Archive for February, 2010

V.I.P.s

Thursday, February 25th, 2010 | daily | 4 Comments

mitch-and-carlos1“Well, not Warren Buffet important,”  Steven clarified when he announced that we’re having an important guest next Monday night.  After I’d already received the last food order before Monday.  Warren Buffet is in fact an Alpha Sig, but despite my famous blog, he has yet to make an appearance at Chapter Dinner.  Still, being just slightly beneath one of the richest men in America in importance calls for something more than the “I’ll just wing it,” attitude I had been taking to next Monday’s meal, coming after 14 days of non-stop work.  I must have looked on my way to postal when my driver arrived this morning and asked me if it was getting any better.  “I’m totally strung out stressed out nutty,” I told him.  And went on to explain that on Sunday, I’m making lunch for the Moms.  “Ladies lunching,” I emphasized.  “At a frat house.”

Girls Gone Food Wild

Friday, February 19th, 2010 | daily | 1 Comment

talia-and-taylor“What does ‘jizz-worthy’ mean?” I asked Patrick after reading a message my little food bandits had left for me in praise of my contribution to last night’s sorority dinner.  “Darlene, the cornbread was jizz-worthy!” they had declared.  It was clear that this was not a comfortable question for Patrick, who managed to explain that the girls were telling me my cornbread was similar to a certain pleasurable physical sensation.  “Oh,” I responded with equal awkwardness, “well, isn’t that nice.”  Who knew?  And then, at the very end of my very hard week, I finally met two of those notorious food theives, Talia and Taylor, and their hugs and smiles and exhuberant passion for food made all the ugliness of this week vanish.  “Don’t you like your cook’s food?”  I asked.  And they told me that lunch EVERY DAY is Chicken with Shit on It.  “Chicken,” Taylor felt the need to elaborate, “and then some kind of shit on it.”  A different kind every day, but ever the same.

Home Made

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 | daily | 8 Comments

birthday-cakeI read Christie’s comment to my last post first thing this morning and it stuck with me for hours.  The part about the drive to make more cheap food.  What struck me is that there are people who have forgotten–or more likely never knew–that for humans, food is not just about filling bellies.  It’s about community and love and comfort and celebration and healing.  I was living in Dallas when Katrina hit and there were hundreds of New Orleans evacuees to feed at a local church.  They’d had days of bad Mexican food and while they appreciated the charity, they were restless.  So when it was my turn to choose a menu, I thought of the food of my childhood in Louisiana:  Roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes heavy on the black pepper, greens with smoked sausage.  And when I served that up, you could see it in their faces:  it wasn’t calories.  It was Home.  There was a time when people baked cakes for their little girls.  With flour and sugar and butter.  And they whipped egg whites and let their child watch the magic of gelatinous clear liquid turn fluffy white, which happened every single time and was never less thrilling.  And they frosted those cakes imperfectly, the way nothing out of a box or a grocery counter could ever match.

Consumer Demand

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 | daily | 3 Comments

derek-and-brandonDerek and Brandon got pressed into service breaking up peanut butter cups, one of the toppings for tonight’s ice cream social to benefit the Treehouse Foundation.  I came in on my day off to make the sauces–raspberry, caramel, and hot fudge–because it mattered to me that it be pure stuff–butter, sugar, vanilla, good chocolate.  And US Foodservice donated 9 gallons of premium ice cream.  Rod had agreed to $200 worth and suggested that his money would go further with Blue Bunny.  “But I have a reputation to uphold!” I protested.  “You know some of those houses serve cold spaghetti and a can of sauce for these things,” I said with horror, which only generated the practical-minded response that we could get a whole hell of a lot of that for the same money.  We have these debates a lot, as we did last night when I complained that the company has discontinued cambazola cheese, which I had just introduced to the guys and which they are nuts about.  “I’m showing we only moved two cases last month,” he emailed in explanation.  And it didn’t take a lot to figure out who the buyer was.  I fumed about it all night and thought they probably carry three kinds of customer-pleasing Cheez Whiz.  And so this morning I checked.  Not three kinds.  Only one.  And not in stock, but by special order, which gives me a little hope.

Speaking My Language

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 | daily | 6 Comments

mitch“That better be a damn good sandwich!” Zach  roared at me as he headed for the lunch table.  And it was, or at least Big Dick thought so as he derided Riley who preferred a bowl of Special K Berry, with all the strawberries meticulously picked out.  “I read the entire blog last night,” Mitch told me first thing this morning.  And frankly I think that should be required reading for all of the pledges.  Forget Divine Comedy.  Because then they would know that I’m not “intimidating,” as Patrick so delicately put it, but merely insane.  And they would understand that my favorites got to be that way by agreeing to be photographed and mercilessly mocked for a blog read by tens of people.  It was just an awesome day really, capped off by Casey introducing me to a prospective Spring pledge.  “He’s a food guy,” Casey explained, “and I told him you source all our meat within 50 miles.”  “Well not quite,” I corrected, “but I’m at least working on the humane part.”  “Grass-fed?” this new victim responded.  And I would have thought this was a thoroughly transparent attempt to trick me into staying on except that he kept the questions coming.  Not even my most well-versed guys have that kind of fresh food porn vocabulary.

