Somehow the end of the semester is only a few weeks away, which is crazy.  I can’t believe that my freshman year of college is almost over.  With the end of the semester, also comes the mad rush to use all my meal points.  It seems like everyone I know is either extremely low on meal points or has too many like me.  Even after reducing my meal plan, I think I am going to have to stock up on food from Louie’s to use up the rest of my balance.  But seriously, if you are running low on meal points, hit me up, and I can pay for dinner.

Because of my need to finish my meal points, I haven’t been venturing off campus too much lately to eat.  I did finally make it to Webster’s which is ridiculous that it took me this long in the semester to finally go there.  I ordered a honey latte which was surprising light.  The taste of honey made it very refreshing.  I am not a big coffee drinker.  If I drink, which is next to never, I add copious amount of milk and sugar.  In fact, my coffee is definitely more accurately described as milk with some coffee and sugar mixed in.  However, I didn’t find the latte too bitter, and I only added a touch more milk to it.  Even my coffee purist friend Gloria tried a sip, and liked it.

I also really enjoyed the atmosphere at Webster’s.  It was very relaxed.  I actually got a lot of math homework done while I was there.  The hum of conversation was just loud to give good background noise, but not loud enough for my attention to be diverted.  I only wish I had given Webster’s a try earlier in the semester, so I could try a few more of their drinks.  Their pastries and sandwiches also looked delicious, and it weren’t for my meal points that need to be used up, I may have eaten there too.

Going to Webster’s made me think of all the great places in State College that I want to go to before the end of the semester.  For one thing, I want to go Saint’s.  It’s a coffee shop that Gloria is obsessed with and sounds like it has a really cool décor and study-friendly atmosphere.  I would also like to go to Irving’s again.  I love their chai tea lattes, their smoothies, sandwiches, and bagels.  I really wish meal points were accepted here.  Plus, there’s tons of room at Irving’s to get studying done.  Of course, if you checked out my blog recently, you know Indian food is my new obsession.  I would gladly go back to either Indian Pavilion or Karma, too.

To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to any of these places before the semester ends.  There’s so little time and so many stinking meal points to use.  Still, even if I don’t make it, I can always look forward to these places for fall semester which I sure will arrive much sooner than I expect.  Plus, there are still so many other places in State College to explore.  It will just give me another great reason to look forward to my sophomore year in Happy Valley.

If you have read my blog recently, you may know that I have a new food obsession, Indian food.  I absolutely love it.  All the flavors and spices in each bite, I am hungry just thinking about it.  It makes me rethink the last nineteen years of my life.  Why did I never give Indian a try?  It’s absolutely delicious with a unique flavor like nothing I have never had before.  Since my discovery of my love of Indian, I have been craving it constantly.  My nearly constant cravings were abated a bit on Saturday when a group of friends and I journeyed over to Karma to get our Indian fix.

Last time, I tried out Indian Pavilion and loved it, but I was eager to try out Karma, and see which restaurant I preferred.  I also was looking forward to trying a new dish.  Honestly, I was really excited to try some more dishes.  I was, I swear.  I walked there with the full intention of trying something new.  Then, I got my menu, and my eyes immediately spotted chana saag.  Yes, that’s the dish I tried at Indian Pavilion and yes, I wanted something new, but it was just so good, and my mind was already picturing the delicious spinach and chickpea dish in front of me, so I ordered it.  I did ask for it medium rather than mild, but to be honest I did not feel like the dish was really spicier.

As for which restaurant ranks supreme: Indian Pavilion or Karma, more research must be done.  To be honest, as far as chana saag is concerned, it’s pretty much a tie.  It was absolutely delicious and mouthwatering from both places, but I fully intend to hit up both Pavilion and Karma again and try some new dishes, so I will have to try to get back to you on which becomes my favorite.

I have learned that I have no self-control when it comes to Indian.  I ate naan and saag until I was almost in a food coma.  I hadn’t felt that stuffed since perhaps Thanksgiving.  The thing about Indian food is it is pretty darn filling, but it’s just too good.  I eat through the pain until I am so full that walking is a bit of struggle.  I hope in the future to moderate some control when it comes to Indian and to find some more incredible dishes.

