College Eating

When I was in college I didn't eat well. Not surprising, right? My freshman year I had a meal plan, an exorbitant amount of money spent to buy a plastic credit card to be used at on campus eateries. My choices: the cafeteria (did that once and discovered a bowl of cabbage in place of the iceberg on the sad, sad salad bar and never went back), a deli, pizza, Chick-fil-A, burgers, or the other cafeteria that never had staff but always had prepared sandwiches.

My almost daily lunch those days was a tuna fish sandwich, or tuna stuffed tomato (hello, mercury), cherry Coke (because I was in my Pepsi mode and we didn't have Pepsi on campus), and BBQ chips. Healthy. And knowing that I would never, ever use the thing up, I even bought the largest cokes I could since they cost more. Smart college brain usage.

I did have a mini-fridge in my dorm and a closet shelf stocked with SpaghettiO's with Franks and Campbell's Chicken Noodle for the dorm microwave. I rarely left campus to eat. One problem was limited parking and I was definitely not going to lose my spot.

But I always had whole milk in my fridge and I went home every weekend.

In those days, I'd yet to discover Old Tyme Grocery, the FAMOUS sandwich shop (a shame, too, because I would have eaten it at least once a week), but my dad had introduced me to Cedar Grocery, a Lebanese place walking distance from campus, so that was one healthy highlight.

It was the following year, though, that a place called Gallagher's opened up across from my old dorm. By then I was living off campus and no longer walking distance away. In fact, I had no reason to be on that side of campus anymore. I'm not sure what prompted me to head over there, but I did and man I wish it had been there the year before!

This place was fantastic! Home cooked food and a rotating set of choices that changed every day. Veggie sides and a roll all part of your meal. Plate lunches, man! Plate lunches!

I miss plate lunches so much. Do they not do this outside of Louisiana or is it just Colorado that's missing them? I could go for a Gallagher's plate lunch right now. Ugh. Homesick for plate lunches.