Grad Food

When talking to grad students, the subject of food tends to come up frequently.

It's an excuse for socializing if we want to go out. "It's ok to leave homework and go to dinner - you have to eat sometime."

It is a motivator. "Hey, there's a lecture next week - not my favorite topic, but there'll be bagels."

It's a matter of pride, "I haven't been grocery shopping in two months." or "Yep, twenty dollars a month is my food budget. Are you going to eat that packet of hot sauce?"

As you know, my car has died. This has required me to start thinking more purposefully about meal planning. Unsurprisingly, the cheapest way to cook is to buy a lot of the same thing and eat it continually. Different grad students have different ways of exploiting this method. Some buy a lot of alcohol and drink it continually. Frequently, pasta becomes a staple. One friend was explaining this by informing everyone how much he loved Italian food.

Now, I have no quibbles with people who love Italian food. It's quite delicious. But this purposeful planning has resulted in checking of my cupboards. What exists are several indications that Italian is not my cuisine of choice.

1. There's no pasta. Now, maybe I'm one of those dedicated people that makes my own pasta (I'm not) but there is no semolina flour either, so the chances of that are rather slim.

B. There are, however, three or four types of rice - and I know how and in what I would use each type.

C. There is nothing tomato-based. Except for two different kinds of ketchup. What, your brother doesn't give you ketchup as a going-away present?

4. The only basil is Thai Basil - I have some dried and some frozen - for emergencies. 

In conclusion, a good romp through cupboards can reveal things about yourself that you had never vocalized. I've laughed in the past with fellow students about the vast amounts of pasta consumed, and the fact that pizza is basically a perfect food, but now I realize that my allegiances fall elsewhere. I'll have to think about how to leverage that into a declaration of my inherent superiority . . . this could take some time . . .

P.S. - this post brought to you by the suspicion that people are tired of hearing all the time about the fact that I do homework, go to class, and think about teaching.