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!

Week 1- Oh it is Love

Well hello there :)

My name is Rachel and I've been a vegetarian for two years. I had always wanted to be one, but never really had the discipline to really do it. Then I started dating a vegetarian and he helped me make the final leap. Now I'm so in love with this lifestyle! The only difficulty with being a vegetarian at a college is of course, the food. A college's dining hall is a major determining factor for a vegetarian, since we obviously need a whole different menu than your typical omnivore. This is partially why I chose Skidmore as my dream college. It had everything I could look for in a school, plus an AMAZING dining hall.

Has the dining hall lived up to my standards of living? So far so good. Every now and then there will be a day where there are absolutely NO choices for a vegetarian. Every food station will be serving something with meat in it, which is a total bummer. I'll have nothing to choose from except pizza and salad. The nice thing about Skidmore is that there's also a do-it-yourself station, where I've made omelettes or fried rice. Luckily the variety of food choices changes every day, so no vegetarian goes more than a day with only two options to choose from.

This week, the second week of school, has been a really spectacular week in D-Hall. My favorite days were Thursday and Friday. For lunch on Thursday, our vegetarian station was serving delicious portobello, red pepper, and pesto sandwiches on whole grain bread. The sandwich was so DELICIOUS. I also had a grilled cheese, which is everyone's favorite (except for vegans of course). For dinner D-Hall was serving General Tso's tofu, which may just be my all time favorite meal. It's not served very often, so I always get really excited when it is served. The sauce is so delicious, and hides the very bland taste of tofu. I'm not a big tofu fan, especially when it's served plain, but I could definitely eat General Tso's Tofu every day because it's so flavorful. Then on Friday was Chicken Finger Friday! It's my favorite day of the week in D-Hall aside from Sundae Sunday. One of my best friends at school has introduced to me the veggie nugget wrap. It's a tomato-basil wrap with cut up veggie nuggets, spinach leaves, cheese, ranch dressing, and hot sauce all put together to make one of the most delicious wraps I've ever had. It's my favorite creation and I make it every Friday. It's something I could never get sick of.

 SO, overall, this week was good in D-Hall. There were lots of options for those with a restricted food diet, such as the vegetarian! Sadly, very rarely does D-hall have more than one good week in a row. Follow my posts to see if D-Hall lives up to the expectations of a very hungry vegetarian (me) next week!