Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
I suppose there are worse things to worry about
Jake is a scant two years away from college, and if things proceed in typical fashion he’ll no doubt be at a school where “dorm living” (an oxymoron, that) is mandatory for the first year. “Dorm living” requires “dorm eating,” sad to day. And that’s what Karen brought up tonight. How will a kid who has been raised on my cooking manage to survive dorm food?
She has worse memories of dorm food than I do. She recalls “fish patties” where the chef forgot that bit about gutting the fish before using it as a food stuff. I remember decent meals at International House during my freshman year, but I’ve conveniently blocked out my sophomore (dorm) year. Although I do recall that the most special thing about Special Dinner was that it was edible. We had one per semester, if I remember correctly.
Jake likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I hate to think what nutritional deficiencies one would develop by subsisting entirely on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, and pizza, of course. Is there any readily available fast food that is also wholesome? We had a Good Earth in Berkeley, and one of the first meals I had in Berkeley was a vegie burger at Good Earth. We had a delicious vegetarian Chinese restaurant, too, and they made the most amazing sweet and sour walnuts. (But Jake hates it when I cook with nuts. So strike that.)
Even as a freshman, I tried to make wholesome food for myself. I had to fend for myself on the weekend, and I honestly don’t know what I did with my electric frying pan. Russ, my roommate, went home to Novato on the weekends. His reputedly awesome-cook-mother took care of him. But I had to take care of me. I remember only one of the meals that I made for myself, mostly because it was so very disastrous. I bought a big hunk of fish and breaded it and fried it. Which would have been fine, had I not decided that bran cereal would make a fine material with which to bread fish.
I do remember eating out. A lot. One of my favorite memories from Berkeley was the time I ate three hot dogs at Top Dog. I’m quite sure that today, this would kill me. But back then it only left me with a warm spot in my heart and a glistening smear of grease on my upper lip.
Once Jake gets an apartment, he can cook for himself. I intend to teach him enough about cooking to take care of himself. But what will he do during that dorm year? Worst comes to worst, I suppose we can give him enough money to live on restaurant food . . . which is not a particularly healthy option, but it may beat the alternative.
D.
Tell him to go to UMass, the food there was more than decent 🙂 And every dining hall always had a salad bar, pasta bar, pizza, cereal, and waffles along with the things that changed daily. And there are a kajillion places in town to eat and order from with good, healthy food, too.
🙂
Things have probably changed in the approximately 100 years since you were in school. We were up at SFU a few months ago and we had dinner in the big central dining hall thing, which was more like a huge cafe than a stereotypical cafeteria. Residents evidently had some kind of credit card deal, while we had to pay. The food, while not memorable, was certainly decent.
I hope you’re both right. It would be one less thing to worry about.