A Cornell Dining Experiment
Made with 100% Awesome. No Gluten. ‘Nuff Said.
Lunch yesterday was at the Ivy Room in Willard Straight. Normally I like to go with the burrito station, so I was wondering what I would find here without gluten. It took me very little time to find a quality bowl of rice noodles, chicken broth, tofu, and assorted veggies! Yum!
In our quest for gluten AND dairy free foods, we discovered that everyone needs to read the ingredient labels because gluten, especially, is an ingredient in everything from salad dressings to chicken stock to ground meat products. It’s not just in the obvious cookies, bread and pasta. Here, staffer Dagmar Ryan recommends 2 sweets that are labeled gluten-free, but are also dairy-free. Staffer Brian Santos and I read the label for turkey burgers. They were “clean”–no gluten or dairy.
Dagmar checks labels on sweets
Brian Santos shows me the label for burgers.
My turkey burger and fries turned into a patty, lettuce, mayo, NO bun, and NO Fries because the fries are coated with a flavoring that contains wheat/gluten.
No fries or bun for me–boo hoo.
Members of the “Gluten & Diary-free Team” and the “Vegetarian” team trying to have lunch and test the staff’s knowledge in WSH. What an eye-opening experience the 5 DAY experiment has been.
Levon Brewer, Susan Whitaker, & Therese O’Connor dine in the Ivy room on day 5.
Probably 7 different salad dressing are offered at the salad bar in the Ivy Room. Staffer, Tim (Smiley) Austin points out all the options. Can I have any of them? YES, all except the Sesame-Ginger dressing whose soy sauce contains wheat products. Keep smilin’, Mr. Tim.
Smiley points out all the dressing options that might work.
🙂
Staff member, Rodney Denard and student Alex tried to help me get a gluten and dairy free option from Rojo Grande in the Ivy room. Thanks, guys!
Rodney and Alex offer suggestions at the Mexican station.
Day 4
We decided to do lunch at Willard Straight Hall yesterday. We went in thinking that we were going to have a lack of options for gluten free food due to the fact that The Straight has mostly retail units. Boy were we wrong!
I had an amazing omlett, yes for lunch, with bacon!!! I did not know that the omlett came with toast; so you will have to ask for gluten free bread for your toast. I also had a bowl from the fusion station with peanut noodles and lots of veggies and chicken.
Brandon and Marie had some delicious looking salads. Brandon also got salmon cooked to order, as it was the special that day.
The staff at Willard Straight were more than happy to check if any of the indridents contained gluten.
On Wednesday, a few from our GF team, along with Susan Whitaker and Matt Cochran, joined us at Risley for a nice gluten-free dining experience. I enjoyed their popular stirfry with fresh vegetables, brown rice and sweet soy sauce. There were a few sauces to choose from and I wasn’t sure which were actually GF, but the stir fry attendant was happy to assist me. We enjoyed our meals together and a nice visit from Lorna, then topped it off with us each sharing a small piece of a GF brownie.
Thursday (today), Brandon took myself & Matthew Stockton to the Ivy Room which was a little more of a challenge to eat GF as their choices were somewhat limited to my liking. I chose their salad bar with a large variety of their accompaniments and housemade herb vinaigrette. It was deee-lish! I’m looking forward to visiting Becker House tomorrow, and wearing our GF t-shirts.
Today I had lunch in the Ivy Room. Enjoyed a Freshtake Kosher Corned Beef sandwich.
I know we were to eat the way of your diet on campus while on campus. Like others, I decided to eat my diet, Vegan all day for 5 Days. I tell the staff my diet and they ae very helpful. I am hopeful that they act this way with any special request. Today I went to Trillium for breakfast and Ivy Room for lunch. I ate oatmeal for breakfast and a salad with tofu for lunch. Both were more than satisfactory. I am going to go to N Star for dinner later this afternoon. If I remember, I will take a picture. Loving this! Gail
