By Will Bernish, ’13, Lighter Fare Section Editor.

SAGE Dining Services provides Cincinnati Country Day School students hot meals and soups du jour, bars for both sandwiches and salads, and absolutely delectable cookies. Every. Single. Wednesday. Despite my lack of progress in making Cookie Wednesday a national holiday (it’s better than, say, Arbor Day), I still appreciate everything SAGE does for us. Unfortunately, I seem to be part of a growing minority; more often than not, I hear complaints from (soon-to-be-former) friends about the quality of the day’s luncheon. I’ve eaten public school food for nine school years of my life, and private school for two, and I can tell you, we have it made.

Literally, we have it made. For us. By SAGE. I’m not sure if they grow their own crops, but they really do put effort into making sure you’re fed quality food. When I saw them one Friday making pizza – actually hand-spreading the sauce and cheese onto the dough, and then baking that – I had to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Back in my day, in public elementary, middle, and high schools, pizza was served daily, as an alternative to the main course. But I use “pizza” in the loosest term: the cheese looked moldy; the sauce contained more red food dye than tomatoes; the stiff dough easily kept the abomination rigid, like some highly-impractical Italian sword; and the whole pre-made, pre-packaged, pre-regurgitated thing was sloppily tossed into a microwave-oven and served to us seconds later (it’s not DiGiorno. It’s disgusting).

And how could I forget the other atrocities, i.e. literally everything else. The buns on the cheeseburgers were essentially pre-used sponges for the buckets of grease the burgers produced. The chicken nuggets were so conveniently bouncy that my friends and I would use them as ammunition in lunchtime dodgeball matches. While the spaghetti was too brittle for any practical use (because we certainly weren’t going to eat it), breadsticks were the weapons-of-choice for duels. Those things bruised.

I know it’s easy to take SAGE’s services for granted, even if it is certifiably gourmet. You go to The Cincinnati Country Day School, you know what you like, and you know how to complain about things you don’t. However, that does not mean that you should whine about the meatloaf, or the sloppy joes, or what have you. Don’t like the pork loins? Make yourself a sandwich or salad, you SAT-acing, MVC-winning, carpe Country Daying student, you.

At the end of the (school) day, SAGE keeps you well-nourished and well-fed, as long as you’re not one of those terrible, snobby people who pack their lunches. I’ve talked with much of the SAGE staff in my time here at Country Day, and I intend to continue doing so.  If there is anything I have learned from these conversations, it’s that they really care about us. When I asked [name redacted] if SAGE puts love into everything they bake, she immediately (and I’m talking without hesitation, tout de suite, two-shakes-of-a-lamb’s-tail immediately) replied “Oh yeah.” They’re all amazing people, who know that when we torrentially pour onto the Dining Terrace™, we’re starving.

So don’t act like the stereotypical CCDS student—privileged, preppy, and bratty—whenever your pizza isn’t fully cooked, or when it’s chicken pot pie day (to be fair, not even SAGE can redeem that intrinsically repulsive dish), or when they only have oatmeal-raisin cookies left (I actually don’t understand the hate). The food SAGE Dining Services provides us is four stars higher than anything I have ever eaten in a public school.  And because I doubt you could cook better food, just eat what the good people at SAGE prepare for you.  Ingrates.

Photo courtesy of Petr Kratchovil