Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Countless studies have shown that a healthy breakfast greatly increases everything ever. However, I hate breakfast. My three meals a day are lunch (Statler wrap), dinner (House Chef Mario) and snack time.
As a kid, my snack time came right before bed time, but in college, with an industrial kitchen at my disposal, snack time can be so much more. It normally starts around 10:30 p.m. My friend Brett will bang on my door and ask, “Snaaaaaaaaack?” Thus begins a daily one-hour debate between all of my friends about what and where to eat.
If it is early, I immediately push for getting in the car and going out. Don’t get me wrong, cooking snacks is great. But in my mind, the debate between going out and staying in is a no-brainer. Eating out for a snack is a great way to relax, reflect and eat tremendous amounts of food.
If you do decide to stay in, nothing is better then my ultimate sandwich, which doubles as an ultimate hangover cure and ultimate diet destroyer. Toast two pieces of white bread: the less healthy, the better — ideally they should be closer to pound cake than to wheat bread. Fry an egg and microwave some bacon (trust me on the egg). Then, take three slices of any and all meats available (except ham) and microwave them for a small amount of time. Eat one of each of the slices after they are out of the microwave. This sandwich takes so long to make that it requires a mid-preparation snack.
Cheese is a personal call, but coach (a.k.a me) suggests two slices of provolone on top and one slice of muenster buried somewhere between the meats. Assemble all the ingredients on the toasted bread with lettuce, tomato, spicy deli mustard and A1 steak sauce. Slice diagonally and munch down. Congratulations, you just made the best sandwich ever.
Recipes aside, I love to go out at snack time, and nothing beats a super-charged midnight Burger King run. The King has it all; you can make fun of the commercials and eat enormous amounts of disgusting food. “Oh, but I’m Kosher,” you might complain. I will demand you get in the car anyway and order up a midnight fish sandwich.
The night manager looks 14-years-old, but I know he’s been working there for three years, and we have a great relationship. Our normal interaction goes like this: I order and pay for food, he lets me refill my large soda as many times as I want, with no charge. Added bonus: Dane Cook jokes go over really well in the Ithaca BK Lounge, trust me.
Don’t want to shell out your hard earned snack dollars to multi-national corporations? Well, good news, the Short Stop Deli downtown is open 24 hours a day. You can get that same exact sandwich I described before, and add two of the most delicious cookies ever for just 75 cents. The sandwich takes a long time to make, and there isn’t a slot for putting an egg on top, so while I’m waiting I enjoy a small chili.
On my girlfriend Jess’ suggestion, I mix veggie chilli and beef, because, according to David A. Levitsky, nutrition, meat should only be used as a condiment. Parenthetically, if meat is a condiment, it is by far the best condiment ever.
For me, the downside to Short Stop is the price. I eat so much when I go there that I rack up insanely high bills. That’s why I joined the MVP club, so every once in a while I get some free goodies.
If you live on North Campus and don’t have a car, the best place to go out is obviously Bear Nasties. This freshman hotspot doesn’t have it all, but it does have some good stuff. If you still have Big Red Bucks from first semester carried over, make sure to try out some classics like the Entenmann’s Ultimate Super Cinnamon Bun (real name). To get an idea of how delicious this thing is, the serving size is half of a roll, and containes 340 calories.
Not in the mood to eat only moderately unhealthy? Try a sandwich so unhealthy that even I have never made it. Ingredients: pound cake, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. Seriously, somebody try it: this sandwich has been labeled under hypothetically possible in my mind for too long.
You can also order hot food at BN of course. You have to watch out when it gets crowded, or someone will sneak up and steal your food when they call your name. I always stalk the counter because nobody steals my Five Star sub … nobody. The best part about Bear Nasties for me is that I can charge the food to my Cornell card, a bill that somehow magically gets paid, meaning I never have to worry about. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
For some reason, I didn’t think of putting fake and hilarious names on the slip until the end of last year when somebody wrote Comet as their name, and the lady had to scream it out. Comet, I don’t know who you are, but I stole your cheese fries, and I am truly sorry.