The Art of Kimball Dining

Hello Friends!

If you’ve been to Holy Cross, you’ve probably seen our fabulously hogwarts-ean dining hall, Kimball. It’s where I work. It’s where I eat no more than 14 times a week (meal plans vary). It’s where I chat with others. It’s where I finish up reading or studying.

The funny thing about Kimball is that it’s a place where so much is happening for most of the day, but, it’s not a favorite place for most students. College food doesn’t stack up against the home-cooked meals so many of us enjoyed for so long. While I will agree that eating in pretty much any dining hall is an aggressively mediocre experience, I’d argue that (1) eating at Kimball can be pretty good as you know how to play the cards and (2) in a different perspective, the food is phenomenal considering how much they have to churn out any given day.

As a worker in Kimball, I get to see the massive amounts of food that chefs work hard on all day to provide students with. I’m so impressed every day by how much fruit one woman cleans, chops, and serves on a daily basis. She carts six watermelons and 7 cantaloupes around the kitchen like they’re nothing. It’s super awesome. Likewise, one fry cook can make 200+ burgers in a single night without burning a single one. While your the sizes of immediate families vary, I would cautiously guess that no one came from a family of hundreds. These chefs are responsible for feeding that many students, faculty, and staff, and I’d say they do a pretty fine job!

But onto the practical side of things, people get really creative in Kimball! Even if you aren’t into what they’re serving up, it’s likely you can make something with a few key ingredients. Here are a few ideas:

Quesadillas: Grab a tortilla of any variety from the deli. While you’re there, you can pick up some deli meat if  you like that in your quesadilla, another option is to stop by the grill and get chicken, a hamburger, a veggie burger, or whatever else they might have at the time, chop it up, and throw it in. Next, make your way to the salad bar where you can throw on shredded cheese, onions, beans, lettuce, whatever you like. Then head to the panini maker and grill it up until it looks good. You can also look in condiments and find sour cream, salsa, and hot sauce if you’re into that.

Floats: Pretty self explanatory, just  fill up any cup with the desired amount of soda and soft serve. Another unpopular but great dessert combo is to put cereal in frozen yogurt. I’m pretty fond of the vanilla froyo with granola.

Mac & Cheese: Now, obviously if they’re serving it up in Kimball you should go for that. If not, get yourself a bowl from the salad bar and throw some cheese in it while you’re there. Then choose pasta from the performance foods section, add some milk from the drinks bar and cook it up in the microwave just outside of the last exit of the court.

Nachos: If there are chips at the salad bar, just go nuts with toppings and throw it in the aforementioned micro.

These are just a few options, but there are so many more!

Anyway, like the underdog athlete in an overly-dramatic sports movie that people casually underrate but ends up driving the team to victory: Kimball has tremendous potential.

This is tonight’s dinner (you can check the menu any time here). I’m really pumped for the quinoa with edamame and the glazed butternut squash. Kimball is bringing it home for us vegetarians tonight!!

 
DFTBA

This entry was posted on Monday, November 4th, 2013 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “The Art of Kimball Dining”

1. Natalie says:

   November 5, 2013 at 3:43 am

   Reading all of your blog posts now!!

   “aggressively mediocre” you’re literally the most adorable person ever.