Fakery

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 | daily | 7 Comments

zach-and-his-mulletZach wants French Dip for lunch tomorrow and I am not giving it to him.  Once, when I was very new at this job and naive and impressionable, I made the mistake of giving them what they ask for, but even then I did not understand this thing called French Dip.  Sad, limp slices of roast beef on a roll with a bowl of beef stock (if you’re super lucky and it’s not water-diluted MSG  paste).  But tomorrow I’m asserting my will, and so today I braised some Creekstone Farms beef shoulder in a tomato sauce for five hours and tomorrow, I’ll heat that up and serve it with baguette rolls and jalapeno mayonnaise.  What’s so sad is that, delicious and real as that luch will be, there will be those who just want a crappy Denny’s-style dried-up, over-salted sandwich that’s not just not French, but Not Actually Good.  I was feeling sort of glum and defeatist about all this, until Sunday when I received 2 emails (2!) from supporters and forwarded them both to Rod with the clear subtext:  See, I am not the only crazy bitch in this country who can tell the difference between food and fakery.

Winners

Sunday, February 7th, 2010 | daily | 2 Comments

daniel1I had a text seconds after New Orleans won the Superbowl.  “Who Dat?” it read and it came from Daniel who last week shared the news that he’s trying out for UW’s football team.  That he remembered I’m from New Orleans, that he thought to text me, that I was one of the first people to hear of his good fortune…well, if all the guys were like that, I would have nothing outrageous to say and it would just kill the blog.  Overall, it’s been a bad few days for this site, what with niceness breaking out all over the place–Brandon offering to take my garbage out three days in a row, Mitch behaving impossibly chipper despite midterms, and Blair offering technical advice in the most diplomatic way possible, when, after I’d spent three hours in a simmering rage, unable to access the internet and place my order, he leaned over and gently asked, “you wouldn’t have your wireless turned off, would you?”

Wanderlust

Thursday, February 4th, 2010 | daily | 2 Comments

brandon“Do you think we need a visa?” my husband asked minutes after I booked and paid for a Spring Break trip to Vietnam.  And yes, we do.  We’d been thinking a long time about where to go and it was as we were enjoying the sensual pleasures of Long Provincial restaurant on Second and Stewart that it hit us.  Vietnam!  So we applied and when I discovered this morning that someone from Ho Chi Minh City had spent 4 1/2 minutes reading Fraternity Kitchen, I realized that this satirical blog could be standing in the way of me and my visa to a fabulous exotic food-centric wonderland.  “Do they understand it’s a JOKE!” I lamented to Brandon, who assured me I was way over-thinking this.  “You’re not political,” Kirk told me flatly when I related the story to him, and then went on to tell me he’s never been anywhere outside the country.  ”Not even Mexico or Canada?”  I asked, incredulous.  ”Well, Canada,” he granted as if that wasn’t foreign, which just confirms every Canadian’s fear.

Common Sense

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | daily | 2 Comments

blair-and-carlosBlair and Carlos saved me from homicidal fantasies today when I found myself having to explain three times why dishes have to go upside down in the dishwasher.  Why, no, it is not okay to just dump the dirty, nasty dishwater out and call it a day.  “That’s just common sense!” I said to Blair (a master dishwasher), as I stood there wondering how nice it must be to be totally oblivious to such matters as hygeine.  I am convinced that the unbelievably dumb acts committed in this place are just acting out after a day of mental exertion in the classroom.  Because the person who’s made it all the way to Junior year could not possibly be the same person who unplugs the fridge to plug in the tabletop grill.  And leaves the former warming nicely while the latter gently melts into the lunchroom table all night long.

Whatever It May Be

Monday, February 1st, 2010 | daily | No Comments

badley-hoping1In the minutes before dinner was to come out, Daniel asked if I’d like to go to Formal and it would have been flattering if they hadn’t all laughed a little TOO hard.  I love these guys and it’s odd lately because I’ve told them I’m not coming back next year.  “It’s not personal,” I told Carlos, who shot back “I take it very personally!”  It’s professional.  A need to do something bigger than improve the food at one house.  Lately, I feel like I’m living 2 work lives…the one I’m paid to do, which is to put out 700 plates of food each week, and the one I’m not paid to do which is to help with an initiative to improve campus food in general.  “I’m crossing my fingers,” Badley told me when he announced some potentially big news, “I’m excited about the future,” he added, a real departure from the general gloom these days for kids his age.  “So am I,” I said, “whatever it may be.”

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