I love breakfast food.  I can eat it any time, any day, and all day.  So one of the things I miss most about home is a good-ole home cooked breakfast or brunch or brinner (breakfast for dinner).  I can’t seem to be able to get my fix of breakfast food at college.  During the weekends, I do my best to try to make it to brunch.  After all, it is my favorite meal that the cafeterias serve.  I load up my plate with pancakes or waffles.  I always try to get some type of potato whether its home fries, hash browns, or my own personal favorite scalloped potatoes, and of course, I heap serving after serving of fruit onto my tray until I have a perfect breakfast feast.  Brunch definitely assuages my craving for breakfast food, but I still find myself looking for a weekday fix.  Why can’t the dining halls serve brinner?

Now, I suppose the simple solution to this problem is to eat breakfast during the week.  But going to breakfast isn’t really an option, not when I have 8 AMs and 9AMs every day.  And I love my sleep too much to eat much more in my dorm than a granola or a protein bar behind I head off to class every day.

So it was in this breakfast-deprived mind frame that I went home last weekend.  It was Easter weekend, and the only place I wanted to be was with my family even if that meant leaving Happy Valley.  I loved waking up late on Saturday and feasting for hours on the most important meal of the day.  I started with some berries and banana.  Then, moved onto oatmeal putting in it tons of brown sugar, and finishing the meal off with a perfect blueberry muffin.  I was in breakfast nirvana.

For Easter, we generally have a huge dinner.  My mom spends hours in the kitchen getting everything ready.  However, this year was a little different since my parents were dropping me back at school on that same day.  So we ditched dinner in favor of my personal favorite brunch.  I ate my mom’s scrumptious blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, and more fresh fruit.  I loved being able to share Easter and my favorite meal of the day with my family before we had to hit the road.

I am craving breakfast food just writing this.  Perhaps, I’ll head over to Pollock for brunch this weekend.

College is supposed to be an amazing, exciting time in a person’s life.  But truth be told, my college life’s getting pretty predictable.  I follow the same schedule each week, I set my alarm for the same times, and I hang out and eat meals with the same people at the same places at the same times.  I even find myself choosing the same thing to eat every day.  There’s comfort in patterns, but it can also get a bit boring.

For those reasons, I was rearing for something fresh and new.  Who knew it would come in the form of service? Last Saturday, I helped out with the Schreyer Day of Service and had an unexpectedly good time.   I mainly agreed to go because one of my friends helped organize it and another was team leader on one of the service projects.  I decided to help out at the Shaver’s Creek Maple Harvest Festival.  It meant waking up to meet at eight in the morning on a Saturday, so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it all week.

Saturday morning arrived and our group of ten packed into a van and made the twenty-fiveish minute drive to Shaver’s Creek.  It was a cold morning, and I was nervous that I might freeze.  However, luck was on our side on this frigid Saturday morning.  Our group was assigned the pancake breakfast, meaning we got to spend a lot of time in the warm kitchen, could grab a warm drink at any time, and of course, had easy access to pancakes!

Normally, I don’t have too high expectations for pancakes, especially mass produced pancakes.  However, seeing as Shaver’s Creek makes maple syrup, I had a feeling these would be a bit better than the usual run of the mill pancake breakfast.  They definitely did their maple trees proud.  The pancakes were surprisingly flavorful.  They tasted like they were multigrain and had a slight grainy texture that contrasted well with the sweet syrup.

As someone who is raised in a maple-syrup only household, the maple flavored syrup in the dining halls just doesn’t quite fit the bill.  But Shaver’s Creek’s definitely did the job.  If you have never tried real maple syrup, I would highly recommend it.  However, I should warn you that you may become a syrup snob like my parents and refuse to eat the artificial anymore, and the real stuff is pretty pricey.  I also don’t know if the syrup that I ate was actually from Shaver’s Creek.  They actually produce less in a season than they use for their two day Maple Harvest Festival.  The rest comes from other local places, so whatever covered my pancakes was the real deal.

