When Julie Patterson (COL ‘12) bit down on something hard mixed in with her fried rice at Leo’s on Thursday night, she figured it was a bone—it wasn’t.

“It was so disgusting …  I realized it was round and I thought, oh God is it somebody’s ring?” she said. “And I spit it out and it was this nut, as in nuts and bolts. It was rusty.”

Patterson, who eating at late night, said her friends suggested she talk to personnel at Leo’s. In the end, she didn’t tell staff about the offending hardware, pictured left.

“I figured they would say, ‘Thanks for bringing this to our attention,’ and not do anything about it because it’s unlikely to happen again,” she said. (Disclosure: Patterson has written occasionally for Vox Populi.)

Update 02/20 8:04 p.m.:Vox received the following e-mail today from Executive Director of Dining at Georgetown Andrew Lindquist:

“Georgetown Dining takes food safety very seriously. We not only have a strict preventative maintenance plan in place to avoid such situations, but also have not had any reports of this specific issue previously.

“Following your note, our management team conducted a strict impromptu review of each location along with all of the equipment within Leo’s to identify a potential source and was unable to identify one. Nuts and bolts are somewhat hard to come by in a commercial kitchen to avoid such issues. Most of our equipment and utensils are constructed with welds and other fusing methods.

“If in the future a student does come across any foreign object we do ask that they notify management right away to identify the source and execute a solution.”

The Georgetown Solidarity Committee is protesting against the University’s food service provider, Aramark, accusing them of unjust tomato-buying practices, according to GSC’s blog. According to the post, large food service companies like Aramark and Sodexo, have been using their huge purchasing powers to keep tomato prices depressed, leading to low, stagnant wages for farmworkers.

Back in December, a representative from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers’ organization from a tomato-growing region of Florida, visited Georgetown’s food committee to educate them about the issue and to deliver a letter demanding that Aramark reform.

Since then, though, Solidarity hasn’t had much luck communicating the issue to the administration. According to the post, Andrew Lindquist, Aramarks’s Executive Director of Dining Services at Georgetown, denied Aramark’s culpability and has refused repeated requests for meetings. (Lindquist and other University officials have not yet responded to Vox’s requests for comment.)

So this summer Solidarity has taken to a more guerrilla approach, hanging banners in prominent locations on campus, accosting tour groups, and handing out fliers to students in on-campus summer programs. They are also encouraging other students to call or email Lindquist to pressure him about the issue.

Photo from Solidarity’s blog.

Editor’s Note: For this week’s freshman feature we’ll be giving the Class of 2013 information about the gustatory delights that await them at Georgetown. The feature is split up in to two separate posts, one on Leo’s and another on other dining options. The post about restaurants will run later this morning.

As an introduction to the subject, you may want to watch the Heckler’s extremely informative “Georgetown Freshmen Education Series: I Know How to Eat!” video.

It’s really not worth complaining that much about our errant dining hall; as long as meal plans are foisted on us through sophomore year, it’s simply a cross we all have to bear.

There are some coping mechanisms you’ll develop, though. Here are Vox’s tips for dealing with Leo’s:

• Unless you’ve got a prodigious appetite or a passion for bland cafeteria food, there’s really no reason why you’ll need to get a plan with more than 14 meals a week.
• Keep track of your meals and plan your Grab ‘n Go consumption accordingly. The weekly meal cycle starts on Saturday, so by Wednesday or Thursday it should be pretty clear whether you’re going to be maxed out or whether you’re going to have lots of unused meals. If it’s the latter, start picking up Grab ‘n Go whenever you’re at Leo’s, either to store up or to donate to the Grab ‘n Give program.
• Don’t be afraid to go alone and study. If you can find a free outlet (most are along the wall on the lower level) and don’t mind a little ambient noise, you’ll save a lot by getting your caffeine and study snacks from Leo’s rather than Midnight Mug.

More tips after the jump!

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We’re such fatties…

Georgetown recently posted a “Year in Review: 2008-2009” package. Mostly it’s just a best-of compilation from Blue & Gray, but it’s also got a pretty fascinating By the Numbers page, which includes some random stats about Georgetown, like how many people visited the library, a numerical analysis of the Class of 2009, how many events student groups held, how much the Bookstore sold.

