"Food" for thought

I'm sure everyone at some point has experienced those moments where you call or text practically everyone in your phone contacts list for lunch but everyone seems to already have eaten. Okay, well maybe it's just me, but today was one of those days. It was kind of nice though to have lunch by myself. As I indulged in my last veggie chicken wrap of my freshman year, I couldn't help being overwhelmed with nostalgia. The past year has gone by so fast, and I can't believe my freshman year is over! So much food was eaten, argued over, and fantasized about. From making massive sundaes with friends on Sundae Sunday, to having my traditional veggie chicken wraps with my best friend, food seems to always be a part of the memories I share with people.

As I reflected on the past year by myself at lunch, I realized how critical it is to have alone time in your daily routine. Sherry Turkle, another theorist I learned about in English class, discusses in her book Alone Together, the importance of having "quiet time" by removing oneself from the presence of others. I got a firsthand experience of this theory Turkle talks about with great importance. How can one find out what truly makes one happy, or what one wants to do or improve on in the future? How can one truly discover who he or she is whe they are busy focusing on other things or people all the time? This and much more is accomplished by removing yourself from society and giving yourself the necessary alone time for reflection.

So as I ate my delicious lunch, I thought of all of the people I met this year,for better or for worse, all of the things I've done, or haven't done, and what I want to do new or continue with in the future, and most importantly, reflected on the person I am becoming, and if I should change anything to become a better individual. Take the time out of your busy schedule to sit down and reflect on life!

Friends and Food

So the other day I decided to go to D-hall with my roommate who I don't normally eat with. I had no one else to eat with though, and she had just arrived at D-hall from her dance class. I had a lot of work and was considering just skipping dinner, but I'm glad I didn't since my favorite veggies were being served; the grilled, seasoned asparagus that is served at the Diner, OMG it's DELICIOUS.

Aside from the good meal I had for dinner, I also got to meet someone new. My roommate had brought along a dance friend of her's who is a sophomore. While talking to her I found out that we are similar personality wise and that we have similar interests. For example, we both love ducks and they are our favorite animal. Okay, maybe we're more like obsessed with ducks, and it was so neat to meet someone else who loves ducks just as much as I do. Usually when I tell people about how much I love ducks they think I'm a loon (intended duck pun) but now I have someone who understands my love! Also, I discovered that she is a newly declared Geosciences major; the same major as me! The department is pretty small, so I'm surprised I had never seen her before.

This experience at D-hall brings me to one of the topics I learned about in my english class: Social capital. Social capital is basically defined as how many connections you have, that you can benefit from. The more people you know, the more likely you will have a connection to something that you might benefit from in the future. D-hall is an amazing place that fosters social capital. You could go into D-hall, run into a friend who invites you to sit with his or her friends at a table, and walk away having a bunch of new friends. Whether these friends may or may not help you in the end is unknown, but you have just increased your social capital by finding a friend at D-hall. In my case, I really lucked out and my social capital increased a lot, since I now know a sophomore in the Geosciences track. I can look to her to help me with future classes I will take that she has taken, and maybe even take classes or do research with her!

In the end, I walked out of D-hall with a delicious meal in my belly and a new friend here at Skidmore :3

The importance of D-Hall

So, I haven't posted in like ages. I have no internet whatsoever in my dorm room, plus my ethernet box is broken, so basically I haven't been online in what seems like forever. Now that I am camped out in the library sufficiently stuffed with delicious cheddar and broccoli soup and bruschetta pasta, I thought I should talk about why the dining hall is so important to the social life of a college student.

Aside from providing scrumptious meals to dine on, D-Hall allows a student to feast on the freedom of expression and speech. I know you're all thinking, "well, isn't that really anywhere in Skidmore? It's a liberal arts college filled with hippies, of course there's going to be freedom of expression everywhere." Now this is true, but if you think about it, there are limitations as to how free you really are in a classroom, with your friends, or running around Case Green on a beautiful spring day. But in the D-hall, the freedom menu is unlimited! This is all made possible by the almighty Napkin Board. For those of you who may walk around with blinders on your eyes, the napkin board is the board strategically placed right in front of the dinig hall entrance. If you walk in and turn left, there's really no way you can miss it.

But the Napkin Board serves a special purpose. It's where student can suggest, praise, or go on napkin-long rants about the food. There are no ramifications for anything posted on the board. If you wanted to go and say "Veggie burgers fucking suck," well, you could! No one could do anything to you for your use of foul language, or crude drawings you may include on your note. The Napkin Board is the epitome of the public sphere; a place where both the private (students/professors) and the State (Campus Safety/the Administration) can interact with one another without being able to enflict their power or influences onto the other. D-hall, and more importantly, the Napkin Board, allows the truest form of freedom of speech and expression to foster in the day to day lives of everyone on campus.

Without food, there would be no D-Hall, therefore no Napkin Board, and even more so no public sphere! There are enough rules and regulations to follow daily on campus, so imagine absolutely NO PLACE where you can express yourself freely in the truest form. We can say a big thank you to D-Hall for giving what every hippie wants most: true FREEDOM!

