First of all, I have to own up to a couple of mistakes from my last article. In my disparaging comments concerning the anti-alcohol propaganda I saw in the Dining Hall lobby I used the abbreviation “L.C.T.U.” and said for my readers to “look it up”. It should have been “W.C.T.U.” which stands for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Don’t look it up. They were an early group of nannies who rammed through the prohibition of alcohol sales in the United States. I was also called to task for calling our president “the Social Worker in Chief”. I may have been wrong. After further research, I couldn’t find any reference that he ever worked as a social worker. He was, however, a community organizer, whatever that is, in 1985. I will therefore refer to him in the future as “The Community Organizer in Chief”.

Now to get to this week’s topic, Sodexo. I have heard a monumental amount of whining about the service they offer. I wish to say that you folks have no idea how good you have it. I must state that though Drew D’Angelo, a Sodexo manager type, and I share the same last name we have no known familial relationship. No money changed hands. No quid pro quo [look it up] offered or accepted.

During my last tour of study, I was a dorm resident.  Like today the food was plentiful, BUT it was bland. If you liked cold cereal with milk breakfast was tolerable, and usually preferable to the hockey puck pancakes, rubbery fried eggs with yolks the consistency of ping pong balls or the french toast that could be weaponized after sitting under heat lamps for an hour and a half. The worst of the morning selections was the scrambled eggs. When I look at the outside brickwork of the dining hall I could swear that the mortar used was a congealed version of recycled 1960s scrambled eggs. The last time I had breakfast in the Sodexo Dining Hall, I had an omelette cooked to order that was light and fluffy with a toasted and buttered bagel. Game goes to Sodexo.

My undergraduate lunches had cold sandwiches that remind me of a line from the comedy, The Odd Couple. When offered the choice of “brown sandwiches or green sandwiches” one of the actors asks “What are the green sandwiches?” The reply is, “Either very new cheese or very old meat”. Enough said. The warm dishes ranged from adequate, such as chili or soup, to wretched, in the case of the Swedish meatballs. They were so bad that the State Department got a telegram from the Swedish consulate in New York City asking that the dish be renamed. They were renamed to “Scandinavian Meatballs”, which added Denmark, Norway and Finland to the list of insulted countries. So much for lunch. The last lunch I had at the Sodexo Dining Hall included a selection of soups, fresh fruit, a choice of Chinese or Italian dishes and as a continuation from breakfast a cooked to order omelette. Set goes to Sodexo.

I have to thank my old man to explain the dinners we had. He and my Mom were travelling from Rochester to Maine for an extended weekend vacation. They left right after dad got out of work and visited me around dinner time. We had dinner at the dining hall. Dad’s comment went right to the point. “It reminds me of the Army,” he said. “Do you mean the mess halls?” I asked. “Nope, Bastogne,” [Google it] he said with finality. Game, set and match to Sodexo.

Are there things that Sodexo could do better? Absolutely! Trays would be nice. Have you ever tried to carry soup, salad, soda, sandwich and cutlery all at once? A Cirque du Soleil juggler couldn’t do it. The Stir Fry area doesn’t have a pork dish. What is Chinese food without pork? I was told that this was because there were students on campus who did not eat pork for religious reasons. That’s fair enough. I respect that. But Sodexo here’s a hint, buy a $30 electric fry pan or grill and use it to make stir fry with pork exclusively. That should keep the main grill uncontaminated by pork particles and fat. Jewish and Muslim students are happy. Pork-centric students [like me] are happy and everybody wins.

So my gastronomically dissatisfied young friends, I strongly suggest that you cut Sodexo some slack. Is it home cooking? No! Is it fine dining? No! They serve thousands of meals daily professionally, quickly and competently. They are “Denny’s” on steroids.