Category Archives: Food

Intro To Summer 101

I still have a blog, but everything’s different. First year is done and I’m living at home now. It feels weird going from the enclosed personalization of my dorm room to the open, nostalgia-inducing comfort zone of my childhood. But the size is the main difference. I feel like I’ve moved from the vault at a credit union to the vault at Fort Knox. One thing I won’t miss is the hallway. Every time I left my room, I’d stare down the long row of doors that is Nootka’s 4th floor and all I’d think of is The Shining. For some reason, when I walked down that corridor, I could swear that two twins were going appear in blood-stained shirts and torment me, saying such terrifying things as,

“Did you hear that Radiohead broke up?”

or

“Apparently M. Night Shyamalan is going to direct a sequel to The Shawshank Redemption.”

Wow, frightening stuff. One thing I’m very grateful for is that at home I’m given nutrition. A frightening realization I made within my first month in rez was that I was in charge of my own health. I always feared that, left to my own decisions, I’d eat myself into Jabba The Hutt, totally disregarding iron requirements, necessary vitamins, food pyramids, and other colour-coded nutritional information. So it became a chore to identify what was good for me and what was bad. Helpful hint: anything in bright packaging with a grammar-disregarding “z” is usually astonishingly bad for you. For example, I’m pretty sure cheezies, chicken wyngz, and sugar stikz are not part of a balanced meal. Anyway, I had to think of that stuff. And while it was one of many experiences that will prepare me for the rest of my mature life blah blah blah, there’s nothing like having mom there to give me what I need, like a Secret Service slipping the President some avocado because “I need the potassium.” Of course, I do sound a bit conceited relating myself to the President, but, who cares, it’s summer.

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A Ubyssey Adventure

One of my big goals this term was to volunteer at The Ubyssey. And it wasn’t just a goal. It was a spin-o-rama, behind the back, bicycle kick kind of goal. Very important to me and very awesome, a fulfilling experience for the news junkie I’ve become. I thought my time at Blog Squad gave me the experience to tackle a real-life story, albeit one that doesn’t include my awkward experience purchasing an ice cream cookie sandwich or my goal to one day gain the ability to fly (still working on that). No disrespect to those tour de force pieces, but I wanted to tackle one of the institutional facets of writing, journalism.

Now I wasn’t expecting people in tweed suits and “Press” hats to be yelling, “Come ‘ere, see. Yeah, see” with that abstract and strangely exciting 1960’s attitude…okay, well I was expecting that, but more in that unique state of unrealistic optimism that improves your day, regardless of the logical fallacies attached. It’s like that glimmer of hope that you’ll one day open the paper and see, “Beatles Back On Tour!” Just our little fantasies. Our impractical, sanguine daydreams.

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The Eye of the Storm

You know that feeling at a restaurant when you see your food leave the kitchen and there’s that gap in time before it gets to your table? It’s an odd feeling, right? All you can think of is,

“That’s my food! That’s it! I SHALL BE EATING THAT!”

But your brain has to correct itself and go,

“Woah there cowboy. It’s not here yet. Just sit tight and act cool. Pretend to look at the martini collection or something.”

So you end up just sitting there looking anywhere but the server’s eyes, waiting for the last second to turn and be startled with joy at the arrived meal, as if eye contact would ruin the taste.

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What I Am Thankful For

And as Thanksgiving officially comes to a close, the glorious statutory holiday spent mostly digesting, I find myself looking back and forwards, side to side at my life. What am I thankful for? Who has gotten me here? And what was in that cranberry sauce? Seriously, 4 cups crushed cranberries shouldn’t taste like the love of Will and Rose, Forrest and Jenny, even the yellow fish from Finding Nemo and his bubbles. It was that delicious. But as the edible love of Sunday breezed into the bloated orangutan-like aura of Monday, I feel thoughts more of reflection than glazed ham, a rare occurrence for me. And I’m thinking of UBC, my life, and how everything has changed. So with that in mind, please enjoy what I’m thankful for:

I’m thankful for my room. Nothing beats a hard night of studying like the unkempt bed I strive to keep cluttered. Residence life gives people the right to be messy, and I love it. Owning a mess is a liberating feeling.

