Diners’ delight: The Coffee House is going old-school with Throwback Thursday (TBT) pricing on some of your CoHo favorites over the next six weeks, while elsewhere on campus, a new food truck is about to be rolled out.

• ASUCD COFFEE HOUSE — Its 50th anniversary celebration is set for mid-May, and, as a prelude, the Coffee House is throwing back prices to decades past. The first TBT special will be this Thursday (April 5): a small coffee for 68 cents. Not only is it a throwback price, but it represents the year 1968 — the year of the CoHo’s founding.

Weekly specials will continue through May 10. Stay tuned to the CoHo on Facebook and Instagram for weekly posts on the TBT specials.

• CHINESE FLAVORS — That’s the name of the campus’s first food truck focusing on Chinese cuisine — a truck that will have its grand opening from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday, April 12, at the International Center. Chancellor Gary S. May will be among the speakers.

The truck sprang from an idea from Global Affairs and one of its units, the Confucius Institute. They worked with Student Housing and Dining Services and campus food truck operator Live and Love Halal to make the truck a reality, and a portion of the proceeds will support Global Affairs. The menu was developed with the help of Hong Kong-based food company Lee Kum Kee, a sponsor whose sauces are being used in the Chinese Flavors dishes.

The truck and chef David Tu will provide free samples at the grand opening. People who RSVP by next Tuesday, April 10, will receive a coupon toward a future visit.

The new truck will join with the campus’s other food trucks in rotating among different spots on campus. Chinese Flavors is scheduled to be on campus three times a week, at least to start with, and during special events.

How’s your Chinese cooking?  Consider entering the Confucius Institute’s Chinese Flavors: Innovative Cooking Competition. Recipes are due by Monday (April 9).

Decisions, decisions for would-be freshmen

Around 6,000 admitted freshmen and family members are expected here this Saturday (April 7) for Decision UC Davis, running from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The program gives our visitors the opportunity to learn more about the university as they consider whether to accept their admission offers and enroll.

Decision UC Davis for admitted transfer students will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 11. That’s a Friday, which means people who normally drive to campus should expect to see crowded conditions in the Pavilion Parking Structure (west entry), and Lots 25 (Activities and Recreation Center) and 35 (Student Health and Wellness Center), where many of our 3,500 visitors that day are expected to park.

Wear teal and denim — and Take Back the Night

UC Davis holds its annual Take Back the Night program next week, amid Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Sponsored by the Center for Advocacy Resources and Education, or CARE, Take Back the Night will be from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday (April 11) in the multipurpose room at the Student Community Center. The program, aimed at raising awareness and ending sexual violence, includes speakers, performers, resources and art displays. Facebook event page: Take Back the Night at UC Davis.

The campus also is observing Wear Teal Day and Denim Day — although there are no organized events associated with those days.

• Wear Teal Day, April 4, with teal being the color of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Contact CARE for teal ribbons. CARE has offices on the Davis and Sacramento campuses; contact either office by calling 530-752-3299 or sending an email.
• Denim Day, April 25, a day when wearing jeans is recognized as a protest against victim-blaming in sexual assault. The day commemorates a 1990s protest in which women wore jeans to their jobs in the Italian Parliament to protest an appellate court ruling that suggested a woman in jeans could not have been a victim of rape, because no one could have easily removed her jeans without her helping. Facebook event page: Denim Day at UC Davis.

Parking made easier at UC Davis Health

The Sacramento campus’s Parking and Transportation Services announced a new, simplified payment process — via Parkeon pay stations — for patient/visitor Lots 1, 3 and 8, and employee Lots 14, 16, 18 and 25 (for those employees who pay by the day).

You enter your car’s license plate number — and that number, stored in the system, is your parking permit. Parking and Transportation Services vehicles are being equipped with cameras to scan license plates, which will then be matched with the plates of people who have paid.

Parkeon stations will print a receipt if you want one; however, no permit will be printed — so there’s no need to return to your car to put a permit on your dashboard. Be sure you know your license number or jot it down before walking to the machine, otherwise you will be walking back!

Parking officials emphasized the importance of entering your license plate number accurately or risk a citation. Their advice: Use your phone to store a photo of your plate.

The officials also noted that all license plate information will remain within UC Davis Health and used only for payment purposes; license plate information will not be shared with any other entities.

More new technologies are on the way for parking at UC Davis Health.

Study seeks eggs from backyard chickens

Personnel at the School of Veterinary Medicine are inviting Californians to submit sample eggs from backyard chickens, for free testing to see if the hens are ingesting contaminants from the ground and passing them along.

Maurice Pitesky, Cooperative Extension poultry specialist, said the testing is for a study in which “we’re trying to understand the connection” between backyard environments where poultry are raised, and the eggs they are producing.  

Veterinary toxicologist Birgit Puschner, Pitesky’s colleague, is looking for different types of contaminants, depending on the county where the hens are kept. Eggs from counties recently affected by wildfires will be tested for chemicals, building materials and heavy metals that may have been carried in smoke and ash. Pitesky and Puschner also are looking for lead and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in eggs from certain regions of the state.

Poultry owners who submit samples will receive results for those samples. At the end of the study, all of the results will be summarized and made available to the public.

The study website has information on how to package and ship eggs for testing. Pitesky describes the project in this video.

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