energy waned, and some of the food literally made her sick. But she was determined to continue with the experiment for the entire year to get the word out about how the children were really being fed.
She did the project on a whim and knew that if she were documenting it all on a blog, her job would be in jeopardy, so she kept her identity anonymous ... until now.
Sarah Burns-Wu and I met at the BlogHer Food Conference back in 2010 when I moderated the panel she was on entitled “Our Food Future: Kids, Cooking and Health.” She was always a crowd favorite, and we went on to be a part of another panel at BlogHer Food 2011 and the BlogHer Annual Conference in San Diego this past August.
We had always taken great steps to keep her identity a secret. There’s never been any photography or video allowed during our panel sessions, and every photo she’s ever been in since she started the blog has her either blurred out, blacked out, or with a piece of paper over her face. I could never call her by her real first name publically, so my biggest concern on every panel we’ve been on is that I would forget to call her “Mrs. Q” instead. At the Annual Conference back in August, at the urging of her book publishers, she had to go out and get a dark black wig to wear during our panel to cover her dirty blond hair. Extreme measures, indeed.
But the book is out, and so is her identity. No more hiding. This morning, she’s already popped up on Good Morning America, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune to reveal her true self.
Mrs. Q has gained a legion of fans through her lunch documenting crusades. But to me, she’s always been Sarah: a devoted mom, wife, educator and good friend. I’m delighted that now, the rest of the world can call her Sarah, too.
