A Tokyo school lunch made in two kitchens

On curry day, one family at a Tokyo elementary school cooked their own version with halal meat. On the days they made nikujaga, they left out the pork and mirin. The school marked the dishes that needed replacing in red, and the children ate the rest of the school lunch. A few days each month there was nothing to pack. Fruit yogurt went the other way. It was marked because it contained gelatin, so their mother pointed out that there was a version without it. The school started serving that version. She still spent about an hour making lunch when she had dishes to prepare. The part she valued was what happened at the table. One of her kids usually disliked vegetables, but ate the ones in the school lunch alongside classmates.