I never thought I’d end up as one of them. The Bag People. They stuff apples into their bags, hoard take-out boxes and run past Gail with distinctly shifty demeanors. I mean, sometimes I dress like a bag lady, but I don’t actually want to be one.

That all changed one fine day in the Ratty. I saw one of my best friends frantically spooning tomato sauce into a water bottle in the Tastes of the World section (which, in Ratty-speak, signifies a loose interpretation of Italian food).  Oh god, she’s finally lost it, I thought. We all saw this one coming.

But no. She was using it for pizza sauce. Free pizza sauce. FREE!  My dignity surrendered to my inner cheapskate, and with my friend’s Obi-Wan-like guidance, I have become a well-seasoned Ratty kleptomaniac. And if you want to be further enlightened, I offer you helpful vegan nuggets of Ratty wisdom after the jump, inspired by very my own Ratty kleptomania.

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The Beast

Staff writer Jason Hu decided to try the Ratty Challenge last Saturday for science and shitsandgiggles. To read the first half of his journey of self-discovery/self-loathing, click here. 

3:30 – 4:30: Everything is sticky

I feel gross. After too much time in the Ratty, or any dining hall, you are covered with a thin layer of sticky. Grease? Aerosolized onion rings? The accumulated BO of a few hundred college students? Who knows? Either way, I feel like the Ratty tables. I never thought I’d learn how to empathize with a piece of furniture.

I went outside and it smelled funny: I couldn’t tell whether it was because I was smelling fresh air or because it smelled funny.

It’s like being at the CIT too long.

Either way, I’m going to go start homework. Eventually. Maybe.

Things overheard: “Sober at the Ratty buh, buh, buhbuhbuh.”
One conversation which went through cafeteria Judaism, reasons for vegetarianism, and Chinese imperial history.
“I didn’t know they had cities in Africa!”
“Would you rather give up all cheese or oral sex for the rest of your life?”
“Lana del Rey might be a drag queen.”
CS22 Problems finished: 2.5
Orgo progress: 0 percent
Food quality: 8/10 (Eggplant Parmesan and Black Bean Patties? Yes please!)
Cumulative bathroom breaks: 3
Duration I’ve had “We Are Young” by Fun stuck in my head: 27 minutes [Read more →]

It’s time for the challenge.

No, not the cinnamon challenge, or the saltine cracker one, or even the SciLi challenge. Trust me: Those posts would end poorly for everyone (mainly for me, who would be moaning “oh god, the humanity” while rolling on the floor).

It’s time for the Ratty Challenge: spending all day in the lovely Sharpe Refractory with nothing but me, my homework, and lots of creeping people-watching to pass the time. What will I learn? Life lessons? Organic chemistry? The secret recipe for those black bean patties?

Probably none of the above. Oh well, at the very least I’ll steal a bunch of fruit.

7:30 – 8:30: Overslept

So … I’m off to a good start. Groggily hitting the alarm on my phone, rolling out of bed, —what is this, a class? Touché, Ratty. Touché.

All points considered, though, I think I’m doing pretty well for a weekend. I don’t see you waking up early on your Saturday morning for the sake of dicking around journalism.

Ratty: 1 Jason: 0
Homework completed: 0 percent

8:30 – 9:30: Breakfast alone

There’s nothing wrong with eating alone, but of all the meals, I think breakfast is the most socially acceptable meal to eat alone.  If you’re sitting by yourself with a bowl of Cocoa Puffs (I see you, guy in sweats and using chocolate milk as milk) and stare pensively off into the distance, people assume you’re planning about conquering the day and thinking big life questions like “Who am I?” and “Why isn’t the Blue Room blue?”

They totally don’t know you’re pondering what kind of cats you want when you grow up.

Completely unrelated though, that cute guy who always serves you a sandwich in the Blue Room walked in. Be chill Jason, ‘cause breakfast at 9:15 is totally an appropriate time to try and pick up guys.

Battery left: 80 percent
Homework completed: 0 percent
Time spent online: 32 minutes (15 minutes tumblr) [Read more →]

In response to our and others’ criticisms of Brown Menu last fall, the site’s owners have implemented a complete revamp. It now looks sleeker and, more importantly, lets you to sign up to receive text and/or email notifications when BuDS is serving your favorite items. Just register for the site and start favorite-ing menu options by clicking the mouse-over heart icon that appears next to each item. The site also now has a tight favicon.

