Only speaking about the pho, not the food ignorance/frustration : Having gone to a private, well-funded university, I have to say your school is probably one of the lucky ones if you have burgers made with local meat! Cherish the fact that your school seems to care about quality, and probably made the pho the best way they could in an environment where mass production is necessary to feed to student populace. My Ivy for sure used those pre-made frozen Sysco patties for our burgers (and used Sysco/Cisco? for just about most of the bulk goods at the dining hall!), but it was good enough since that was one of the most popular stations at the dining hall. And who knows, maybe the people who decided to put the pho on the menu only ever had pho like you described? I wouldn't necessarily chalk that up to ignorance, even if those people DID know what real pho tasted like...real pho takes a long to make, and requires a lot of ingredients not found at bulk supply stores (I doubt Sysco sells all of that stuff). University dining halls just want to make sure their students eat something, so it could also be possible that it's called pho so some student will be intrigued and eat something that is at the very least good for you instead of a bowl full of frozen yogurt and cookies (guilty as charged, and I loved it). I really think half-hearted effort is more than most colleges and universities put into the dining hall food, so at least that's pretty cool.

In regards to college eats frustration...I think getting fake pho is pretty cool, because at least your school is trying to introduce people to pho! I went to a well-to-do Ivy and when we had Chinese, Indian, West Indies themed food at the dining hall, most of the food didn't look or taste like its namesake...but they tried! It made me want to seek out authentic representations of Carribean food for example, since I'd never really had food from that area before. And it's delicious! So I have to say at least the dining hall made me interested in the cuisine even though their interpretation was wonky. And... as a self-proclaimed worldly eater, I did not learn how to pronounce pho or a lot of other foods I love to eat until Vietnamese and Thai friends would correct me! I'd just avoid the pho if it makes you so annoyed.

Since I skew towards "angry, rageful" person, I can't afford to be angry about food ignorance, so I reserve my anger for down right awful, no redeeming quality, waste of stomach space foods like well done steaks. I think there's a time and place for not authentic food; American Chinese interpretations of classic Chinese food is so butchered, but it's SO good when the craving hits!

Thanks so much everyone! For clarification - it's an elimination diet for gluten sensitivity. My doctors don't think I am, since I don't have intestinal issues BUT they also can't seem to agree on what is causing my tests to be off, including my inflammation test results, so I was asked if I would be willing to go gluten free to see if my other issues decrease in severity. Going gluten free wasn't necessarily something I needed to do, but given how nothing my many doctors and specialists have told me to do has worked, I figured I have nothing to lose but potentially a lot to gain if this elimination diet provides some information for my doctors.

Yes, I live in NYC, which makes it easier to go gluten free when grocery shopping, or choosing a place to eat with friends or on a casual basis. But it's so hard to stay away from my favorite places (bakeries of all kinds, I miss eating bread with abandon from Silver Moon Bakery so much), and it's hard when I have to go to restaurants for work meetings since I don't feel comfortable yet asking the waiter or waitress about gluten friendly options in front of bosses and clients.

I graduated before Joe's opened in the Northwest Corner building, so I went to Oren's all the time. I also have fond (drunk) memories from Tom's Diner, even if the food sucked most of the time - the chicken fingers at 3am were amazing. Not as great as Absolute, but Nussbaum had a solid bagel when I didn't want to "trek" all the way to 108th from the dorms. The cheese samples, as well as the soup and dip samples, at Westside easily made for an impromptu but delicious meal. Their salad bar was awesome too. And how could you forget Milano!!? Sandwich and salad king! I feel like a lot of the places on this list are for when parents are in town...totally don't know many classmates who ventured to the places on your list that often if at all but still a solid list. I miss Columbia!!

Classy, very nice! My 21st was a blur. One of my favorite cocktails to make at home is what I call a riff on a gin and tonic - good gin (tanqueray and no. 3 gin are my staple gins), good tonic water (I love fever tree tonic water), some st. germain OR domaine de canton (not both! at least when I tried it, it tasted pretty awful) topped off with some champs. Doesn't tasty boozy at all, though it does pack a major punch.

Although I favor the Autumn and Winter seasons temperature/clothing wise, I just LOVE Summer for the produce (namely, for the tomatoes!!)!! I bought about 3 pounds of tomatoes from the USQ farmer's market this past Saturday, and they're already gone; I can't wait until tomorrow to buy more. Really, the best time of the year in NYC!!! This tomato post is making me drool at work, haha.

@CandiRisk - I watched PBS cooking shows along with Sesame Street too!

I can't remember all of what I watched while growing up in the 90's and early 2000's except for Martin Yan, Julia Child, Lidia Bastianach, Rick Bayless, Jacques Pepin and Jacques Torres (does anyone remember his chocolate show?! LOVED it.) but I do remember falling in love with food and cooking because of the PBS shows. I owe almost all my love for cooking to these chefs/shows (and my parents). In fact, because of all of them, I want to one day become a restaurateur or business partner to a chef, because my love for food and cooking is so immense!

Oh and also when I need to refill my freezer with some quick food stuffs, but don't have much time, I'll buy premade pie doughs and puff pastry (I get mine from Trader Joe's) to make meal planning easier. I like to keep a large (think Costco size large) box of salad greens in the fridge, as well as a container of feta (or any cheese), tupperwares of cut up salad veg/fruit, chickpeas/beans and other easy to prepare produce for the week to round out meals (and to make my meals less brown colored haha).

Haha these are great. I was living in an upperclassmen dorm my last two years of college, in a high rise on the UWS...I would estimate that a good few hundred students lived there. I remember a fire alarm going off, and spoke spewing out of a flat down the hall from me, with some girl shrieking about her pie juices were falling onto the bottom of the oven. She's a really good cook, so I'm guessing she completely forgot about putting her pie on a sheet pan. Getting out of this building when the fire alarm is going off is insane, since its got 20 floors but once the alarm went off she started shrieking again and told her friends "Leave the flat door open,turn off the oven!!!" and she ran down the stairs before anyone else. She totally looked like she was crying and panicking. A few hours and a new batch of smoke coming out of her dorm room later, she started shrieking about how she forgot to clean the bottom of the oven before putting in her chicken to roast! She and her friends were running up and down the hall way and trying to blow the smoke away. She looked like she was going to have another panic attack right then and there. No fire alarm though!

As a relatively recent college graduate, I would scrounge up what's around the house first, and then wait a few weeks once school starts to figure out if you really need a dutch oven. I LOVE to cook, eat and drink, but nearly everything I brought went unused from freshmen year to senior year, except for a knife, a cutting board, a large pan and a big pot. If you end up really needing a dutch oven or just can't stop thinking of owning a dutch oven, then go for it but I personally would wait a few weeks first to see if I'd utilize it or not.

In my experience, the things I make in a dutch oven take hours, so as a college student, I would've never had time to use even a less expensive one, or even wanted to use all my time cooking as opposed to socializing/studying/sleeping.

My first kitchen purchases after graduating were a 5 quart Le Creuset, and Zwilling J.A. Henckels Damascus Chef's Knife (thank goodness for a good job!) and I bought them when I knew I would actually have the time, space, and mental facilities to use them, and use them well.