An ode to Owen Hall

This weather reminds me of 6 or 7 years ago while I was living in Owen Hall at Purdue (and no Tom and dad, Jeremy was not named after it). You would have to walk 15 minutes in this weather to get home from Lilly. By the time you got there all you wanted was some nice warm food. Well after dropping off your stuff in your room, putting on awesome penguin slippers, and gathering your friends you were off to the cafeteria at 11 for lunch.

The lady at the door who swiped your ID always had that same smile on her face. And I mean always. First thing you do in the cafeteria is grab an exponent to read if you happen to be alone or if you guys want to look over your horoscope. Then you get in line for some chicken pot pie, turkey and noodles, or something else really warm. After you got your main food (and didn't give them your dessert slip so you can steal 2 desserts later) you would go to the bar of food in the middle of the room. There were at least 2 potato options at every meal. Sometimes there would be 4 (mashed, fries, baked, and scalloped...depending on the leftovers from the night before). There were peas almost everyday and if there were mashed potatoes there would be gravy. Oh man I almost forgot about the corn casserole or the corn bread.....Let's be honest, I usually walked by the salad bar unless they had cottage cheese and applesauce.

Next you get your diet coke....which was awesome since it came from the fountain machine (best kind of diet coke). Then you eat. Then more diet coke. Then sometimes ice cream with sprinkles (if some hoodlums didn't steal the container) would come next. If you are lucky they would have the jello cake or scotch-a-roos. On those days you would steal more desserts and take them back to your room. Then of course more diet coke.

Dinner wasn't as spectacular except for "mom." She was almost always there to swipe you in and you would have long conversations with her. One time she even brought me a present.

Word got out how much I loved Owen's food and one of the people in charge came out to give me a cook book. It has a few of the awesome recipes they had. Corn casserole wasn't in there, so they printed me out their recipe. She even scaled it down so I didn't make 200 servings. Unfortunately I think the corn casserole recipe was lost one of the 6 times I have moved since then.

Point of this ramble is that I miss all the food options on cold days. So the other night I made chicken and noodles, mashed potatos, and peas. It just wasn't the same. Plus my "lunch" now is over several hours when I get a few minutes to eat while in the kitchen. Oh I miss Owen's food...which they closed down a few years ago so they could have centralized dining at Purdue.

This morning Jeremy and I took Graig to work. We hit a hot spot occasionally and it would get all the way up to -11. Then it would drop again. It is apparently going to ge to 9 degrees today when we go back downtown for dinner. I am very grateful that Jeremy doesn't have an older brother or sister so we can just take him anywhere without it being a big deal. In a few years it will be difficult IF we have more kids.