Molly and Matthew graduated from college not so long ago. (The 90s just happened, right?) Today, they share semi-fond memories of the weird things they used to eat, including free pizza, box brownies, illegally microwaved leftovers, and gallons of frozen yogurt. Get your Freshman Fifteen (minutes) here! www.spilledmilkpodcast.com
September 1, 2011
I went to and still work at Pomona – the food is indeed much better than it once was! We still have burrito bar, and Taco Day with incredible fresh handmade tortillas. And there is omelet bar EVERY MORNING OF THE WEEK. I went to grab an order slip to send you, but I guess we don’t use those anymore. And there’s no more frozen yogurt machine, but locally made ice cream at every meal!
Bowen, I hate you.
But no frozen yogurt machine? Did you donate it to Scripps? I used to hear complaints from that direction about the lack of yogurt.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your show! I prop the laptop on the counter in the kitchen while I am prepping for dinner and enjoy listening to your banter. This show brought back a lot of memories for me, although I can’t remember what I ate for lunch in college either….I had to have eaten something. Strange how your mind lets go of little things like that.
Anyway keep up the good work!
In the ’70′s, we just had hot pots – an electric tea kettle. One woman made a big dinner for her boy friend by borrowing a lot of hot pots – potato salad was part of the menu.
I remember reheating some delivered pizza from the previous night by ironing the bottom of the pizza.
I’ll make you a deal, Matthew – you come for Alumni Weekend, and I can get you the hookup. Sushi night at Scripps, tacos at Frank, Japanese Grill at Frary, milkshakes at the Coop … I’ve got all the insider secrets.
Terry-Lander Hall at the Univ. of Washington was where I was introduced to Dutch Babies, which are not so good under a heat lamp. But a few years later I saw an article in the Sunset Magazine with a history of the restaurant they seemed to originate from, and started to make them myself. They were much better.
Lander Hall had a stove on each floor, so some of us occasionally cooked. I helped one friend make Japanese “manju” (?) cookies which are sweet bean paste wrapped in dough and baked. During a spring break when there was no food service I attempted my very first beef stew on that stove using my only spice, black pepper. I put too much in it. Thirty years later friends who had it still talk about it.
I moved out of the dorms at the end of my sophomore year, but moved only a couple blocks away. So when friends had a Halloween party I made pies (two apple, two pumpkin). We had a parade of us walking down 12 Ave. NE with pies from my apartment to Lander Hall.
I went to college in Massachusetts and while the food wasn’t bad (no Fruit Circus for us!) my main complaint was that there was no “real” rice. I ended up bringing a 50 lb sack of calrose rice and a rice cooker from home. The one thing I wouldn’t eat in the dining hall was steak. The meat looked greenish brown and the bags they came in were marked “grade edible.” Yuck.
It’s Spilled Milk Podcast Catch-up Day, which always makes me happy. I loved this episode! Molly, your froyo machine impression made me laugh out loud.
For me, it was the milk machines. My dining hall had these big stainless-steel dispensers that held plastic bags of 2%, skim, and chocolate milk. I have no idea how, but they made the milk incredibly cold and super-frothy. I grew up in Arizona, and our milk sometimes went bad in the summer because our old refrigerator had to work so hard against the heat. I developed a deep mistrust of printed dairy expiration dates. I can still see myself sitting in the dining hall with one glass of each kind of milk lined up across my tray … “I am an adult. An adult drinking three different types of ice-cold milk …”
Matthew, your Omelet Lady made me remember the Grab N Go Ladies at my school. Grab N Go was in the basement of the dining hall. Instead of using your meal plan for hot food, you could go there and pick out items to pack in a brown bag, like sandwiches, brownies, fruit, juice boxes. etc. Except that you only were allowed a certain number of items in certain combinations. (If item #1 is a bagel, item #2 cannot be a sandwich, unless item #3 is not a brownie, etc.) These were the Grab N Go Rules, which the The Ladies had sworn to uphold. They always peered suspiciously into my brown bag as I checked out. And yet for a select few, they would smile, glance sideways, and toss in an extra brownie. I never did figure out how to curry favor with them.