Penn Picnic and Reception - 2nd Sept

Penn NSO started on the 2nd of September, and we all got up at 5:30am to drive to PA by 9am. As usual, it took 90 minutes to get into Philly, but half an hour to actually end up at the specific street on which we stopped. I'm not disclosing where I live, although one could probably figure it out... since I don't have a cafeteria at my dorm house, unfortunately.

Anyway, after unpacking and all, there was a Penn Family Picnic for all we families and kids. It was actually very similar to the food at the Penn Frosh Picnic in my area on the 19th of August. There were wraps and cookies, but there was also some punch and iced tea and lemonade, which helped, since it was really hot that day.
Firstly, I'd like to say that I fell for the cookie trip again. Last time, I ate a chocolate cookie that was way too hard for my liking. This time, I made the same mistake. I need to learn!! I'm not particularily fond of hard/crunchy cookies. I like the moist cakey ones more, such as the raisin one. It's good to know that Penn has consistency though, concerning its cookie production. The wraps were really good though, with the mozzarella cheese and vegetables, although it was a tad oily.
After the President made a speech, there was a reception, and it was quite a sight watching 3000+ people swarming around taking food... There was this amazing mashed white bean thing, some caramelised onions [the first I've ever had] and a smokey-chipotleish spiced [I'm guessing?] eggplant thing.
There were also tons of cookies. They were the hard kind.
The vegetable station was ridiculous. I wonder what they did to the half heads of cauliflower, the whole peppers and the corn. Surely it's not solely for display? If it was, that'd be a waste of vegetables...
Whole heads of broccolis! Whole rutabagas! Utterly ridiculous!

Excess. Superfluous. Extravagant. Luxurious. I don't know; so much for this being the "year of water". Think about all the water used to produce these crops...they better use them.

Penn Frosh Dinner!"

Today at 6:30pm, the UPenn alumni club made a Class of 2014 picnic thing. During the picnic, we all introduced ourselves and said "one interesting thing" about ourselves. I totally could've said that I'm a runner... I like pie... I'm a vegetarian... I like stale cornflakes?

Instead, I said that I blog about food, which is why I was waving my phone around, taking pictures of my food [I honestly felt awkward doing it this time]... although the quality is compromised, my phone camera is the most useful function on my phone [oh the irony.] and it deserves a ton of credit.

I wasn't too fond of the pasta, which was very oily, although I liked the olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and the fact that there was no salami pieces or anything inside. In fact, I was surprised at the lack of animal pieces in this picnic/dinner. There were platters of wraps, including tuna, cow, and pig pieces wraps... and there was also plain vegetable wraps! In fact, they were really good wraps; the eggplant in it was nicely grilled, with some balsamic marinade which didn't taste too strong [I don't really like strong balsamic flavoured stuff] and the green flatbread was quite textured [and also toasted]. It lacked the empty-carby-taste that comes with so many white breads and it was definitely not stale.The salad was basically lettuce with some sharp cheese and croutons, which were nicely toasted although quite oily.

We also had these mini waxy chocolate candies that were basically dots of waxy [read: not chocolate, but chocolate FLAVOURED] candy coated in some crunchy candy shell. For some reason, I could taste a peanutty flavour, but that could totally be my imagination. Note the colour choices in this whole picnic/dinner.

A chocolate chip cookie.

And... that's a wrap for today :P