Culinary Adventures

The food at the Hoch isn't bad, but the menu's on a weekly rotation. What usually happens is that the pre-frosh think "Wow, this food is pretty good!" By the eighth or ninth week of first semester, you realize that, while the food is good, you sure have eaten this a lot. By sophomore year, you find that even when you're on vacation, you wake up Tuesday and expect to have tacos for lunch.

To help combat this, some of my friends and I make our own food every Friday night. Our "recipes" usually look something like this:

What Is This Stuff? It Tastes Pretty Good Soup
(Serves you and 10 of your closest friends)
Ingredients:
whatever vegetables at the grocery store looked good
a couple cans of beans, for protein, I guess
some soup that none of your friends are allergic to

1) Mix all ingredients in large soup pot. Begin cooking.
2) Realize you need spices. Add the ones that smell good.
3) Remember that you bought parsley. Add parsley to soup.
4) Realize that soup is not thick enough. Find rice. Add rice to soup until you think you've added the right amount.
5) Wait until rice is cooked.
6) Serve. Avoid all questions as to what recipe you used.



We're also masters at making "this is kind of like applesauce but I forgot the potato masher" and "weirdest pancakes ever" (like normal pancakes, but fluff the eggs and use yogurt instead of milk). I've also discovered the magic of microwaveable macaroni and cheese with bell peppers that you cooked in your friend's electric wok. And the longer I stay at Mudd, the more creative I'm becoming about my food choices. Ritz crackers with cream cheese! Cheerios with strawberry jelly! I wonder what will happen if I add this to the spaghetti sauce! (I have, in fact, eaten all of these things. Cheerios with strawberry jelly is a better food than one might think.)

On another food-related note, I'm staying at Mudd for Thanksgiving. Enough Easties do this that we have our own Thanksgiving meal, for which we cook a metric ton of turkey, vegetables, and pies, and take over most of the kitchens on campus to do so. I'm making spiced carrots and a lemonade pie.