The Campus Epicurean: February 16 - 22

Welcome to another edition of the Campus Epicurean! We’ll take a look at this week’s menus so you can make informed choices about your dinner. First, a quick disclaimer: Menus sometimes lie. It’s horrible, but true. Scripps’s menu seems particularly fickle (luckily it always has tasty grilled chicken to make up for it). This set of recommendations is based on available online menus.

With that out of the way, tuck in your napkins, it’s on to the food!

Monday

According to the comments from last week, some people do, in fact, love Mondays. Here is one reason you could too: Monday is Make Your Own Pizza night at Frary. Unfortunately, it does draw a crowd so try to get there early or late. Frary stays open until 8pm so you can eat great, even late… just like at Wendy’s.

If Pizza doesn’t do it for you, mosey on over to Collins where there will be Gyros, a Roasted Vegetable Salad and “Deli Night- Corn Beef on a Baggette” (Misspelling is in the menu) While the Cornish bastard child of the French Dip Sandwich might not appeal to you (or it might, who knows), Collins Gyros are generally decent.

Tuesday

Frary is blowing away the competition this week by following up Make Your Own Pizza with Burrito Night! Once again, make sure that you’re not in a rush. Burrito and Quesadilla orders can take time, but that guacamole goodness is usually worth it.

Collins is playing backup once again, offering Philly Cheese Steaks, a Southwest Chicken Wrap and “Crepe Expectations – Pumpkin and Apple”. The crepes get listed last because the apple ones were decidedly mediocre last week.

Wednesday

Wednesday is sushi night at Collins! Be there or miss the most delicious sushi on the 5-Cs.

Thursday

Live dangerously tonight. Tromp up to Scripps and see if there menu bears any relationship to what they are serving. Supposedly, they will offer Chicken, Chipotle & Cheese Quesadillas at the Grille, a Baked Potato Bar at the Exhibition (a great place to get toppings for your homemade Cheese Fries), and last, but not least, Beef Lasagna and Garlic Breadsticks in the regular line.

If Scripps doesn’t appeal to you, try eating a late dinner at the Hub. Wyatt Mackenzie recently extolled its virtues here on the forum. It opens at 7:00pm.

Friday

Hike up to Mudd this Friday for Individual Pizzas Made to Order. Mudd will also have Carne Asada Tacos, which I recommended last week, and “Wings & Things”, which sounds ambiguous, yet appetizing.

Saturday

Elton John says Saturday night’s alright for fighting, but, if you ask me, it’s even better for steak. Beat the crowd up to Scripps to avoid lines that can extend all the way back to the tray return area. Saturday night is Steak Night but there will also be a Baked Potato Bar at the Exhibition.

Sunday

Sunday is the day to choose the dining hall based on the pizza, grilled chicken and salad bar. Few dining halls make any extraordinary effort at all on Sundays, so go to Scripps and make yourself a good sandwich/salad.

Featured Interview:

Instead of a Recipe of the Week this week, we are going to feature the 5-C Cookbook! Here is an interview with Ratna Kanath from Health Education Outreach. Please send any recipe ideas you have to rk002007@mymail.pomona.edu. They could be included in the cookbook.

1. Who is putting the 5-C cookbook together?

Health Education Outreach, a 5-College Resource Center, is working to get a healthy and variety-laden cookbook out to the students so that they can make their own meals in the dining halls when they find the pre-prepared options aren't to their liking.

2. What inspired the idea? Why make a 5-C cookbook?

In thinking about how difficult it is to navigate the dining halls when dealing with allergies or dietary restrictions (gluten-intolerant, vegan, vegetarian, lactose-intolerant, peanut allergies), and how little is open to these students, we started to talk about how limiting and monotonous dining hall food can get for many students. This drives them to eat greasy, unhealthy things, munch on desserts that are unappetizing, and experience mounting frustration. We decided to create a cookbook so that students can reference what their friends and classmates have done to liven up their meals and bring flavor and healthfulness back to their diets. We're hoping to get emails and have recipe suggestion boxes at the dining halls in order to get people thinking about what they create at the dining halls when World Wok isn't available or they can't eat custom-made pizzas.

3. What will the cookbook look like? How will people access it? Will it be printed, online, or both?

We're still unclear on this--it's entirely dependent on the interest this generates. We're hoping to make the cookbook available at all of the 5-C dining halls, however, and in Health Education Outreach. If there are calls for an online version, we might make that available, too. It's a little too early to tell at the moment.

4. Can you give an example recipe that might be in the cookbook?

Crunch and Snap Fruit Salad 1 apple 1 orange 1 handful of raisins/cranberries (adjust according to preference) 1 handful of walnuts/pecans 1 lemon wedge

Cut the apple and orange into chunky pieces and roughly chop the walnuts/pecans. Squeeze lemon juice over the mixture and add the raisins/cranberries; then mix it all together and enjoy as a healthy breakfast, snack, or dessert.