I actually had a great time helping out doing odd jobs like transporting ingredients from the kitchen to the grills outside where they were making the pancakes, doing dishes, and even cutting up butter to top people’s pancakes.  I also got to see the beautiful Shaver’s Creek.  I could not believe that so many trees were located so close to campus.  I would love to go back and do some hiking and exploring.  And of course, I would be more than eager to help out at next year’s Maple Harvest Festival and eat some more delicious pancakes.

Indian Pavilion

Last Tuesday, when a friend suggested Indian food for dinner, I have to admit it was not my first choice.  I had only tried Indian once before, and it was some time ago, so I had no idea what to expect.  However, I was definitely sick and tired of the usual, so I was game for trying Indian Pavilion.   I cannot express to you how glad I was that I gave Indian a try.  It was absolutely delicious.

When I looked over the menu, I was happy to find that there was a large amount of vegetarian options for me to select which makes sense considering the huge number of vegetarians in India.  However, soon my happiness started to decline into slight menu-panic.  What exactly was I supposed to order?  There were so many options I could feel my head start to spin.  How do you order dinner when you have no idea what anything is on the menu?  Thankfully, I had my more food-cultured friend Kristen to guide me through the selection progress.

With her help, I decided to go with chana saag which is a chickpea and spinach dish.  She assured me that saag was delicious, and I am a huge fan of both chickpeas and spinach, but I was still skeptical if I was actually going to enjoy dinner.  But then I took my first bite, and it was delicious, absolutely and completely delicious.  I scooped up my chana saag with plenty of delicious jasmine rice and ate away.  You would think that because both the texture of the saag and rice is fairly heavy that together they might just be too much, but it was the perfect combination of flavors.  I ate away at my entrée, hardly leaving a bite which is fairly impressive considering the richness of the food.

I have no idea the type or number of spices Indian Pavilion puts in their saag, but if I had to guess I would say a lot.  The food had such depth which was surprising to me considering that it was just chickpeas and spinach, but somehow the spices transformed these simple ingredients into something heavenly.  I ate so much that I felt quite content to roll over and take a nap for the rest of the night which of course I didn’t because I had homework.  Indian food is very rich and filling, but the flavors are so unusual and mouth-watering that I would recommend anyone to give it and Indian Pavilion a try.

I will without a doubt be eating at Indian Pavilion again.

P.S. Their naan and samosas are also delicious!

In college, birthdays sometimes get overlooked, especially when they are in February.  February is the last month before spring break when all the professors schedule their midterms and papers before the holiday.  And it’s the month of THON, and all the crazy work and fun that comes with that weekend.  As a result, sometimes friends’ birthdays seem to pass with next to no acknowledgment.  Case in point, my friend Lauren’s birthday happen to fall on the Saturday of THON.  It meant she got to share her day with thousands of students and kids in the BJC, but it also meant no birthday cake and no chance for anyone to sing her “Happy Birthday.”  Similarly, my friend Gloria’s birthday was at the beginning of the month, and we had barely sat down for dinner before she had to get up and leave to go to a club meeting.  On a side note, my birthday was also the Wednesday before THON.  Between all the birthdays, work, and THON this February was incredibly jam-packed.

So last Tuesday, my friends Lauren, Gloria, Angelina, and I decided it was about time to at least acknowledge the fact that we were now a year older.  Gloria suggested Cozy Thai which as a Thai food fan, I was all for.  As a vegetarian, I appreciated the vast selection that I could order, and that a vegetarian section was even located on the menu, so I did not have to go on a scavenger hunt to find what I could order on the menu.  Gloria and I both ordered curry, and Angelina and Lauren, both trying Thai food for the first time, ordered Pad Thai.  My Panang curry was delicious, and I eagerly ate every bite.  The curry only contained crushed peanuts, green beans, and tofu (or your choice of meat), but that combination plus the delicious creamy and slightly spicy sauce was heavenly over the jasmine rice.