With God as my witness, I will never again miss another Gnocchi alla Sorentina dinner. In this blogger’s eyes, BrownMenu.com has officially moved up from FlogDailyHerald to (Campus)Lifehacker status.

Is the Ratty rolling out the big guns tonight in response to today’s presidential announcement? (Or is the opposite true?!) This all seems a little too coincidental.

In case you don’t know what canapés are.

Last year on St. Patrick's Day, the Ratty had decorate-your-own cupcakes.

It looks like the Ratty is having a Valentine’s Day special, as the desert listed for today’s lunch is “Decorate Cupcakes and Cookies.” Yum!

Image via.

Alright, we take back everything we’ve ever said about the Ratty.

Make your way down to the lovely Sharpe Refectory for fruit tarts, piña colada and s’mores cupcakes, tiramisu, and vegan strawberry and Oreo cheesecake. We’re lovin’ this more than Blue Room focaccia and V-Dub CFF combined.

Why? Just ‘cause.

Sure, the plate might be the same beige ceramic and the slice might not look like anything special, but today the pizza artists at the Sharpe Refectory (in a moment of gourmet splendor, it sheds its Ratty nickname) have truly outdone themselves. BBQ Chicken Pizza premiered to little fanfare (not even a mention on the BDS site?) beyond the grease pen on the sneeze guard, but what it lacked in promotion, it more than made up for in taste. In fact, the pizza was so surprisingly yummy that my dining companion exclaimed with unbounded joy: “This might be one of best things the Ratty has ever done.” Three major components distinguish this pizza from the Ratty’s previous offerings:

1. Doneness: this might be the most perfectly cooked pie ever to come out of a salamander — the crust is super crispy, with bits of deliciously burnt cheese on the upper crust and a nice, brown undercarriage. In the toppings department, the chicken, cheese (possibly a mix of cheddar and mozzarella) and sauce on the body of the slice remained pleasantly warm but not too hot or overdone.
2. The Sauce: while you can definitely taste the corn syrup, the barbeque sauce is tangy, slightly spicy, and, while definitely lacking that familiar molasses taste, not too much worse than the pizzeria equivalent. Moreover, the sauce gets distributed like normal pizza sauce rather than in a spiral, so you get the BBQ flavor in each bite.
3. The Chicken: what really sets this Ratty pie apart from even the most revered pizza joints is the chicken-to-slice ratio. Not only are there a few large chunks of white meat on almost every slice, but the chicken is not unpleasantly dry or chewy like its Thayer St. counterparts at Nice Slice and Antonio’s.

If the Ratty continues to roll out new pizzas like these, we might have to add The Pizza Principle to our comprehensive list of meal plan taos. As far as we know, this bad boy is available through dinner — so don’t let it slip by you!

If you’re feeling particularly gratuitous and/or generous today between 12 and 2 pm, stop by the Chancellor’s Dining Room in the Ratty and leave Ruth Simmons a video message at the “Ruth Booth”…. and maybe donate some money to the Annual Fund, too. This is a great opportunity to show Ruth your appreciation, wear your T(ruth) t-shirt and let her know how much of a boss you think she is. Representatives from the Brown Annual Fund will be standing by to provide information and answer questions about the Million Dollar Milestone: A Record for Ruth. If the fund gets a record-setting 34,317 donors to make gifts this year, the Corporation has promised to contribute an additional $1 million.  

Image via.

Tao — “the way.” The notion’s metaphysical vastness is alarming. “The way” to what? Taoism, an Eastern belief system, would contend that it is “the way” to best interact with and understand nature in order to lead a happy life. But college students consider “the way” pretty often, too. “The way” to get “the right” level of intoxicated. “The way” to check BlogDailyHerald in a 10-person seminar. “The way” to get a high-paying good job after senior year. Someone’s probably even pondered “the way” to avoid yielding to cars at Brown and Waterman. There is one question, however, that almost every Brown student contemplates at some point in his/her undergraduate education: what is “the way” to best utilize the meal plan? Everybody has his/her own answer to this all important question, but BlogDailyHerald will offer some insight on the pros and cons of meal plan taos after the jump.

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