An entertaining, mostly non-academic lunch with Acosta-Alzuru, Fink, Hollander and Hume (delayed by committee meeting, which is darn close to "delayed by death"). 

Lots of talk of apples. Preferred apples, heirloom apples, saving apples for later, the best age for apple trees and the heartbreak that an apple tree will put you through. (Fink, mostly, on that last one.)

Things we learned:

• Fink believes apple trees do best along treelines
  
• If a tree splits and the branches spike into the ground, they can root and continue to grow
  
• Apples are not grown in Venezuela, and all those imported are "red"
  
• Johnson prefers Empire apples, occasionally available at Publix now (which the author knew, being Johnson himself)
  
• Hollander ate some sort of small, sour green apples as a child (no comments, please)
  

Lemon bar update: I failed to comment on last week's lemon bar which was, perhaps, the finest lemon bar I have ever consumed at the faculty center. It had a nice, sponge-cake like consistency with wafting overtones of lemonicity. Far superior to the gelatinous creations we consumed last semester.

This weeks again had a decent consistency, though perhaps slightly more dense than last weeks, but had hidden pockets of lemon situated quite far from the edges. Some discussion on how they managed to center the lemonicity in a bar cut from a pan. 

Convention(al) Lunch

Large crowd today, the featured topic -- the Democratic National Convention. Much Obama love at the table, some discussion of Kennedy's appearance. And then came the role of women. Hollifield criticized the party's apparent insistence on a "shut mouth spouse wife" instead of letting a woman like Michelle Obama speak her mind.

I'm not capturing the full flavor of the vent, its colorful language and passion and hands tossed about in complete abandon. Shoulda had a video recorder.

Oh, an average day for food. Had rosemary potatoes and other stuff I no longer remember. Edible.

Of Iceless Water

Thus begins a new academic year for LatFC, a lunch without ice for drinks. Push and push the button. Sound, but no ice.

The water tastes kinda funny without ice, which begs the question: does ice mask a funky, kinda stale taste in the water, or does a lack of ice change the taste? The only way to answer this, experimental methodology fans, is to drink water without ice when ice is actually available. Updates coming soon in a top-tier peer-reviewed academic lunch journal.

Lunch today starred Department of Telecommunications Czarina Ann Hollifield, Department of Journalism Future Czarina Janice Hume, and newbie Kristen Smith, who teaches graphics in AD/PR and plagiarized my lunch of pasta, spinach, and a piece of pound cake. Discussion focused on students and instructors who plagiarize coursework and lunches, and the best penalties for both. Hollifield praises the university's formal process, I spoke up for a more informal, corporal punishment.

Ah, it's good to be back. But where the hell was Johnson?