Food for thought

This column would be easier to write if I were a terrible cook. I’d have the perfect recipe for my kind of opinion piece: throw in a hint of culinary mishaps, my last shreds of dignity, stir for thirty minutes, and voilà! You have a Pulitzer-worthy article in three easy steps.

Unfortunately, the truth is a little more complicated. On a scale of “kitchen catastrophic” to “kitchen comfortable,” I’d describe myself as “kitchen competent.” I may not be able to simmer a stew or fry a frittata, but I can zap a hot dog in the microwave with the best of ‘em. The fire department has never come to my rescue (to be fair, I didn’t call them) and the tips of my appendages are all intact (circumcision aside). So why do I eat takeout almost every meal?

Well, it’s a long story. Let’s start from conception... of a terrible idea, to be clear.

Columbia infantilizes first-years by requiring them to sign up for a dining plan. As an incoming first-year, I pictured the school as a Jewish mother, shoveling half a cow onto my plate and complaining about how skinny I am. I’ve since learned that the administration is more like an ambiguously related cousin, but I was young and naïve back then.

Full of enthusiasm and college spirit, I decided to sign up for the most comprehensive plan available: 19 meals per week and 75 Dining Dollars per term, plus 15 floating meals and 6 Faculty meals. (How is it possible to eat 19 meals per week if John Jay is only open twice a day? Beats me... but I digress.)

At first I enjoyed eating at a dining hall every day. It actually felt liberating. For lunch I’d load up my tray with a bowl of Apple Jacks, a glass of Diet Pepsi, and a giant cup of frozen yogurt. Dinners usually consisted of pasta with tomato sauce and a huge dollop of hummus as an appetizer. Perhaps, if I felt particularly daring, I’d spring for a stale sesame bagel. But such indulgences were few and far between.

Eight months and twenty pounds later, I found myself in a conundrum. A pickle, if you will. The end of spring term was a week away, and 30 meals and 150 dining dollars lingered on my account. Faced with these daunting numbers, I had two options: resign myself to the fact that I’d been ripped off by Housing & Dining... or go on a massive spending spree. Can you guess which one I picked?

I managed to salvage most of the money I’d sunk into my meal plan, but I didn’t feel great about it. Sure, it’s nice to swipe a homeless person into John Jay for a free potato au gratin. And I guess it was cool to ransack Barnard’s eateries till they had to ban Columbia Dining Dollars… actually, that was awesome. No regrets.

Still, though, something didn’t add up. So, I performed the one act I swore I would never do again: a back-of-the-envelope calculation. ($2,294 per term + a 10 percent surcharge for kosher food) ÷ (14 meals a week that I actually eat x 16 weeks) = $11.26 per meal. And that’s assuming I actually ate at the dining hall for every meal.

Then I compared that price to those at local restaurants in Morningside Heights. A sandwich at Milano? Eight dollars. A slice of pizza at Koronet? Four dollars. Getting a first-year to swipe you into Hewitt because they can’t finish their pre-paid meals? Priceless. Granted, these aren’t the healthiest options out there, but you weren’t saving calories on a dining plan either.

And, if you shop for ingredients instead of prepared food, you can probably save even more. Take a quick stroll to the farmer’s market, Westside, or M2M, and you can find some of the freshest organic foods in Manhattan (of course, “fresh” in New York is a relative term). You don’t even have to know how to cook. I like to invite friends over who get their thrills from naming the five-plus types of vegetables in their salad, and let them whip up the entire meal while I take my time with the potato peeler.

If all else fails, you can always just go to a dining hall and pay on the spot. You’ll only have to pay a dollar or two extra for not being on a meal plan, and there’s no risk of paying for a month’s worth of food you’ll never eat.

Still not persuaded to go off the meal plan? That’s fine. It’s not like I’m going to arm-wrestle you for it—I’m too weak from hunger.

Jeremy Liss is a junior in Columbia College majoring in English and comparative literature. He is the creative editor of The Current. Liss is More runs alternate Thursdays.