Based on my friend’s appetites, I would wager that they thoroughly enjoyed their meals too.  Both Lauren and Angelina enjoyed their first Thai dishes, so hopefully the four of us can head over for some delicious Thai food in the near future.  Although Cozy Thai is a bit too expensive to be a regular stop, it is definitely a perfect spot for a belated birthday celebration.

Weirdly enough, I find that one of the things I miss most about home is grocery shopping which is strange because I was never a big fan of it in the first place. However, living in a dorm has made me miss simple things like how nice it is to take a shower without shoes and how wonderful it is to have a kitchen.

Now, I am one of those people who always some food in their dorm, namely cereal, but I miss the beautiful convenience that is my fully stocked kitchen at home.  A full refrigerator and pantry is truly a beautiful sight to see. And oddly when I think of the wonderful refrigerator at home what I miss most is actually just being able to open it up, and grab an apple or a clementine or some grapes. Yes, I, Alexandra Enion, miss fruit.

Because of the fruit-shaped hole in my heart, I was all on board to take the bus and journey out to Wegman’s last week with Gloria and Lauren.  While in the past I never really appreciated the art of grocery shopping, it is much different doing it on your own.  Carrying my shopping basket around, I felt like such an adult, at nineteen years old, I suppose I am one though most of the time I don’t feel quite like it.  I did my best to reign in my sweet tooth and pick up only healthy snacks for my dorm room. I grabbed carrots and grapes, picked up some almonds and yogurt, and even purchased some dried mango. Seeing as I didn’t leave the store with ice cream, cake, and/or a heap of candies, I would call the healthy food shopping pretty successful.

We even ate at Wegman’s which has a truly impressive amount of ready to eat food. You can get anything from soup and salad to pizzas and calzones to Chinese to Indian. I had sushi.   Althought it may be a bit random to try a grocery store’s sushi, it was only my second time trying sushi, and Gloria promised chopstick lessons. Honestly, it was pretty good. I only got a veggie version because I don’t eat fish, but it did not taste too “seaweedy,” and the vegetables tasted nice, crisp, and fresh. The chopstick lessons, on the other hand, were a bit of a disaster. I am going to need to practice that more. I even tried something that Gloria referred to as “Chinese ice cream.” It was actually some sort of cold dessert made from red beans.  Not bad, though the red bean texture did throw me because the dessert was sweet. And just as a warning, it tastes nothing like ice cream.
So now, appearantly I love grocery shopping. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of home or maybe I just like being able to buy my own food. Maybe I just miss having fresh food easily at my disposable. Whatever the reason, I know my first trip to Wegman’s will not be my last.

While Valentine’s day may be typically considered a date for couples, this year my THON organization Apollo decided to expand the holiday from the usual dinner date for two to well, thirty-two.  Yes, thirty-two of our members decided to spend February 14^th together at dinner at Rotelli’s.  Honestly, I think the people at Rotelli’s must have had a heart attack when we called in the reservation for so many students. They probably considered making such a large reservation on one of their busiest days of the year to be a gamble.  When a few of my friends and I walked in and announced that we were part of the Apollo party, I could actually see the relief wash over the hostess’s face as she exclaimed, “Thank goodness.”  Little did the staff of Rotelli’s realize, but they had no cause to worry.  We, Apollo members, are very prompt when food is concerned.

This was my first visit to Rotelli’s, and I had looked forward to a nice break from the usual all week.  The Italian menu was also a perfect way for our dancers to carbo-load before they would have to endure 46 straight hours of standing.  I had a hard time deciding what to order.  As a vegetarian, I am normally used to choosing from a fairly limited selection.  However, Italian restaurants with their many pizza and pasta options always throw me.  There are simply too many options.  I don’t understand how my meat-eating friends decide to order food at restaurants.  Eventually, I settled on baked ziti, a delicious classic and a personal favorite.