Perhaps the most engrossing (emphasis on “gross”) part of the stats sheet, though, is the list of how much of certain food items were served in Leo’s this year. Here are the stats (represented visually above):

• 54,400 pounds of chicken fingers
• 167,960 pounds of deli turkey
• 136,000 pounds of bananas
• 29,920 pounds of romaine lettuce
• 217,600 chicken breasts
• 176,800 slices of bacon
• 172, 890 apples
• 154,600 Red Bliss potatoes
• 7,854 gallons of ice cream
• 1,470 gallons of cherry tomatoes

Want a shot at your own 15 seconds of internet micro-micro-fame?  Start following us on Twitter (GtownVoxPop) and, if you’re connected to Georgetown, we’ll return the favor and you’ll automatically be in the running!

Former Voice Publisher Michael Keller graduated, magna pun laude.

Malin Hu put that econ training to practical use.

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Not pictured: requisite ice sculptures

Further evidence has surfaced that Leo’s is better suited for pomp and swank than for eating:

“Not able to score tickets to one of the balls taking place around DC? You’re in luck. Georgetown is hosting its first inaugural ball, Friday January 16 from 9pm-1am. It’s only $5 for a night of dancing, food and fun. Dress is formal. Tickets on sale in Leavey every day this week.”

Yes, several student groups—NAACP, Women in Politics, GUSA, SOCA, CMEA and the Center for Student Programs—have banded together to bring students just what they’ve always wanted: a change to shake out the ole’ prom dresses in the same establishment which brought them chicken finger Thursdays and the norovirus.

If you haven’t been to the cafeteria yet, there’s a treat waiting for you: blue cups! The cups, admired for their generous girth, disappeared from Leo’s earlier this year after students stole them. I can’t blame the thieves, since the cups are so useful, but please don’t kill the golden goose this time.

The Solidarity Committee’s campaign to help Leo’s employee Leslie Tang, whose home was destroyed in a fire, turned out really, really well:

We have really pulled it together and accompanied Leslie as a community through this difficult phase in her life in a moving expression of the Jesuit value of human solidarity. I would like to offer thanks to all of you who contributed to this effort, and especially to an anonymous donor of $5000. In total, we have raised almost $13,000 at this point. I am good friends with Leslie, and thus been lucky enough to watch her pull through this with an incredibly strong spirit, bolstered by the expressions of an equally strong community.

Good on Solidarity for really coming through on this. Now that it’s over, they should treat themselves to something frivolous. Maybe that giant Donald Rumsfeld puppet they’ve been putting away for.

Guesses as to the anonymous donor’s identity? Put ‘em in the comments.

Was it you, meatballs?

I know the norovirus is old news, but the whole Passion of the Organic to Go was just so weird. The University canceled its contract with the reportedly delicious Grab and Go folks even though there no real hard evidence Grab and Go was responsible. The Department of Health final report nudged us that way, though.

We got all the Department of Health e-mails on norovirus, and they had some interesting stuff. Join me as we investigate a weird meatball cover-up, an attempt to block a Leo’s employee from returning to work, and a lawsuit threat.

Probably the best part of the e-mails is the appearance of a new suspect food in the investigation, meatballs provided by Sysco. When asked where the meatballs were, Leo’s told DOH they were all gone, but apparently that wasn’t true. To the best of my knowledge the meatballs were never mentioned to students by DOH or the University. From an e-mail about food inspections from DOH’s Robert Sudler to DOH’s Feseha Woldu (emphasis his):
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Speaking of Leo’s, sad news from the Solidarity Committee: Leo’s employee recently Leslie Tang lost her house in a fire (emphasis added):

She was cooking rice in her kitchen, left the room to do laundry, and the electrical unit in her stove exploded and her house went up in flames. Her husband was severely burned in the fire. She lost everything: food, cooking utensils, clothes, everything, she told me. Anything that wasn’t burned, for example her sewing machines she needs for her job as a seamstress, was looted by burglars a few days later. She has two teenage children, and her daughter has special needs. Her husband had a stroke last year and has been unable to work since, therefore she is the only income earner.

The Georgetown Solidarity Committee has set up a Paypal account to help Tang. So far, they’ve raised an astounding $1,574. All jokes about the Solidarity food strike yurt aside, they do good work when they have to.
Via Saxaspeak