June 26th, 2008

Working at the soup kitchen was a great experience! We assembled about 100 sandwiches (bologna + PB and J) along with soup, salad, fruit and cakes. Most of the food was donated, and the bread was frozen. We were disappointed to see bologna as the sandwich meat given its low nutritional profile compared to other meats, but when that’s all you have, it’s all you have. Some people had four sandwiches and soup and cake! I wonder if this was their only meal of the day, or if they were hungry for other reasons (or just eat a lot in general)?

I would definitely like to go back some more, especially if we can get a group of other nutrition students interested in going together, but the kitchen is small so it’s not really a great place for more than a few people at a time.

One man said about the soup : "I’d like some but without all the juice " Another woman was cute saying in a sweet Southern accent "Oh mye, this soup is juh-st dee-licious" and asked for more The soup was about 15 cans of tomato soup along with pork , beans and noodles of some sort.

Fruit cups and salad -

Cake!!

I snacked on some trail mix before we started to keep me from getting too hungry while passing out sandwiches. The PB&J, while made with squeezable jelly, JIFF and white bread, looked really yummy.

I didn’t know if we’d eat at the kitchen or not, so I didn’t bring a lunch . I don’t think it’s protocol to eat there, so after we were finished, I headed to EarthFare (!!) for a salad. It took AMAZING WILLPOWER to not sample things today. They probably had about 10 vendors set up. I tried one fizzy drink, but resisted the cheese, crackers, sushi, etc.

EarthFare has the most a-mazing BBQ tofu . I can’t even describe the texture - it’s almost like freeze-dried or something. Kind of empty in the middle? I am dying to know how they make it. And the outer crust is amazing as well:

Salad ingredients:

Mixed greens + spinach

Broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, carrots, zucchini, squash, cuc (just a piece of 2 of each)

Some strawberries + yellow watermelon (!?)

A stuffed grape leaf

Pinto beans

Sweet n sour cabbage

Cooked mushrooms + snap peas

Salmon (EarthFare also had the most delicious salmon. It’s extra fatty or something. Probably wild Alaskan at its finest)

BBQ Tofu

Raspberry low-fat dressing on the bottom

Feta cheese

Home now, working on paper, going to gym at 3:30 with a packed dinner, lab. Then 3 days of being a home-body!

Entry Filed under: Lunch