Before our pastas arrived, I first munched on a pretty standard salad and surprisingly tasty breadstick balls.  And yes, I refer to them as “breadstick balls” because they were in fact small and sphere shaped.  When our entrees arrived, I was thoroughly excited, but my first bite of my ziti was underwhelming.  The tomato sauce did not seem to have enough flavor, and I felt liked there was too much ricotta and not enough mozzarella in my ziti.  I should probably note that I am not a huge ricotta cheese fan, so this definitely affected my liking of the dish.

Despite the less than spectacular ziti, I enjoyed eating out with a huge group of friends and going somewhere other than a dining hall.  I would not rule out Rotelli’s in the future.  There were simply too many other exciting options on their menu that I am eager to try.  Plus, some of my friend’s dishes smelled and looked quite tempting and judging by their cleared plates, they would not object to returning to Rotelli’s either.

When I picture Brazilian food I immediately think of… actually I am pretty clueless about Brazil cuisine.  When I heard the dining commons were going to have a special Rio de Janeiro Street Party themed dinner, I have to admit that I was fairly intrigued.  It definitely sounded like a great way to break from usual routine of sandwiches, pasta, salads, and soups.  So today with a few friends, I headed over to Redifer’s dinning commons with high hopes.

As far as the authenticity of the food, I cannot really comment.  I already admitted to my ignorance concerning Brazilian cuisine.  However, there were plenty of Brazilian dishes and options to try.  As a vegetarian, my choices were a bit more limited, but I was fairly impressed by the selections that I still had.  I loaded my plate with fresh fruit and even tried star fruit which was cut into perfect star-shaped slices.   As far as the actual fruit, it was a little bland, but I think I might give star fruit another try.  They look too adorable not to eat.  I also tried a sweet bread with honey butter that was quite tasty, sweet without being overly so.

Along with the fruit and bread, I also stuffed my plate with heaps of rice mixed with black beans and what looked like a few varieties of peppers.  While I cannot say everything that was in the rice (I gulped it down too quickly), I highly recommend it.  The beans and rice were cooked nicely and the peppers provided just enough heat to add an extra flourish to the dish.  I even tried grilled pineapple which is surprisingly not very sweet but still quite flavorsome. 

To wash down all the scrumptious food, I continued with the Brazilian theme and tried the limeade which was tartier than I anticipated. Though refreshing, I did trade off drinking the limeade with taking sips of water to help mitigate the tartness.  Even the almost-overly chocolatey-chocolate truffles were a welcomed departure from my usual after dinner cookie. 

So thank you, dinning commons staff, I like being able to change up my diet every once in awhile, and I loved being exposed to a foreign cuisine.  I really hope the success of the Brazil dinner inspires more themed dinner nights in the future.

As I am sitting down to write this post, I do so without my usual enthusiasm.  Normally, I write practically as fast as my finger can type.  Anyone who knows me or has taken a look at this blog before knows that I really do have a passion for food.   However, food is honestly the last thing I want to think about.  I just returned from a marathon bake session for a bake sale tomorrow for my THON organization, Apollo.  The amount of brownie, icing, and cake I consumed tonight, all in the name of test-tasting of course, is sickening, even for me.  I feel an intense stomach ache coming on.  

Before the stomach ache set in, I really was enjoying myself.  A whole hoard of us gathered at a member’s house and went crazy making, baking, and tasting mix after mix of brownies, cake, and rice krispie treats.  We even made adorable cake pops that could be displayed at a fancy cake shop if I do say so myself. 

Tonight was my first experience with a bake sale.  They are definitely a tradition here at Penn State.  It seems you cannot walk downtown without running into one or more.  Tomorrow will be my first chance to try my luck at working the bake sale.  I will put my best salesperson face on and smile and sing to attract customers despite the fact that I will probably be freezing tomorrow considering the cold temperatures, snow, and wind.  But hey, I figure freezing to death is all part of the Penn State bake sale experience.

So if you happen to be walking down South Allen Street tomorrow, stop and make a purchase at the Apollo bake sale.  The money goes to THON, and I can personally guarantee that everything is delicious.  Believe me, I took my taste-testing duties very seriously.