Salad with ham slices, two cold salads, and a piece of carrot cake

I slid next door after the morning session and was faced not with food, but with silverware. RefWorks Lunch ‘n’ Learn went with buffet style: romaine lettuce leaves (an apparent Anaheim hotel staple), mushroom-tomato-and-asparagus salad, ‘chipotle’ potato salad (my red peppers have more spice, complained B.), and a sandwich bar. I opted out of the sandwich and just put some ham slices on top of the lettuce for an impromptu chef’s salad. A woman behind me was less excited about the format (I like to be served). It did result in a long line of librarians, but once we were told we could take from both sides of the table, things opened up a bit. I also ate a piece of carrot cake and kept eating it long after it started making me sick. My afternoon session turned out to be in the same room–Hyatt Regency Orange County/Anaheim Grand Ballroom B came to feel quite like home.

 

Lettuce wedge, chicken plate, and a piece of caramel mousse cake

After filing into one of five academic-librarian-packed Anaheim Marriott ballrooms, I sat down with M. to a salad of two romaine hearts with some kind of shaved hard cheese, a roasted half-tomato with garlic, and a buttered roll. As if that wasn’t enough, our licked-clean salad plates were whisked away and replaced with chicken in a tomato-and-red-onion gravy paired with broccoli rabe and a dollop of mushroom-and-asparagus risotto. M. saved B. a seat, so we got to see the vegetarian option too (it’s almost a ratatouille!). About halfway through the main course, a couple of reps stood up and took turns talking about a few new things I would probably buy if I had any money while we all clattered away with our silver on china. I finished up with cake and coffee, always an elegant way to end a meal. That was absolutely hands-down the best conference hotel meal I have ever eaten, and an appropriate celebration of the best redesigned interface I’ve seen in awhile. Finally! A library resource that actually works like the rest of the web!

 

Salad bar and a buttered roll with cheese tortellini and roast potatoes

At last year’s annual meeting we had to walk ten minutes to the dining room for lunch, so got the good news this morning that lunch would be held right next door to the conference room, in Regency Ballroom B. Since morning breakouts were held in the same room, lunch was a slow reveal: bowls of iceberg lettuce followed by fixins (black olives, tomatoes, cucumber slices, a giant cup of ranch dressing), buttered rolls, and steam trays of roast potatoes, cheese tortellini, beef slices, and chicken. I filled up on salad, potatoes, and buttered rolls, and sampled but didn’t finish the tortellini. I sat with S. and C. and a jumble of librarians I hadn’t met yet–B. stayed at her breakout session table and was missed. The introduction of new board members started just as I got up for a slice of the three-layer white cake with raspberry jam and white frosting–oops!

 

Meat salads and buttered rolls, redux

If you’d told me this morning I’d be facing another table-full of meat salads, I’d have said you were crazy. This time we were subject to a shrimp-and-pasta number than I skipped entirely, a chicken salad that I thought was tuna (K. said he wouldn’t eat it if it was tuna, and he ate a whole scoopful, so I believe him), and a meat-free Greek salad that mostly had going for it the lack of meat. I also had a buttered roll, but only one: I was mysteriously seized with pleasure and excitement and couldn’t keep much down. (Sometimes I get too excited. See also: 300.02.) A., L., R., K., and R. shared our table, and R. talked to A. and I about putting a contract together. Full of good news, and another turtle cookie bar.

 

Salami sandwich and chips

The big complaint we have today–A., K., and myself–is the lack of condiments on the conference sandwich table. No mayonnaise? I thought we were in Milwaukee! Still, I loaded up a white roll with salami, cheese, tomato, and lettuce, and put a pile of crinkle-cut chips on my plate. I saved dessert–a peanut-and-chocolate cookie bar–for Fernando Elichirigoity’s keynote, an absolutely riveting exploration of “Living in the Age of Globally Distributed Algorithms.” I went back for seconds and picked up a gingerbread square while he talked about dolls that shop for themselves, pigeon bloggers, and called for a return to creativity and delight. Sparkled like the lemon seltzer.

 

Meat salads and buttered rolls

If you’d told me this morning that I’d be going back for seconds on beef salad, I would have said you were crazy. But it was really, really good! Sesame beef with peppers and onions. Less well received: turkey salad. None of us could tell what it was until somebody went and asked. Mostly, it tasted squishy. I supplemented with two buttered rolls (heaven!), some broccoli/cauliflower salad (vinegar-y), and a turtle brownie (chocolate, caramel, and nuts!). I ate relaxed and happy, having read my paper this morning, while listening to the wonderful Hope Olson talk about deconstruction and postcolonial methodologies in information studies. Her discussion of the potential of tagging relationships rather than entities was the intellectual equivalent of the beef salad: I was left wanting more. K. and A. shared my table, and I had the seltzer.

 

Half a pastrami sandwich

Boy oh boy was I nervous today! I gave my first conference paper ever at 3 o’clock, so when lunch rolled around at noon (“on your own”), I was really in no condition to consume and keep down food. The Grad Center cafeteria did not help. I walked in and was instantly confirmed in my diagnosis (I’m 300.02). Due to crowd-anxiety-freakout, I opted for the first thing I saw, on the right just as I walked in. A ready-made pastrami sandwich. The man behind the counter put what looked to me like two entire sandwiches on my plate, but when I said, “Oh no, I just want one,” he said, “You mean half?” So I took half and grabbed a bag of Lay’s baked potato chips. I was pretty amazed I could pull that off, since it required bending down with my enormous bag on my shoulder–very dicey proposition considering the number of librarians and archivists crammed in the line. I was very afraid I’d knock everything over. I ate with A. and A., both of whom had salads, and K., whose meal featured a pile of cucumber slices.