Perspective

As I haphazardly moved a hunk of dry, rubbery chicken from one side of my plate to the other, I commented on the lack of quality food available in the cafeteria. Every day I play the “lunchroom lottery”, cringing as I scan my ID, grab a plate, and peruse the options.

Tater Tots®? I’m wary of foods that need to be copyrighted.

Chicken…I think. You may want to think twice if the word meat is surrounded with quotation marks.

The fish looks dry, as usual.

All the bananas are brown.

Meatballs! Wait, never mind.

I’m pretty sure those eggs aren’t real.

Often I abandon the cafeteria in mild disgust and turn to the salad bar with hesitant optimism.

Only iceberg lettuce today. *cue sarcasm* Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s take lettuce, suck out all the nutrients, chop it up, and call it a vegetable *end sarcasm*. 

I stare down at my plate of tomato slices from the sandwich line, a piece of toast, and a pile of baby carrots. I look around me and see a few dozen students picking at their plates with mild to severe disapproval. Hastily I say grace and start on the carrots.

Suddenly I glance at my plate again. I remember the words I just recited mechanically, as if they were meaningless: bless us and these your gifts which we receive from your bountiful goodness. When I hear the word “bounty” I think of a basket of produce from the garden, a bag of groceries, a table overflowing with potluck dishes. I glance at the salad bar, its metal bowls literally overflowing with vegetables. I look at the cafeteria lines, the pans of food being refilled as quickly as they are used up. I think back to the last time I was hungry. I think about what it means to be really hungry, not just un-full.

Now I see everything with a fresh perspective. I see the hands that serve the food but also the unseen hands that prepared it, purchased it, grew it, and planted it. I think of those who spend more time hungry than not.

Surrounded by a bounty of food, I wonder why I could not see it this way before. 

Sometimes you just need perspective. 

picture by Cacia Scheler

Simplicity

Within a few hours of moving out of my house and to the fourth story of the beautiful old vine-encircled castle I now refer to as my dorm, I realized with a great deal of distress that for the next six months I would be forced to confine my culinary experimentation to those things that could be concocted with a small coffee mug, a spoon, and a microwave. I felt like an artist who packed away all the fancy chalks and oil paints and is left with a tiny square of paper and one those three-packs of crayons they hand out to the kids at Denny's. 

As I adjusted to my new life, I found myself subconsciously resurrecting my culinary passions in the cafeteria line. On day one I awkwardly set down my plate, piled high with mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, sweet potato shreds, and balsamic vinaigrette, next to my classmates' mouth-watering mounds of tater tots and fried chicken. 

As time went on, I learned to navigate Chartwell's irrefutably random selection of food. Although I have consumed more off-brand Cheerios in the past two months than I care to admit, I have also found several outlets where I can express myself through my favorite language. I dip baby carrots in hummus from the sandwich bar--simplified crudités. I float spinach leaves in the minestrone soup, top greens with rice salad, invent a roasted vegetable and hummus sandwich, brighten up the black bean soup with fresh salsa, even dip bread in marinara sauce and pretend it's bruschetta. If you close your eyes and picture the leaning tower of Pisa, it works. Kind of. 

The cafeteria has orange, yellow, and green plates, the latter of which are my favorite. Silly, I know, but it makes a significant difference in the visual appeal of your food. Fries and a burger look greasy and blah on warm-colored palates but are miraculously transformed to an almost-healthy-looking feast when arranged on a green plate. Someone told me the term "blue plate special" was invented under this principle. Buffet lines used blue plates because the color decreases the appetite. I haven't verified this but I like to think it's true. Anyway, I grab the first green plate I see and if they are buried I actually dig for one. I'm starting to think my classmates think either I've gone insane or I just really really like green. I tried to convince one that light reflects better off of green and makes you burn more calories while eating. 

I don't think she bought it.

Ultimately, I emerged from the initial comestible scarcity relatively unscathed. With the aid of a few tasteful pieces of dinnerware and a few simple ingredients, I have been able to spare myself from complete deprivation. 

 I now have a new-found appreciation for peanut butter.

It goes remarkably well with apples.

Oatmeal has become a close friend, expected to become closer

 in the inevitably frigid winter temperatures of Chicago. 

Perhaps the best part of this adventure I call college is the nutrition lab in which I am fortunate enough to spend three hours each week preparing various odds and ends, ranging from blanched broccoli to peach fritters. 

This was a delightful quinoa salad with mangoes, black beans,

 peppers, and a limey-cumin vinaigrette. 

As I sit here in my castle-dorm, my fingers pruned from washing dishes, the fridge stocked with 2% milk and a container of multi-flavored hummus, and pilfered pears ripening on the windowsill, I come to the pleasing conclusion that I am content with these simple pleasures.