College dining halls are less glamorous than how ever low you're thinking right now. Within in my first semester and two weeks into my second dining at college, both a screw and maggot have been found in meals of girls in my very own grade alone. It's a taunting thought honestly, the idea that one second you could be fooling yourself into being satisfied with meals like every other day, the next second your day is genuinely ruined, and likely the dining hall is completely ruined for you as well (as if just ruining your day wasn't enough, as underclassmen you have literally no other option for your meals than to return to the same dining hall three times a day).
As a fellow eater at the hall, I try to push these memories out of my head whenever I am thinking of or going to eat there. I also try to stick to salads and oatmeal as ninety-nine percent of meals*. I figure these meals to be healthy options, as well as safe. The only meat I eat here is stir fried chicken or (likely extremely processed) chicken patties, with the exception of turkey everyone once in a long while. Oatmeal is so straightforward and simple, I figure no one can mess it up that much.
I was late into another day of my little routine, grabbing some lettuce to put into one of the dining hall's weird plate bowls, and then topping it with craisins and cucumbers per usual as I waited for my chicken to cook at the stir fry station. Once it was done, I topped off the chicken with buffalo sauce and enjoyed my meal as if it was the first time I was eating it. Really. The mixture of craisins with lettuce and buffalo has been a long time favorite, and realizing I could consistently make my chicken buffalo chicken was a big time game changer.
Alas the salad was done, and now I was stuck. See, every since I was a little one I have had a major sweet tooth. Chocolate, caramel, cinnamon, vanilla, and basically any other sweet flavor you can image, I likely enjoy to an alarming extent. And I detest the feeling of my palette after meals if the last thing I have eaten isn't something at least somewhat sweet. This is not that big of a problem, even in the reality that is my dining hall. There is always yogurt and granola out, and some fruit (which may or may not be edible depending on its ripeness), I also have granola, graham crackers, and gum in my dorm, if extreme measures must be taken.
My friends contemplated if they were going to get ice cream, I contemplated if I was going to get yogurt. But yogurt didn't seem to want to hit the spot for me; for starters, I had eaten it the night before and secondly I didn't want to hold up my friends from continuing on with their nights just so I could eat some yogurt that I didn't really want. I walked back up to the food and figured I might get some toast with peanut butter and honey on it, but then realized the flavors of peanut butter and buffalo would go well for my palette either. Just honey? Too drippy to not eat sitting down. I realized then what I needed to do. It was going to be a jam and butter on toast type of night. A rare night, a night that has not yet happened this whole school year, or likely last year school year. My friend asked me what I was getting and when I told her she scrunched up her nose and said she was putting peanut butter on hers. But I stayed true to my decision and on my way out, did not regret it in the least.
I took a bite of the toast, the crunch of a toast that had been through the dining hall's toaster two times through filled my ears. The taste was sweet, and the mix of bread and sweetness reminded me of some random summer memories. It took me back to the days of my sleep-away summer camp, where the food was so bad that my cousin and I literally chose to eat this for a minimum of two of our three meals a day, every day, for two weeks during the summer. I had never eaten it before I went to that camp with her, but seeing that she was escaping the gross mashed potatoes and pasta, I took to her vice. Jam with butter on toast became our lifeline. It was our comfort food. And now, it was my comfort food, when I didn't even realize I needed comforting. I have truly never enjoyed two pieces of toast more.
J
*The two foods the screw and maggot were found in were both said to be from the burrito station. Oatmeal and salads have not been known to be contaminated in any unappetizing way.
No comments:
Post a Comment