Dining Hall Hacks: Spicing up Your Meals

Nicole Toler | ASP Mass Media Student Writer

  Who needs Food Network to stir your creative minds when you have the ASP Dining Hall and a hungry stomach? Students and faculty at the Advanced Studies Program challenge their palate with creative, original, and sometimes even disturbing medleys of different foods from the respected and delicious, St. Paul’s Dining Hall.  

  Many are aware of the world renown St. Paul’s froyo, but do people really understand all the different concoctions you can produce with simple (but tasty) vanilla and chocolate frozen yogurt?

  Let’s dive deeper into the aspects of what makes a unique dining hall hack.

  It’s a hot, humid morning and you are contemplating in front of the cereal bar for farrrr too long. You are blocking the traffic of half-asleep, hungry students over the difficult decision of getting a heaping bowl of Cocoa Puffs or a hefty serving of Corn Flakes. But what you’re really thinking about as the sweat drips down your face is the cold, refreshing frozen yogurt in the other room. Who says you can’t have both?

  I talked to Alana Ervin, a student in Law and Governance, residing in Conover 20.

  “The absolute best thing you can get at the Dining Hall that works for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a mixture of cocoa puffs and vanilla frozen yogurt” Alana confidently stated.

  Why settle for one when you can have them both? Alana says that her innovative masterpiece is best when it is mixed together into a bowl until it appears to look like cereal.

  However, if it is 12:45pm, you are rushing to beat the crowd at the Dining Hall, and you aren’t in the mood for a concoction of cereal and froyo, what do you get? You are sick of getting a simple salad and want to try something new.

ASP students enjoy their meals in the SPS Upper dining hall

  Grant Edwards, college counselor here at ASP and a decade-long St. Paul’s teacher, has plenty of tricks up his sleeve regarding food mashups.

  His favorite hack to create is putting spaghetti in his stir fry. To improve a typical salad Grant adds watermelon for a sweet yet sour taste. Also if you’re the kind of person who loves dipping raw vegetables, try mixing the hummus with the balsamic vinaigrette, another solid hack Grant enjoys.

  Grant adds that “Nutella inside a froyo cone is a pro move”, seconding another Interns creative hack.

  There’s always room for dessert, especially after a delectable plate of stir fry. Introducing the very popular, mouthwatering, toothsome dessert imaginal in the St Paul’s Dining Hall: The Froyo Cookie Sandwich.

  “Whenever there are cookies served in the Dining Hall, I put one cookie face up on a small plate, twist a heaping serving of froyo on top of that cookie, and place the top cookie over it to make a cookie sandwich.” says Marine Biology student, Kayleigh Doherty.

  Kayleigh was one of many to start the trend of this cookie sandwich. The idea started to catch on and many others began following her footsteps.

  The St. Paul’s Dining Hall offers a variety of incredible food that, with the help of ASP students and faculty, can be hacked to make a wondrous new creation or idea.

 

All photos courtesy of Nicole Toler