Why I Chose Grilled Cheese

Culture shock--when you don't know which line to stand in to order food.

Tonight I treated myself to dinner at The Coffee Shop at Earlham College, the undergraduate campus next to ESR.  Between burgers, chicken sandwiches, wraps, and other options, I decided on a wrap.   

The Coffee Shop is similar to PLNU's Point Break Cafe (now split between "Point Break," which prepares food, and "Bobby B's Coffee Co," which prepares drinks).  For starters, both are owned by Sodexho, and both have the oval "155°" sign hanging above their grills.  In addition, the workers at The Coffee Shop wear the uniforms PBC workers used to wear, maroon Polo shirts covered with black aprons, and black caps.  Plus, the guy making the sandwiches tonight looked like one of my friends who worked at the Peebs.

The difference, I discovered, is that if one wants a wrap, one must order it in the other line, just south of the line I was in, where you can also order Subway sandwiches.  So I waited in the Subway line, looking around the cafe.  Above me was a wooden loft with a computer, students sitting at tables and a lounge area with couches, and framed photos hanging on a wall.  In the center of the cafe, someone rotated in a round station preparing drinks:  fruit/ice cream smoothies, tea, coffee. 

During my first two years at PLNU, I worked at the PBC.  Making drinks was probably the most challenging task, especially during a lunch rush, when the line would extend beyond the cafe doors, almost into the bookstore.  The person behind the cashier would thrust you empty cups of various sizes and transparencies, and with hieroglyphs: 

S/B/PC
Y
W/C
Catherine

That, by the way, would have been translated into "Make a strawberry, banana, and pina colada smoothe with yogurt and topped with whip cream.  No, not ice cream--yogurt.  When you're done, put it on the counter and say loudly, 'Catherine. . . Catherine!'  And HURRY!"

The smoothies were easier than coffee, though.  At first, I could never remember how to make a shot, and once I did, I couldn't remember how many shots you needed, when to pour the shots in the cup, when to pour the hot milk, when to make the milk hot, how to make the milk hot, and what the difference was between an espresso, an Americano, a capucchino, and a double-shot decaf mocho latte Americano.  I eventually got the hang of it--after strange looks from my manager, Jon.

The grill was my main base.  That's where I learned how to tell the burger is ready to be flipped:  "When the blood is gathered in a circle about the size of a quarter," Jon said.  That's where I made salandwiches so good they took them off the menu, to keep people cliffhanging.  Also, that's where I learned to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

So tonight, when it was finally my turn to order, I changed my mind from a wrap to a grilled cheese sandwich, in honor of those days. 

"You have to order that over there," the worker said.  She pointed further southward, to a dark corner of the cafe with a cash register. 

I made my order, handed it to the guy who looks like my friend, he made the sandwich and said, "Grilled cheese!"  I thanked him and ate.  The Swiss cheese hung on as long as it could before being tugged off the sandwich.  There were no seats by the windows out which to smell the Pacific Ocean, but my booth was fine enough.  I'll get the hang of this.

Tree Maracas and Leaf Rain

Greetings from Richmond, Indiana! I am here now, attending the Earlham School of Religion. I've found warm welcome here, especially from people at ESR and my friend Dylan. In the picture of the rock band Pasifire below, you will see Dylan on the drums.

From left to right:
Josh, Jon, Dylan, and Jarel

Dylan has been a big help in making Richmond a home away from home (away from home). When I first arrived, he and his girlfriend Laura took me shopping for things you don't think you really need right away but end up being important--things like clothes hangers, shampoo, food. Dylan and I have also been able to jam some. I brought a 12-string guitar here, and it's been fun becoming acquainted with it beside Dylan on his cajon.

My first Sunday here, Dylan, Laura, and I spent the afternoon in Ohio at the Great Darke County Fair.  It was as crowded as PLNU's cafeteria at lunchtime.  I enjoyed the Wisconsin cheese curds, donut holes of warm fried cheddar cheese.  I was also exposed to elephant ears, an Indiana fried cinnamon-coated delicacy (don't worry, it wasn't a real elephant).  For a little while, we watched children competing by taking turns leading their cows around a track, with certain tasks the cows had to complete, like touching two walls and leaping over mounds and walking through a metal frame.

 Yesterday, Dylan and I drove to Fountain Acres Foods, an Amish market about 40 minutes north of Richmond. One side of an aisle is dedicated to spices--curry, cilantro, crushed garlic, chili, and hundreds more. The back of the store features apricot, blackberry, plum, strawberry, and about fifty other kinds of jam. One shelf sells tubs of peanut butter, but none you can find in San Diego: "Kickin' Hot Peanut Butter," one pretzel-stick swipe being about as spicy as an entire bag of Takis, and "Butterscotch Peanut Butter."  This reminded me of an idea Dylan and I came up with last October, when I last visited Richmond, the idea of opening a restaurant that prepares variations on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich theme.

 Richmond is on the eastern edge of Indiana (the green star in the picture). I live in a boarding house next to a Catholic church, along with eight other people, most of whom are also students at ESR.

I'm tempted to say it's quieter here than in San Diego, but Richmond has its own sounds. Right now about 30 squirrels are partying in the various trees in the neighborhood. They sound like maracas. Behind them, the crickets are humming, and behind me, outside the window, some bug is clicking. During the day, though, the wind blowing through the trees is louder than the squirrels' crawling around them. One foggy morning, on my way to school, I walked beneath a tree. For a couple seconds, I heard a shimmer of rain--but I saw no movement, and I felt no water. The sound had come from above, droplets from the high leaves tapping the leaves below.

 Last week, I was able to drink in the richness of Richmond's trees. My friend Will, another first-year student at ESR, and I rode our bikes down the Cardinal Greenway. We stopped about 10 miles in, but the entire path goes north about 60 miles from Richmond to Muncie, Indiana. During the beginning, we were walled in by trees, and before us was a flat road of smooth asphalt with soggy leaves glowing in torn pieces of sunlight. We biked by a lake, and ended up between soy fields on our left and corn fields on our right. One day we'll bike the whole way. 

The attentive reader may ask, how did you obtain your bike? Earlham College, the undergraduate campus across the street from ESR, has an annual auction for abandoned bikes. The auction was intense, but I was able to wrestle for my blue horse for a favorable cost.  The bike co-op at the college has helped me fix it up.

I'm thankful for the adventure of being here, and also for my family, church family, and friends, who have supported and encouraged me.

Until next time, I will close with the words of a good friend:
"Indeed and absotutely!"