I’m thankful for the dining hall. Nowhere else could I have lamb, apple pie, soft-serve ice cream and a spicy chicken burger all in one meal. Also, nowhere else do lines go so quickly. I love swiping my UBCcard. I feel like Bill Gates buying a yacht, just putting another transaction on the card of destiny, the one card to rule them all.

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So something awkward happened to me today…

A good friend reentered my life recently and that good friend’s name is Awkwardness. We go far back. It was a normal Wednesday night, as Wednesday nights usually are. I was in my room, arranging the pins on my bulletin board into various infantile, yet hilarious, images. It began simply enough. Lying diagonally on my bed beneath the board, I reached up and grabbed six pins. Two for eyes. Four for the mouth. Smiley face. You know, beginner push-pin art. But then I got creative. With charming curves I chiseled a banana. With crispy colours I cleaved out a rainbow bridge. And to top it all off, my masterpiece was a dragon. Well, it was half a dragon. I ran out of push-pins. But I swear, that half a dragon was pretty half awesome. It was at that moment my hunger overrode my childish imagination.

“Yo Evan!” my hypothalamus rapped. “It’s time for some food.”

And I agreed. My brain, which apparently sounds like a ‘80s hip-hop group, was right. I was pretty hungry, but had eaten a hearty soup just a couple hours before, leaving me in a weird food purgatory. To eat more or not to eat more? That was the question. I decided that since I usually skip breakfast, a king’s feast at night might serve the future of my stomach well, giving it some backup when it’s forced to face the trials and tribulations of a bagel-less morning, a croissant-free sunrise.

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Adventures in the Dining Hall

Going into residence, I had preconceptions about the whole “dining experience.” I imagined intimidating women in hairnets serving out helpings of beef slop, veggie slop and surprise slop, which would just be a beef and veggie slop blend. I hate giving in to clichés, but there was a part of my brain that truly believed that’s how it would be. It’s also the part that tries convincing me Pop-Tarts are somewhat healthy and that walking to the fourth floor burns off routinely eaten pie.

Walking into the hall was a grand experience. There was no slop! There was pita bread, stir-fry, chicken skewers and roast beef. Oh how I love roast beef. I went straight for it. It was love at first smell. The succulent gravy, the lightly pink middle, the potent tang of that outer layer. I relished as the server carved the mighty roast, struggling, still fighting with it to slice out a serving of my favourite meat. She dipped the geometrically pleasing ladle in the gravy tub and poured sweet victory over my roast. I topped it off with some cauliflower and a strip of garlic bread to produce a meal worthy of a king. King of England, King of Floors, King of Late Night, any King. The food is great. What it lacks in love it makes up in quantity. Enough of anything trumps love eventually, especially when anything involves gravy.

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So Much Walking

Now, I could talk to you about classes, prepare you for the barrage of post-secondary academic turmoil. I could incite wisdom upon thy mind to be a better student and a better citizen. I could do that, but I’d much rather focus on something far more trivial, walking.

Think you’ll fall victim to the Freshman 15? Not if you’re an Arts student at Totem who likes baby carrots. So much walking. My exercise used to be getting up…and that’s it. So for someone who has to walk across campus and back every day, I both dread and treasure the experience. I dread it when it’s 8:46 am, my kettle won’t work and the shower is feeling quite cynical, or to put it un-pretentiously, cold. So damn cold. Seriously, did someone need all the hot water for a steam-powered car? That would suggest an Engineer. I’ll look into that. Although, I like walking when it’s a good morning, like in Disney sit-coms, which as we all know stands for Disney Situational Commercialization. There, I’m being all political and edgy. Deal with it establishment! It’s all the Man, man. Take your [insert political adjective] [insert political noun] out of [insert stupid cause, like domestic abuse against vegetables or petitioning for more cat-sitters].

Hey, I’m just the messenger, the incredibly confusing messenger who’s supposed to be taking about walking.

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