Dining Hall Schedules Revised

Sleepy students who roll out of bed at 9:30 can still devour blueberry pancakes before their 10 a.m. core classes this year, thanks to extended breakfast hours in all 13 undergraduate dining halls.

That's just one of the changes instituted by Director of Dining Services Michael P. Berry over the summer.

Prompted by student responses to the Dining Service's now-annual spring survey, Berry also revised all the College's recipes so that they are "healthier and lighter," sent 65 of his 75 chefs and bakers to cooking school and scheduled 18 special meals and 20 culinary stations for throughout the year.

The College bakery beneath Eliot and Kirkland Houses was completely renovated, and a new bakery manager, Harold Stevens, was hired as well.

Berry says students should already be able to see and taste the difference. "I was in the Union the other day and had a brownie," he says. "It was delicious!"

But the more things change, the more they stay the same: even though identification card readers have been installed in every dining hall, Berry says ID checkers will definitively not be phased out. In fact, Berry says, he's even hired more.

"We're automating our bookkeeping, but not the dining hall experience," Berry says. "Students love them--we get more comments about the checkers than about anything else."

Not only will the checkers remain entrenched behind their desks, but leniency apparently still will reign supreme. Berry promises that interhouse dining and multiple meals won't fall victim to new technology.

He claims that going on-line is for the long-term good of students. "Soon everything is going to depend on that ID card," he says. "We just want people to be prepared for that eventuality."

Culinary Goals

In keeping with his new culinary goals, Berry is upping the ante on last year's popular visiting chef program in which head chefs from some of Boston's best restaurants were invited to a house to prepare a meal.

Berry says he will institute the "James Beard series" this year. The chef who wins the Beard award, the highest culinary honor in the nation, will be invited to Cambridge to put together a "sumptuous feast."

This year's James Beard chef will be Monique from Fuller's Restaurant in Seattle. "I am so excited about this and I just know the stu- dents will be too," Berry says.

And from crepe stations to Caesar salad to pad thai, Berry seems to have claimed the standard Harvard motto of "diversity" and applied it to his job.

Ethnic cuisine will have "more authentic, fuller flavor," Berry says. "Food of every kind will taste more like what it's supposed to be," he says. "There won't be one bland flavor to everything anymore.

And from crepe stations to Caesar salad to pad thai, Berry seems to have claimed the standard Harvard motto of "diversity" and applied it to his job.

Ethnic cuisine will have "more authentic, fuller flavor," Berry says. "Food of every kind will taste more like what it's supposed to be," he says. "There won't be one bland flavor to everything anymore.