All semester I have waited in trepidation for an occasion where it would be appropriate to write about the chili that they serve in the DeCafe. The time has arrived, and I am so relieved because the floodgates of my enthusiasm are at long last allowed to open.

You may not have noticed the chili before because it’s located in the steam table no-man’s land at the end of the sandwich counter.

If you’ve had much experience with CDS soup you probably wouldn’t even give the DeCafe chili the benefit of the doubt. Last week at Stevenson, on a clearly misguided flight of fancy, I tried their mulligatawny soup, and it was like a coconut Swamp Thing.

Now that you’ve heard differently, skip that long line for the salads and hit that self-serve steam table with the confidence that you are indulging in the best-kept food secret at Oberlin.

The vegetable chili has some unexpected fresh carrot shavings, and the meat is never dry. There is, I daresay, a certain complexity to the flavor, like maybe a little cayenne thrown in. Most importantly, the texture is perfect, the beans and vegetables gracefully suspended in the stalwart tomato base. There is one condition to your enjoyment DeCafe chili is a lunch delight, NEVER to be tried after, say, 2 p.m. I am pretty sure it sits there all day. Take my word and don’t test this rule.

We are now reaching the glittering threshold of finals and the epic end of yet another semester. The combination of stress, selfpity and selfindulgence incite many of us to eat disgusting crap all day and all night in the name of academic rigor.

Many of us cultivate a kind of depraved starvation based on a widely maintained notion that the fewer vitamins you consume, the more in college you are.

That is ridiculous and I am here to tell you that by rocking finals in this fashion, not only are you indulging in your inefficiency, but you are also making yourself look sallow and weak.

A person at the top of their game, which is the person you are trying to convince your professors that you are, does not look like a sadsack with rotting Doctor Pepper teeth.

This is where the DeCafe chili impishly begins to reveal its significance. I am fairly certain it is $1.29 for a cup of it, and you can put as much cheese as you want on it it’s free! It will also give you some protein, warm your chest like a hot bubble bath and actually sustain you through the next five pages of your torturous final paper. In a matter of seconds, you will feel taken care of.

And we all know that during no other time of the year than finals do we feel so alone in the world, so vulnerable and insurmountably needy.

The Twix in the vending machine on A-level? It will fall heartbreakingly short, only to leave you needing just a little more, and an hour later you find yourself once again digging through the pockets of your jeans for one last dime, issuing breathy pleas to your own dissipated financial management “Please let me have lost a dollar in change in the bottom of my laptop carrying case Oh God please”

Since I’m sure the DeCafe keeps its chili recipe under vigilant lock and key, I can’t include it for you all to try at home. Instead of a recipe this week, here are a few ideas for study snacks that satisfy a variety of stress-related circumstances.

1. You keep falling asleep while you’re trying to read.

Candy canes. They get sharp as you suck on them so if you fall asleep, sooner or later you will stab the inside of your mouth and wake up. They’re not too sweet and they last a long time. And people look kind of cute while they’re eating them.

2. You are working on a paper in a computer lab, and your morale is so low that you can’t bear to be without a snack for intervals of more than half an hour.

Dried cranberries, wasabi peas, and banana chips. You can smuggle those into a computer lab easily, and they don’t make your hands sticky, so you won’t get busted licking your fingers.

3. It’s due in an hour and you just started, but your hunger is an obstacle beyond which you simply cannot leap.

One of those really delicious but expensive Odwalla juices they sell at DeCafe, with a straw. That way you have both hands free with which to pull at your hair in distress.

4. Your days and nights have melded messily into a coffee and Pabst cocktail, and you are horrendously dehydrated, yet water isn’t a treat so you don’t want it.

Citrus fruits seriously. It might sound boring but they’re so good for you. Mint tea with lots of honey.