"Today I am here with my good friend Glory, and we want to talk about food and some other food-escapades we’ve been on and kind of let you know what’s good here at Appalachian."
Transcript
Laurie: Hi, I’m Laurie Pope and this is AppX. Today I am here with my good friend Glory, and we want to talk about food and some other food-escapades we’ve been on and kind of let you know what’s good here at Appalachian. So Glory, tell us your favorite place to eat on campus here.
Glory: I’d have to say my favorite dining place would be Central. That would be the biggest dining area. We’ve got Chick-fil-a. We’ve got the Sub Shop, pizza, pretty much everything you need is in Central Dining Hall.
Laurie: Central has more options than anywhere else. There’s even a pizza place where you can get pizzas delivered to you on campus, which is pretty cool. I remember my freshman year up in App Heights we would spend Saturday nights watching movies and we could order it from our meal plan. They have themed nights also in Central.
Glory: Tuesday, there is a barbecue plate, which you get two barbecue sandwiches, fries and a drink. So if you like barbecue, do that. Cause it’s like local, really good barbecue. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Laurie: They also have B for D, which is short for Breakfast for Dinner, of course, and those are the best nights. You can get eggs, bacon, sausage, everything, and it’s so cheap.
Glory: My favorite I think is the Wraps upstairs. You can make pretty much any burrito wrap you can dream of up there. They’ve got banana and peanut butter with like raisins. They’ve got a vegetarian one that I really like. I didn’t think that I’d like the vegetarian one but it’s got like hummus and guacamole and it’s super, super good.
Laurie: It’s really not weird to go and eat by yourself in these places. You can take your book and be studying or listening to music.
Glory: It’s socially acceptable.
Laurie: It’s socially acceptable. Every table is almost like a banquet table so you’ll find yourself next to other people. It’s a good way to meet people, make friends. One time, I was in class, and I got a text message from someone that was like, eat lunch in Central Dining Hall today. I went with a couple friends, and suddenly in the middle of the meal, one people got up and started dancing to themselves. Then suddenly the person next to them, and the person next to them did the same, and then some guy stood up with a boom box and started playing music. It was a flash mob of dancers. There was a group of older people as well and they looked totally baffled. They had no idea what to do or what was going on. They were like, is this normal? Does this just happen?
Glory: My freshmen year, I was in an A capella group and we decided it would be a good idea if we flash mobbed. We weren’t very good, so we all just started singing but we didn’t know if we should stand or sit, so we just sat there and sang. Everybody was looking at us with this face like “What the heck are these people doing right now?” So just be prepared there might be a few flash mobs with dancing or singing. You never know.
Laurie: You never know which caliber of flash mob you might encounter. That’s funny, I wish I had been there for that. But I also, I don’t. Maybe just as a spectator.
Glory: Scarred me for life.
Laurie: So another thing about eating, especially when you are first getting there as a freshman and you may not know a lot of people, is that it is a really good way to meet people. You can, you know, as soon as you move in or the first couple days you can knock on your neighbors door or someone down the hall and be like “Hey, we’re about to go to Central, do you want to come with us?” My freshman year, one or two kids on my hall went around and got everyone from my floor and from the floor below us and we all marched from Bowie Hall and got our thirty-five cent wings. On Monday almost every restaurant has wing night and it’s really, really cheap and really, really awesome. That was a cool experience and I felt like I was getting to experience Boone on my fourth night of being a freshman. I made a lot of friends during that too. It was really fun.
Glory: The meal plan is something awesome too. It’s kind of like monopoly money for a freshman. You can use it at the markets too, which are really awesome so you don’t have to go off campus to get snack food and packaged stuff, frozen meals so you can live off of those freshman year.
Laurie: All the dorms have some way of cooking. When I lived in Bowie, there was one oven in the dorm and I wanted to make pasta so I brought my weird, gluten-free pasta down there. There was a group of people down there and they were making mac and cheese. We started talking, and those people became my group of friends for my freshman year. Then we all lived together sophomore year, and it was really cool.
Glory: So if I’m in the library, it’s a little secret, they carry Red Onion so you can go and get a nice chicken Caesar salad or a wrap. I found that out my sophomore year and I didn’t even know. I am obsessed with their chicken Caesar salads. It would go on your meal card.
Laurie: I didn’t know that until right now.
Glory: There you go. You learn something everyday.
