Sometime around the end of my sophomore year, I stopped eating Sharples food regularly, and started doing weird things, like eating salad a lot. Actually, I just started eating salad a lot. This was because I found myself eating unconscionable amounts of potato. This past week, I decided to return to eating the main servery food and document my experiences.
Wednesday Lunch
Spicy chicken thing, with egg, grill cheese, lettuce, and onion. Status: warm. Fries of acceptable saltiness, slightly underfried. Tried the smokey paprika tofu with arugula: very smokey, had high hopes from the arugula; tomato slice was delicious. Actual tofu subpar, should have been firmer. Realized after finishing chicken thing that I should have put the arugula in the burger. Sad.
Saw a girl eating an entire bowl of cherry tomatoes @ 12:32. What hath the lunch rush wrought.
Estimated potato intake to date: 1.5 potato.
Thursday Lunch
Bag lunch: chicken salad on bed of lettuce. Had two tomatoes and three grapes! Also one slice of cucumber! I was told by the nice bag lunch lady that each bag lunch gets four items. Decided to forgo chips and apple for Oreos. Total: three pouches of Oreos.
Thursday Dinner
Chicken marsala with buttered noodles. Noodles unsettlingly hard, gave up in disgust. Got lentils and pad thai. Lentils uncountable, due to being mush. Pad thai had two shrimp. Decided to eat more potato. After short survey, decided Darjeeling is best tea. Orange brownies top-notch, tasted like oranges, although not like brownies.
Estimated potato intake to date: 2 potato.
Friday Lunch
Potato bagel with four spreads: chicken salad, seafood salad, olive cream cheese, and “lox” spread. Turns out imitation crab in the seafood salad is made out of whitefish! As regards olive cream cheese: “Oh god what is going on, I feel like I just put a stick of butter in my mouth.”
Estimated potato intake to date: 2.25 potato.
Friday Dinner
Chicken Ceasar salad bar literally the stupidest bar. Ceasar salad items moved from salad bar to specialty bar, plus stale, plasticky cheese and anchovies. Would not recommend. Had a cheeseburger with lettuce and onions, fries. Discovered: fries can be hugely improved by adding a little ground pepper! New potato food!
Estimated potato intake to date: 3 potato.
Saturday Dinner
Tostada bar! New bar! With guac! Sharples should consider triple mirroring — is that even a concept — for some bars like this. Green salsa very pleasant, red salsa less authentic, both slightly watery. Did like, but ended up eating more fries in lieu of lining up again.
Estimated potato intake to date: 3.5 potato.
Sunday Breakfast
Why does Sharples not open until 10 and even then, only bagels for an hour? Seems sad for people who get up early. Like me today. Bagels tasty, though, especially everything bagels. Is there potato in butter or cream cheese? Hope not, seems weird.
Sunday Lunch
Brunch is always good, and reliable, but not exciting. French toast sticks normally amazing, this time a bit dry. Excellent eggs over medium.
Sunday Dinner
Pot roast. Actually, really, really good! Good saltiness; often, Sharples not salty enough. Is this for health reasons? Honestly, often feel like a deer, trying to get as much salt as possible. New salt shakers allow for direct salt-to-mouth movement. Went back for seconds, but too much seconds makes me sad. Also had some fries for soaking up jus de pot roast. Recommend.
Estimated potato intake to date: 4 potato.
Monday Lunch
Never really into pizzas, so decided to get spicy chicken thing. Also got Mutabar to make me eggs over medium. I fucking love Mutabar and her eggs over anything. Also tried the acai berry juice for the first time since freshman year. Still confused why anyone drinks it. Disturbingly sweet.
Estimated potato intake to date: 5 potato.
Monday Dinner
Fish taco bar with blackened catfish had slightly too-blackened catfish. Other than that, quite good. Also, cauliflower: I fucking love cauliflower! Especially when lightly roasted.
Tuesday Lunch
People didn’t understand how lines work at grab-n-go. This confused me, because I thought, as Swarthmore students, we should all be able to read. Maybe everyone who ignored the “must enter here” sign was actually so near-sighted as to be blind? Or, all admissions mistakes. Not sure which one more likely.
Tuesday Dinner
Discovered, to my chagrin, vegetarian line pho bar much more generous with soup, pho, than specialty bar. Still pretty good, especially beef broth @ perfect spiciness. Discovered what seemed to be actual cardboard piece in broth? Slightly upsetting, but it happens.
Wed Lunch
While hot dogs scare me, hot dogs wrapped in bacon scare me less. So I had that. Dousing scary meat product in beans helped a lot too. Decided to also get some fries to eat with beans. Verdict: amazing. Didn’t even need ground pepper.
Estimated potato intake to date: 6 potato.
Wed Dinner
Salmon. And potato. Always potato. Vegetarian pasta toss was worse than normal; on average, really good. Saw some people eating plain pasta with pesto, resulted in instant envy, regret. Made coffee-tea. Toffee? No. Kea? Tea brewed in a small amount of coffee and water. Smelled like Korean barley tea, mmm barley tea.
Final estimated potato intake: 7.5 potato