Week 5: ....I Caved.....

SO, last week was okay. Last Monday Emily's Garden served the most horrible orange tofu I will probably ever eat. It was so bad I spit it out. and I NEVER spit out food, even if it's horrible. I just plug my nose and and swallow it if I've taken a bite of something bad. But the tofu, well this was just ATROCIOUS. It makes me wonder if the cooks ever taste test the food their making. I'm sure as hell if they did the food would be a whole lot better than half the stuff they serve. If they had, then they would have realized that the seasoning on the tofu was so damn strong it was hard to eat. Kind of like the cinnamon challenge. It's so overpowering you just have to spit it out! (For those of you who don't know what the cinnamon challenge is, it's when you try to eat a whole teaspoon of cinnamon without water, while trying not to inhale it or vomit). So continuing, the seasoning on the tofu was terrible, and I don't think it could have tasted good on anything.

The rest of last week made up for the awfulness of the Orange Tofu. I had the most delicious eggplant parmesan, as well as this cool mushroom puff pastry dish, Amy's spinach and feta pocket, self made salads, grilled cheeses, and mozzarella sticks. Any cheese and bread concoction is automatically delish, so I'm always happy when D-Hall serves grilled cheeses and mozz sticks.

I've noticed that the vegetarian food on the weekends is usually really good. Saturday I had amazing pasta primavera at the pasta station, and then Sunday the food at Global Cafe was Asian Heaven! I had veggie sushi, edamame, and seaweed salad. I'm such a Japanese food junkie. It's all I ever eat at home, so it's nice when Global serves yummy Japanese food.

Today though, the food SUCKED for lunch. It was the worst Monday in D-Hall EVER. Do you know why? Well it's because..... I HAD A VEGGIE BURGER, and they weren't even SERVING IT!!!!!!! That's how desperate I was today at lunch. There was honestly NOTHING to eat. Emily's was serving this gross veggie sandwich, which tastes of onions and...well, onions. There was nothing at the other stations, and since I'm trying to eat healthier, I didn't want to get pizza or a bagel. I had some of the green beans at Diner and even those were disgusting!! They were flavorless, and super overcooked. They turned to mush in my mouth even before chewing them. Who wants to eat that!? SO, I went to Emily's and asked them to cook me a veggie burger. As I took my first bite, I instantly regretted it. To those carnivores or omnivores who don't ever eat veggie burgers, let me tell you, that even as a vegetarian I find them gross. It's so hard to find a good veggie burger, and they especially suck more at school. I had this black bean veggie burger, and it was spicy. What kind of burger is supposed to be spicy!? maybe if you put hot sauce on it, but most burgers aren't spicy. Plus I hate beans, and having them in my burger just totally ruined my lunch. I ended up eating two cookies and snacking on my friend's potato chips from Deli.

I can't believe I had a veggie burger, even still. I wonder what the other vegetarians did today for lunch....Well, hopefully there will be something good at dinner, which I'm about to go to!! All I can say it that I'm SO EXCITED FOR BREAK CAUSE I'LL GET TO HAVE DELICIOUS VEGETARIAN FOOD!!

:D

Week 4- Boooringgg

The past few weeks have been so boring food wise. Granted, the vegetarian soup selection was really good last week and the veggie low mein on 2/16 was superb, but other than that there was no really good meal. It's a let down that it hasn't even been a full school year yet and I'm so played out on the food. Pasta and salad are always a classic, but I'm getting tired of those too! It's quite a problem. I could never get sick of the grilled cheese though. But that's not a healthy choice, and as a vegetarian I have to make sure I get enough of the vitamins and minerals I'm missing that I would get in meat, and a grilled cheese really isn't helpful aside from the fact that there's calcium in it. The only problem is that there are never any really eye catching meals or a variety of choices to choose from for a vegetarian.

Today though for lunch they had Amy's vegetarian pot pie, which was supper delicious, but this was the fist time in what, three weeks? D-Hall needs to serve the good stuff more often! What I'm thinking of doing tonight is suggesting on the napkin board that they have veggie "chicken" patties, parmesan style. They've had them before and people eat them like it's the end of the world. They're SO GOOD. So hopefully if I suggest it they'll have them later this week. 

Also, I think the vegetarian station has served veggie burgers at LEAST ten times this semester.  that's one too many for me. Veggie burgers are good every once and a while, but when I first went veg I ate them like there was no tomorrow. No I'm so played out on them even just looking at them makes me sick. Plus, D-hal tries to mix it up with the veggie burgers, sometimes serving them 'especial'. We're not stupid, we know there's nothing different between the special veggie burgers and the regular burgers. They both have vegetables in them and they're both served too much. Yeah they're probably cheap and more affordable than some other things, but come on, if we're paying 56 grand a year, I think you can afford to change up the vegetarian food. I have yet to see them serve veggie dogs, and in my opinion they're way more delicious than veggie burgers, and less expensive. 

