Sustenance

I just sat on the desk and watched her eat a slow and solitary bowl of porridge. 8.30 in the evening, Come Dine With Me on youtube, Sunday - some things are too ingrained, what’s a shift in continent going to do about it? But even though it’s my role as imaginary friend to chastise, really and honestly I’m with her on this one. Nothing like porridge.

PORRIDGE, mind, NOT oatmeal.

Thing is, Commons closes at 7 on a Sunday, which means that everyone eats dinner at about 5 or 6. This is bizarre. The idiot is taking a stand and has decided to boycott the dining hall on Saturday and Sunday evenings, flying the Quaker Oats flag instead. Lunch can also legitimately be eaten as early as 11.30am in America. Since when, seriously, has this been normal human behaviour? Where does breakfast feature? And don’t they get hungry at night, after their super early suppertime? My only conclusion is that there are numerous covert meals scattered in between the regular ones. If they ate their dinner any later than 7, then there would be no room left-over for post-dinner or neo-dinner or dirty dinner (don’t ask what dirty dinner is; the idiot has been thinking a lot about dirty realism recently, and things rub off.)

The food in Commons is good and edible, for the most part. The idiot brazenly chose the paella during Spanish week, which was a real low point of coagulated rice and dried, earlobey muscles. And garlic features in almost everything. The fruit is HUGE, the apple pips are WHITE, and the juice is like pure syrup. Some days I’m pretty sure they smash up Hobnobs and call it granola. Ranch dressing is double cream isn’t it, really? As I said, though, it’s okay for the most part. We’re surviving. The idiot and Holly have developed an addiction to marinated tofu, and I’m getting fat off the grill food (one of the guys who works there said something nice about my accent once, but now it’s like I’m not even there). Hot turkey sandwiches are pure hype, with queues on Thursday lunchtime bisecting the cafeteria. But they taste of hype, and hype tastes good.

In terms of cultural differences, it took a while to get used to tomaytos and not tomartoes, and the idea that pudding cannot be used as a superordinate category which covers all desserts. Gianmarco is determined that pudding is something you pronounce as ‘puddin’, referring unequivocally to a little pot of chocolate. Mad.

She misses cooking though. She misses getting steamy with her ladies in Magdalen St kitchen, Norwich, UK, where there wasn’t enough room for 3. She misses Rachel’s soups. Having pre-purchased board points here means that she has to eat them up in Commons, and she can’t really afford a new set of pots and pans and spoons and bowls and cheese graters anyway. Reed students (I refuse to call them ‘Reedies’) don’t have time for cooking. This is le fact. Although, having said that, one of the best meals we’ve had here so far has been courtesy of John Bang and his Korean friends, who cooked up a Korean feast in the Sequoia kitchen one Saturday. The idiot went bright, bright pink from the kimchee.

Next time: food venturing into Portland and surrounds. Now: Ella and Louis and bedtime.

Consette x