So I have one bookmark on my iPhone, and it's the Dartmouth Dining Services menu page. You can start judging me, but I'm eating potstickers at Home Plate, so I don't even care. Food is definitely not the central part of any Dartmouth students' day (insert a joke about getting all of your calories from Keystone here) but terrible drinking habits aside, the issue of what food is available for you to scarf down while grabbing 10 minutes of face time can definitely influence your temporary happiness.
I know that when the Collis cooler contains healthy-sounding vegan potato and onion perogies with applesauce instead of amazingly-tasty-bad-for-you pork dumplings, a little bit of me dies inside as I'm deprived of my daily saturated fat fix. So who has the power to make or break my dinner hour? Is there a magical menu fairy who decides when to bless us with chicken parm and when to curse us with a Boston fish fry?
My inquiries into the DDS administration revealed that while there is a conspicuous absence of mythical creatures on the employee roster, several wonderful people are involved in the menu selection process.
"Picking the menus, well, it is something we think about," acting Associate Director of DDS Donald Reed told me. "Collis Cafe is a little different in that the people who prepare the food have a little bit more autonomy," he said, explaining that the cooks who make the soups, entrees and baked goods maintain their own recipes and select the week's offerings on their own.
"They might choose a heartier kind of soup if the weather's getting colder, or maybe try out a new brownie recipe they just found out about," Reed said.
Apparently a single person is responsible for all of Collis' tasty baked treats. I was not able to speak with this talented baker because she comes in at 5 a.m. to prepare the day's offerings, but Mary Ann Milanese is on Blitzmail if you'd like to send her fan mail about the Friday chocolate chip scones.
Reed said the staff does keep track of what sells and will eliminate recipes that are less popular.
"But I can't think of many things that haven't sold," he said. "Anything with chocolate will sell pretty quickly, honestly."
This is probably my fault.
The larger dining halls including Home Plate and Food Court use a more formalized menu system, Reed said. Entrees cycle and repeat every three to four weeks.
This repetition can become "more than a little boring" for the DDS staff, according to one employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of risking her superior's ire.
"I just want to do a day or a week of totally random stuff," she said in an ever-so-slightly evil tone, but acquiesced that there would "probably be a riot" if popular entrees such as lasagna or General Tso's chicken were replaced with more creative dishes.
"It's hard to introduce new things," she said. "I guess people don't like change."
Several other schools have a more formalized system for students to suggest entrees, according to the DDS employee.
"They'll let you submit recipes online, like maybe something your mom makes at home, and then serve that in the dining hall," she said, adding that she would like to see such a system implemented at the College.
Although DDS' feedback system is less extensive, the employees do keep track of entrees that languish uneaten or items wasting away in the coolers, and are also take careful note of suggestions submitted on comment cards.
"We're always looking for feedback," she said. "It helps us decide what to keep."
Fearful for my new favorite DDS item Green Mountain Coffee does not meet foodie criteria, but is infinitely more drinkable than the flavored brown water they tried to pass off before I discretely inquired about my caffeine fix's probable fate.
"Oh the Green Mountain Coffee is definitely staying," she told me emphatically. "That stuff we had before was, frankly, terrible, and this got good feedback."
As "good feedback" seems to be the magic words, I'm tempted to steal a stack of comment cards and skew the system a little bit to my advantage. If anyone wants to help fill out 10,000 copies requesting Starbucks espresso, I'll be running the operation out of Robinson Hall room 216.
