Welcome back from Thanksgiving break, Heard on the Hill readers. May this entry serve as either inspiration or distraction as you try to grind your work gears back into motion.

Mrs. E’s, the Daisy Hill dining hall at KU known formally as Ekdahl Dining Commons, will undergo a renovation during summer 2013 at a cost of just under $3 million. Included in that overhaul will be the introduction of kosher food, the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle reported last week.

Options for kosher eating on campus right now include a stand at the Kansas Union, introduced this semester, and a stand at Allen Fieldhouse that opened last year, the story says.

Also planned for Mrs. E’s is the addition of foods that follow Islamic halal dietary guidelines and more gluten-free and vegan/vegetarian options, the Jewish Chronicle reports. Leaders from KU Chabad and the Muslim Student Association are helping KU Dining Services plan the new options.

Another possible addition at Mrs. E’s, according to our report from this past summer: a barbecue smoker. The dining hall across campus at Gertrude Sellards Pearson Hall also underwent renovations (along with the rest of the building) before reopening this fall.

A few Thanksgiving-week links for those of you who were occupied with pre-break deadlines, family, turkey, football or whatever:

• KU researchers will use $5.75 million in grants to try to help reunite parents and children affected by substance abuse in Oklahoma and Iowa.

• Political experts will come to the Dole Institute next week to dissect this month’s election.

• A treatment breakthrough for a gruesome kidney disease is very much thanks to decades of work by KU Medical Center researchers.

• And a new media center at the Union is now available to help students tell stories.

Please keep those tips coming to merickson@ljworld.com.