Episode VIII: Eating at E's

(And Elsewhere)

Of course it was only a matter of time until I had to write about food, and as it turns out, that matter of time was three months.

So I signed up for a KU meal-plan, which gives you a discount when you purchase on-campus meals in bulk. I purchased the cheapest meal-plan, which amounts to about three all-you-care-to-eat meals per week plus a bunch of credits accepted at on-campus food courts.

Mrs. E’s is my all-you-care-to-eat location of choice, because (a) it is by far the best one, and (b) it is the most convenient (as demonstrated in Episode II, it takes only five minutes to walk there). Technically the name of the place is Ekdahl Dining Commons, but I suppose the marketing directors decided that name does not sound particularly appetizing. And they are right. Thus it is called Mrs. E’s, which, although no one has actually seen Mrs. E, we figure the name must stand for “Mrs. Enormous”.

The online advertisement for Mrs. E’s boasts a “stunning” view, and in this case I found the ad to have been right on. The whole dining area features windows from floor to ceiling, and since the building is located at the top of a hill, one can see for miles (particularly beautiful when fall foliage is on display). The above photo is a panoramic picture that I constructed, showing about 270 degrees worth of the dining hall. The additional 90 degrees consists of the actual buffet area. While this picture may give you an idea of what eating there is like, I am afraid it does not do the scenery justice. But please do click on it to get a higher-resolution picture.

I notice that I eat quite a bit at Mrs. E’s, and one day I attempted to quantify exactly how much I ate, so I took photos of all the nutritional information displays, and created the montage seen below, with dots representing items that I ate.

As it turned out, that meal was worth 3,999 calories, consisting of 167g protein, 194g fat, and 484.7g carbohydrates. To give you a frame of reference, the FDA decided that a “normal” diet was either 2,000 or 2,500 calories a day. However, if you were to adjust the FDA’s Daily Value scale to my 3,999 calories, that meal would have given me 149% of my DV of fat and 81% of my DV of carbohydrates. Clearly, then, Mrs. E is putting me on a low-carb diet.

A final note: the most that I have ever gained in one sitting at Mrs. E's (on record, anyway) is 6 pounds.

Elswhere

Like I say, I only eat there around three times a week. Other times I eat at various food courts on campus, and some days I eat very little. One place on campus that you can always count on for excellent food is in the Kansas Union food court, where there is a special-order pasta service, in which you tell the chef exactly how to make your pasta, including the veggies, meats, noodles, sauces, cheeses, spices, etc. It is exquisite. However, it is a treat for me, since the Kansas Union is about a fifteen minute walk, and fifteen minutes of walking in the cold cold cold is not pleasant.

And…

Speaking of eating, our million-dollar-salary football coach weighs like 500 pounds, and the first time I saw him walking on campus, I wondered if he was even able clasp his hands together, due to his prodigious belly. Anyway, the point is, here is my favorite KU football shirt, hanging in a store window.

Finally...

Speaking of football, KU just beat their rivals (Kansas State) in their final home game of the year, and here is a video of their celebration. It is about 1 MB, so if you have a dial-up connection, it may take a while. Please tell me whether or not it works. Thanks.





They proceeded to take the posts out of the stadium and dump them in the lake.