Fink Gets His Second Chair

Hollander and Hume began the scheming in the spring. With the closing of the Faculty Eatery, there was significant concern for the effect on Fink. With judicious planning, they managed to secure his chair from certain demise. During a college wide faculty meeting on Wednesday, it was ceremoniously presented.

Rest In Peace

My Last LATFC

I didn't realize it at the time, but earlier this week I ate my Last Faculty Center Lunch. It consisted of a turkey sandwich with lettuce and cheese, a bag of baked Lays, and water with lemon.

Fittingly enough, it was unremarkable.

The Last Lemon Bar

Tomorrow our ritual dies. There will be no more Faculty Eatery. The
oak panelling will no longer absorb the odors and laughter.

With great trepidation, with great desire for a bit of joyful closure
I selected one last tin of lemon bars.

I finished my meal (not bad, if you've ever enjoyed salt cod) and
creaked open the plastic. A fork slid in ... and was repulsed. As if
it had hit rubber.

I dug deeper, I raised the cakey substance and bit in. A chemically
midness with an acrid finish.

Alas, the last lemon bar was unedible and left to be swept away with
the day's debris.

My time here is done. Burritos from Tate or fried pickles from the
Blind Pig call.

Two weeks

With just a few days left, I have decided to reenter the Lemon Bar Fray.

And, based on today's offering, I am okay with them closing.

And soon.

Twelve!!!

Only 12 meal days remain at our favorite dining establishment. The place closes, supposedly forever, on May 8.

May 8!!!

On that day, everyone (yes, that means you) is expected to give TFC a fine send-off. Heck, it's meatloaf/fried chicken day. What more could ya want? Er, yeah ... lemon bars ... sorry, they're not normally found on Fridays except in a less-than-lemony-but-somewhat-stale state. Maybe we can buy some earlier in the week and bring 'em in.

What else happened on May 8?

• The first Westminster Dog Show was held (1877)
• VE Day (1945)
• The Wounded Knee occupation ended (1973)
• The Citadel graduated its first female cadet (1999)
• The Faculty Center closed forever (2009)

May 8

LATFC will end Friday, May 8. I learned this from a nice email from J. Michael Floyd, executive director of food services at UGA.

Below, some info on the new place:

The new faculty/staff/student cafe operation in the new Tate renovation named "The Taste of Home Cafe" will be open prior to the beginning of Fall semester. At this time we have not finalize this date yet. There will be two food operations opening in the new Tate center- "Tate Cafe" and the "Taste of Home Cafe".

The Taste of Home cafe will feature recipes that we have received over the last 21 years from student's parents for our Taste of Home special event in the Dining Commons.

More later on plans to commemorate the final meal at our favorite faculty center on the UGA campus that is located across the street from Grady and serves lemon bars a couple of times a week.

Email Response -- Not

I emailed the food services folks to ask what the final day of the Faculty Center would be. That was a week or so ago.

Still no response.

Either they don't read email, they don't respond to email, they don't know, or they don't care. But some of us do. It'll be a going-away party for the place, a last chance at Zen of Lem(on), an opportunity to sit and dread having to eat in a mall-like food court with (gasp!) students, spending way too much money for lunch.

I'll email someone else at the food services mother ship this week and try to get a last date. Some reports have it June 1, end of Maymester, but they might sneak it in at the last day of Spring semester and not tell us. That'd be the UGA way.

Stay tuned, LATFC fans. Once we know the day, party planning begins.

BDC

Two of the three members of the BDC (best damn curriculum?) committee were present today at LATFC (along with Hollander and Russell).

Johnson, a proud BDCer along with Hume, passed on the lemon bar. After having the perfect bar last week he didn't dare risk having another. Good thing. I found the bar lacking and Russell ate only one of the two generously provided in the clear plastic case. The leftover may escape and become a free range lemon bar.

Some talk of a Grady Recipe Book, and how lemon bars will deserve their own chapter.

BDC actually stands for Bile Distillation Committee. It's a long story.

You Should Have Been There

Perhaps, in all honesty, the finest lemon bar I have ever had. It had a pastry-like crust topped with a smooth, tart lemon filling and was then lightly washed in powdered sugar. 

It was elegant.

No Flying Chairs

LATFC today. Sitting nearby, soon-to-be-infamous basketball Coach C. No chairs thrown. Or spinach. Tickets still available when he kinda sorta coaches the UGA women's basketball team to victory over LSWho.

LATFC meets Twitter

Read on Twitter today:

Dear Faculty Center: running hot water over the green beans does not qualify as cooking. Just fyi.

Web 2.0? Fergitaboutit. This is FacultyCenter 2.0.

No LATFC for Me

Met wife unit at Siri Thai for lunch. Pad duck basil, spring roll & soup as appetizers. Oh so good.

Cornbread and Chili

Had chili and cornbread. Hume ate sandwich of unknown make. In honor of my cornbread for lunch:

The Last Semester

Today we gently broke the news to Prof. Fink that the Faculty Center will close. While he showed no tears, his pain was obvious. Or maybe that was the Lima beans. Hard to say.

Johnson knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows Rachael Ray, or at least says he does. She may be the world's most reviled chef, as one article suggests, but that makes her perfect to review LATFC. After a guest post like that and the closing down of the place, we can put this blog down like a bad dog.