Laurie: I would go to Cascades in the student union and I’d buy a Chicken Caesar salad and I would take it into the solarium, which is this really cool room and has very tall windows and water fountains and trees; it’s really relaxing. I’d go in there and I’d eat my salad and I’d read a book. I’d sit there by myself for an hour and I’d look forward to it every week. I love just having that time to myself, away from my roommate, away from the classes. I enjoy doing that and it was definitely not weird.
Glory: My sophomore year the frozen yogurt place in Cascades opened and I kid you not, I went there every single day after I worked out. It’s the kind with probiotics that’s like good for you. I recommend it.
Laurie: I’ve been on a gluten free diet for about a decade now and I was really worried coming to App that I wouldn’t have enough options to eat, but I had so many different things that I could eat in different places that I didn’t feel that I was having to repeat my meals at all. It’s gotten even better. It’s really easy to be gluten free, it’s also really easy to be vegetarian and vegan on campus. That’s one thing that I really like about Boone is that it’s really accepting of everyone’s dietary needs. There’s a really big culture of health food, locally grown food, and buying within the Boone economy. That’s a really cool thing. You’ll see on the menus that we have locally grown this and this comes from this farm that’s this many miles away. If you don’t feel like leaving your dorm there are vending machines in the bottom of every dorm. Including…
Glory: The wheel of death.
Laurie: You have your regular vending machines, your soda machines, your snack machines with chips and what-not. Then you have this rotating, spinning vending machine that’s filled with frozen burritos, Nathan’s Hot dogs, and Hot Pockets.
Glory: Everything that’s really good for you.
Laurie: Very, very healthy.
Glory: Hence the name we looked at.
Laurie: Everyone would line up and get their frozen foods out. Then they’d go back to their floor and line up at the microwave. My freshman year was one of the really bad snow years. I remember that I had actually gotten depleted. Then people started panicking.
Glory: Oh no.
Laurie: They wanted their hot pockets and their weird, frozen hamburgers.
Glory: We’ve all done that. It’s been 3 o’clock in the morning and you’re hungry and the only thing there is the wheel of death.
Laurie: What would you say is your favorite late night snack?
Glory: I would usually stock up on stuff from the market. Popcorn would be my go to late night.
Laurie: I would probably have to pick a Snickers bar and milk from the wheel of death. This is something that I actually did really regularly when I lived on campus. I’d get a Snickers bar and milk and go watch a movie and be really healthy. So you’re at the end of the semester, your meal plan’s done really really well by you but you have dwindled it down to two dollars. You are hungry, what do you do with the two dollars.
Glory: Some beans and rice at Cascades. That stuff is so good.
Laurie: Beans and rice is definitely a few steps up from Ramen, but it’s just as cheap. They do sell it though. If you want ramen and you want the college experience, you can get ramen. But you can do better. We believe that you can do better. Also, if you feel like you are running low on your meal plan, a good way to go is to make a salad. You can put everything on the salad bar and they just weigh it. It doesn’t really matter what you would put on it so that’s a good way to cheat the system if you’re hungry but don’t want to spend too much money.
Laurie: Let’s talk about our top five foods to eat on campus.
Glory: Alright, my first would be Chick-fil-a, for sure.
Laurie: My top would have to be the bacon spud from McAlister’s.
Glory: I’d have to say second would be barbecue platter.
Laurie: My next choice would have to be the bacon from any breakfast or breakfast for dinner meal.
Glory: So pretty much bacon for Laurie. My next would be the vegetarian wrap at the Wraps.
Laurie: I like the sushi that they offer. They hand roll it there. They make it themselves.
Glory: That’s pretty cool. I also really like the salad bar. The salad bar is awesome and there is a lot to choose from.
Laurie: The make your own waffle that’s got the App “A” in it, it’s pretty cool. And it’s there all day.
Glory: And then my last would have to be the Red Onion Chicken Caesar Salad in the library.
Laurie: Ok, this might be cheating because it’s a shake but I really really like the peach mango smoothie from the Freshens, is that how you say it, from the Freshens smoothie stands around campus.
Glory: Shoot, I think that’s more than five but they have good food.
Laurie: I lost count. Well Glory, thanks for coming to hang out and chat with our future Mountaineers.
Glory: No problem.
Laurie: So keep listening out for more of these. We’ve got a lot more to tell you guys about the campus before you get here. We can’t wait to have you.
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About Appalachian State University
As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, affordable education for all. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more at https://www.appstate.edu.
