I have worked at Friley Dining for 18 to 20 hours a week since I started attending Iowa State in August 2001, and the recent spate of letters in the Daily regarding how bad the food is, how unfriendly the employees are, and just general carping about Dining Services in general prompts me to speak up and attempt to get a few facts about Friley Dining out.

To those students who think the food is little better than dog food, all I can say is that you haven’t had lousy institutional food.

The entrees are premium quality from the food distributors and are prepared by cooks who genuinely care about how the food is prepared. The cooks I’ve worked with are very caring and pleasant people and they really enjoy their job and working with the students.

At my high school it was another story. The cooks where surly and didn’t care what kind of slop they served. On many occasions when the casserole entree was running short they would scrape the sides and bottoms of the pans and feed that to the students.

At Friley, each and every employee, full-timer or student, is empowered to pull an item and throw it away if, in their opinion, it isn’t fit to serve.

As to the complaints about food not being hot, temperatures are taken of the food periodically and if it isn’t up to temperature it is pulled immediately from the line and replaced.

I know there is the occasional screw up when the supply person grabs the wrong pan but that by no means is an everyday occurrence.

In reference to the letter written on Nov. 13, “Dining service food dangerous,” by Matt Solnitsky, I take offense to the hysterical tone in the letter about how under-temperature hot dogs are dangerous.

Please give me a break — hot dogs are fully cooked and may be eaten straight out of the package in the refrigerator without any chance of ill effects.

In all the time I’ve eaten at Friley there was only one day when I thought the menu was less than appealing and I could have solved that problem by walking around and going to the deli line.

In closing, I know that complaining is a favorite sport of college students, but please know what you are talking about before you write letters to the Daily and end up looking foolish.

Larry Sawyer

Senior

Accounting and Economics