http://www.care2.com/greenliving/green-girl-dresses-the-dining-hall.html
Green Girl Dresses the Dining Hall
Winter break is over, and my old lovely memories of the college dining situation are coming back. No more freshly made stir fries and fresh mozzarella dishes for dinner. Nope. Soggy cooked veggies and undercooked rice for the win (or loss, really). At least, that’s what I was thinking when I entered Dewick (the dining hall) tonight for dinner.
Let me go back a little. My friend Marysa came to stay with me for the last few days of break, and over this break, we contemplated our hate for the dining hall and if there was any possibility of lessening this hatred while still being healthy (aka not going for the pizza and pasta because those are the only seemingly edible things available). What we decided was that we could deal with the salads if only the dressings were not so terrible. There is so much sugar in the dressings in the dining hall that I can’t bear to put them on my salads. Plus, they just taste bad in general. But the actual vegetables aren’t bad, and they have a good salad bar, with chickpeas and beans and tofu, usually (though, sometimes I avoid these because they’re next to the chicken–gross!).
Well. Tonight, Marysa and I walked into Dewick dreading, and walked out loving! We had gone to the health food store in my town and bought Annie’s salad dressings–me, Organic Cucumber Yogurt Dressing, and her, Organic Sesame Ginger with Chamomile Vinaigrette, both of which use only fruit juice and honey for sweeteners! We brought them with us to Dewick and used them for dressing, and my dinner was actually good!
It really is the small things in life that make a difference. For those of you uncertain how you can possibly make it through another semester in the dining halls, take my advice: Get little things, like salad dressing, spices, and sauces. Carry them with you when you’re going to the dining hall, and fix your food! It really did help. I left dinner very satisfied and very optimistic about the dining situation for the semester ahead.
Note to self: Dressing for the win.
Lily Berthold-Bond grew up in a chemical-free zone and has struggled her whole life to understand and accept this non-commercial lifestyle. Now a sophomore at Tufts University, she has embraced her green life and hopes to share its possibilities with the rest of her generation.
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If you can find it on the salad bar or near by try using just lemon or lime juice with a little salt and pepper to flavor your salad. It's an old dieter's trick. BS
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I am all too faimiliar with your woes of dorm food. I dormed in the college that had the worst food out (rated on college ratings at the time) of all the colleges in California back in the day. I am a vegetarian and type 1 diabetic. Life was difficult. You should bring it up to someone that vegetarians do not want their plant based proteins placed right next to the chicken. It is just insensitive.
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Two comments -- Most commercial salad dressings are terrible. They're also expensive. Salad dressing is very easy to make if you are at home. However, for GG and her friends, there are a few brands that do taste good. And, as my daughter says, raw veggies can become a bit like "grass clippings" and benefit from a little dressing. Dipping veggies into dressing rather than pouring it on generally means less used.
Second, I work at a liquor store across the street from Smith College. College students, like the rest of the population, vary greatly in how old they look and how sophisticated their behavior is.
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Great tips. I wish I'd thought of that in college.
I'm sorry to go off on the other tangent in these posts, but I'm 30 and still think of myself and contemporaries as girls (that would be women from their 20s to 40s), though many of us have grown-up jobs and children of our own. We're not back-peddling - we are "having it all" as they say. Thanks to the previous generation, we don't have to be so weary and particular about terminology. We can work or not work, call ourselves whatever we want, have youthful taste in clothes, music, etc and not feel foolish. And our kids really like us for it. Now if we could get equal pay all would be well.
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Relf- I am her mom and I can guarantee from personal experience with her that she just turned 20. --Annie
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Relf--that is so uncalled for. Not all college students look like they're 12.
GG: great post. Even while backpacking or working in offices I would have spices and other condiments which were more to my taste than whatever could be easily procured from the local shops, including a pepper grinder and olive oil, garam masala, crushed chiles, and stevia.
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