A Meal Plan
Attending college opens your mind to a hodgepodge of new subjects and ideas. Attending college will also expand your palate with a smorgasbord of foods you will either come to love or hate by end of your first year.
In general, most colleges have dining commissaries (cafeterias) centrally located to serve all students on campus, or in some cases located inside your dorm. At some bigger campuses, namely the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, UCI, etc. you can find Subways, KFCs, and other chain-based eateries on campus. Yes, it’s nice to know that you won’t starve on campus with all of these gastronomic options. However, what happens when you have certain dietary restrictions? Should you live off Ramen Noodles and Easy Mac for the next four years of your life (just kidding, though I can guarantee that you can find these foods in any first year dorm!)? Fortunately, I did not have to resort to such drastic measures.
If there is one aspect in my life that I take pride in, it is my Jewish heritage and keeping kosher[1]. And, while most schools do offer kosher meal plans through Hillel (the Jewish student organization), Occidental College did not offer a kosher meal plan. Tired of having the same grilled salmon plate with brown rice and steamed vegetables for dinner each night, I decided that it was time for change. And with the help of Occidental’s head of campus dining Amy Muñoz, and Chief Chef, Joe Parks, I created my own kosher meal plan.
My first task in instituting a kosher meal plan was to determine the feasibility of such a request. After a week of back-and-forth e-mailing, I met with Amy, where I learned that Occidental provided kosher meal plans to students who made the request in previous years. I was thrilled that Occidental could accommodate my dietary needs. The following week, Amy and I brain stormed five delectable, rotating, kosher dinners with sumptuous side dishes. We agreed that I would pay an extra five dollars per meal to compensate for the higher cost of the kosher meat.
The best part of my kosher meal plan was that I had the opportunity to call the kitchen four hours before dinner time, tell the chef which meal I wanted, and what time I would be coming to pick up my meal. Now that, is what I call first-class customer service! One week later, I was reveling in kosher carne asada and with fresh mung beans, grilled vegetables, and rice. My friends envied my tasty kosher meals, and from time to time, I would double up my dinner order so that they too could experience kosher dinner nirvana.
Don’t be a stranger when eating in your school’s dining commissary. A small chat with a cook, or if you are lucky enough, the sous-chef, may open up an opportunity for you to request certain foods or meals.
[1] The word “kosher” in its present day understanding is an adjective used to describe food and other substances that are acceptable to consume according to laws dictated in the Old Testament and a Jewish book of laws called the Talmud. After meat and poultry products are deemed kosher according to the Old Testament, these animals must also be killed in a kosher manner and blessed by a Rabbi to be considered legitimately kosher.