The lack of choices and selectiveness of D-hall food reminds me of the concepts of "bridging and bonding" groups I learned of in class. Bonding experiences are selective and exclusive, such as a person who only hangs out with two or three people who are that person's closest friends. It's great because you really get to know those few people really well and build up trust and a strong bond, but it's not always too healthy to have such few friends since it limits the extent of help you can get from people. This kind of like the selectiveness of the D-hall food and how yes I really love grilled cheeses and would have no problem eating them all the time, but it's not as healthy as having a larger, mixed diet of other foods. As my dad always says, everything needs to be in moderation, then it remains healthy. This saying relates to bridging groups. The more you immerse yourself in larger groups, be it through large causes for the greater good of a large group of people, or community service actions, the more people you meet and the more diverse your connections get. Yes it's good to have a few close friends, but throw in some other people who you can also hang out with and see from time to time, and you've found the perfect mix, like me eating a grilled cheese once a week instead of every day if D-hall actually varied it's food choices.


So come on D-Hall, redeem yourself! Everything in moderation is the key to healthy, happy vegetarians!

Holiday Holidon'ts

Holidays are always fun at school. There's a good atmosphere, fun events on campus, and of course special holiday food. But they are NOT for vegetarians, definitely not. Do you know why? It's because apparently, on holidays, vegetarians don't exist in D-Hall. Holidays are as exciting as a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving for vegetarians here on campus.

As many of you probably know, Tuesday was Mardi Gras, which in French culture is the day of feasting before  fasting for Lent. Supposedly there is supposed to be yummy food. Was there? No, of course not. I mean, Mardi Gras does mean "Fat Tuesday", so of course there would be tons of fatty fried food (chicken, usually) and meats galore. Sounds delicious right? NO WAY! This is a vegetarian's nightmare. The only vegetarian friendly thing on Tuesday was Tofu smothered in Cajun spices which couldn't have been that good. And besides that, I'm not a huge fan of tofu, unless it's cooked right, which D-Hall never does. So, I resorted to salad, which is always a good meal. 

Why can't there ever be some fun and exciting vegetarian dishes at D-hall on holidays? On Superbowl Sunday (Which can definitely be considered a holiday in the eyes of most Americans) it was fried chicken, ribs, chicken, rotisserie chicken, ribs, burgers and.... oh, I missed chicken. It sounds like SUCH a feast, especially for us vegetarians. 

NEWSFLASH D-Hall: Vegetarians exists. Who would have thunk?? Apparently D-Hall doesn't!

To make matters even worse, D-hall has only take one day, no, not even, more like one meal, which was supposed to be Vegetarian Night. Well, this would have worked, if D-Hall ACTUALLY HAD VEGGIE ONLY MEALS!!! D-Hall was like "Oh, yay Vegetarian Night! Let's serve meat!". What a fail. Like come on guys, you can't even have one meal be completely vegetarian friendly. 

Hopefully someday in the near future D-Hall will learn that we vegetarians are an ever-growing population and that they should start to cater more to our needs, since we do have a limited diet. Who knows if we vegetarians will utilize social networking sites like twitter to start an uprising against this horrible food, since Morozov, a theorist I learned about in class, describes how the internet and social networking sites can possibly be used as a means to start a revolt and get a democratic result, benefiting the greater good of the people. Look out D-Hall, don't mess with vegetarians who are technology savvy! 

Week 2- What a Fail

The food last week was not good at ALL. Last Monday there were absolutely NO options. All of the different food stations were offering meat-only foods for lunch, and the vegetarian station was serving this weird veggie sandwich, which I wasn't in the mood for. I ended up eating a salad and pasta. The pasta didn't even have sauce on it because the sauce was gross. It was the same predicament for dinner. They were serving this strange lemon tofu dish with couscous in some odd broth at Emily's Garden which was really gross. That's how bad the food was on Monday.

The food didn't get better as the week went on either. On Wednesday Emily's Garden was serving veggie burgers for what must have been the 5th time in 2 weeks. I'm so sick of veggie burgers. I feel like they're the only thing the vegetarian station ever serves. I swear there must have been one week last semester where Emily's Garden served veggie burgers every other day for either lunch or dinner for one week. Honestly Skidmore, I think we vegetarians are a bit played out on the veggie burgers. Other than that the food was once again terrible, and there were no options. Even my carnivorous friends had a hard time deciding what to eat because the food was so bad.

Friday I had my usual veggie chicken wrap for lunch. It's always so delicious and this time I added carrots and cheese! I don't think I could ever get sick of it. Saturday the food was alright. I added a new creation to my repertoire of Rachel's vegetarian college recipe's. It's veggie bacon, lettuce, spinach leaves, banana peppers, american cheese, and ranch dressing inside  a tomato basil wrap. It was SO GOOD. The dining hall usually doesn't have veggie bacon out for lunch, nor do they have it at the Deli station, but luckily on the weekends breakfast food is continuously served up until the afternoon, so I got a chance to experiment with it!

 All in all though, the food for the 2nd week of my blog was really bad. Although D-hall usually has fantastic food, there's a trend of having really delicious food one week and then not as good food the next. This past week just happened to be more worse than usual. I hope this coming week makes up for it!