With only one dining hall open for January, sometimes you have to get creative in where and what you eat. Sometimes this can be a bit of a pain, but it can also be a fun set of adventures. To that end, this is my month in food.
STEVIE:
As the aforementioned one dining hall open, I did eat the majority of my January meals at Stevie. Yes, there were certain foods I preferred over others and sure, the walk could be a little long, but the really interesting thing is how the feeling of the space changes for the month. With only so many people on campus, you’re bound to run into a friend or seven at one meal or another. There’s a real bonding aspect that the space encourages, helped by a smaller group of students. I had lovely conversations with people I only half knew beforehand — while time will tell if these relationships keep up, I never would have gotten to this point had we all been spread out over campus as in the semester. The social aspect of Stevie really comes out, and the building becomes a sort of de facto student union for the month.
AZZIES:
All hail Azzies, purveyor of caffeine and distributor of bagels on campus! This is where I got (almost) all of my breakfasts from this month and, much like Stevie, served as a great communal space for people on campus. My roommate and I would start off nearly every day by sitting in the corner comfy chairs, and without fail we would run into someone we knew. Starting off the day with an (iced) coffee, bagel, and lovely conversation was a great way to get into a research headspace, though it was a bit tough when Azzies closed on the weekends. Fortunately, this meant we would go…
INTO TOWN:
Between The Local, Slow Train Cafe, and Blue Rooster Bakehouse, there were plenty of other breakfast options to try. My personal favorites are the caprese bagel sandwich of The Local and the ham & cheese croissant of Blue Rooster, but I would be remiss in leaving the lavender scones of Slow Train off the list as well. While I don’t usually enjoy lavender in my food (too floral — blech), the scone became a staple of Thursday trivia nights at the cafe. Our team even came in first once, though I’m sure Slow Train broke even despite our gift card prizes…
BRUNCH:
While I’m not as involved in the theater scene as I’d like, I have the good fortune of being roommates with someone who very much is and, one snowy morning, a contingent of said student theater association decided that brunch was in order. There were crepes, pumpkin muffins, a truckload of fruit (taken from Stevie), and a set of extremely dubious scrambled eggs that only the bravest among us dared try. A curious blend of ABBA, the Indigo Girls, early 2000s pop, and Phineas and Ferb songs added to the hodgepodge community feeling — all in all, this was one of my favorite events of the month rivaled only by….
MEDIEVAL DAY:
As mentioned in the last blog I posted, a group of my friends on campus were planning on watching the director’s cut Lord of the Rings movies over the month — while the original plan was a marathon of every movie back to back, we quickly realized that though we love this set of movies a near twelve-hour run time would test the limits of our friendship. Instead, we split the series up into their respective movies and, as a result, had a much nicer time and planned out our food a little better. On the day we had planned to watch The Fellowship, I came to the unpleasant realization that Azzies was closed (sadness…), and instead of a bagel I finished off a bag of beef jerky and a heel of sourdough bread from Harkness co-op. Nutritious? I guess… Delicious? Not particularly… Medieval peasant-y? Yes, but I don’t think that’s quite a good thing… This feeling was exacerbated by lunch (Stevie’s pork tenderloin) and our movie snacks (cheese and tea), but what really put it over the edge was dinner — my roommate invited us to Hark for a meal she organized comprised of pea soup, bread, and an olde recipie for ryce pudding (yes, that was how it was spelled). Despite my perhaps suspect nutrition for the day, I cannot deny that the movie experience was heightened by my inadvertent adherence to Medievalist meals.
There’s more that I could go into here (celebratory lunch at the Feve!), but I fear that my long-winded reminiscing is going on a bit too long. For now, I’ll leave it here and encourage you, (future) Oberlin student, to plan fun meals in January. The month is a bit of a wild west, and anything goes so long as you have the imagination to think it up!