Dorm Food!

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I came across this post in 101 Cookbooks from a college student dreading his return to college and the land of no kitchens, which really struck a chord with me.

Why is it that students, most of whom would love to save money, have such limited access to a kitchen while they're at college?

No wonder the freshman 15 is a tradition. In my case it was a freshman 20. Which had a lot of contributing factors, but being forced into an exorbitant meal plan played into it . When I say forced, I mean forced. Every single freshman at my alma mater is required to sign up for the meal plan, which, if I remember correctly, provides for every single meal of the week. I don't think our food was particularly bad, and in the case of our famous brunches, was quite nice, really, with waffle makers and an omelet station and hot oatmeal, etc. But even with the best intentions, eating out is eating out even if it is cafeteria food. It's too calorific. And too difficult to regulate. It's too easy to have bacon and eggs and oatmeal with brown sugar every single morning, following by macaroni and cheese for lunch, and tacos, burritos, stir fry, etc. for dinner every night.

And without kitchens in the dorms, there were absolutely no other options.

Unless you acquired some illegal appliances. I stopped going to the cafeteria in my second semester. I decided instead to use my new toaster oven (not permitted in dorms, of course) and practically lived off cheese on toast. This was right after I had discovered Wallace and Gromit, and the way in which Wallace approaches the subject of cheese (Cheese, Gromit! he says with delight, waving his hands; this is my reaction to cheese as well. I love it as much as chocolate and bread, which is saying a lot).


I made cheese on toast (the English version of a grilled cheese) at almost every tea time. As I also had an in-room kettle (also illegal), this was quite frequently, and I don't mean tea time as in four o'clock, but tea time as in how frequently I made a cup of tea.

You see the problem here.

Seriously, though. What an odd relationship college fosters to food. We also had a snack bar that stayed open until one or two in the morning, so it was quite normal to meet up with friends at midnight and order mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, and a milkshake.

My sophomore year, I lived in a more independent dorm far away from the cafeteria, and we were also exempt from buying the all meals-all week meal ticket, so it was then that I started to learn how to cook. I bought one white enameled pan from the dollar store, brought a non-stick pan from home, and learned how to make soups, pasta, rice.

What was your school experience like? Did you have kitchens? Did you cook? What illegal appliances did you use?

What a strange experience college is, not least of which because of this food dilemma. And millions of kids are about to start school and struggle with their own newly-found nourishment independence. Good luck to them.

Summer Pizza

It's way too hot to have the oven on. But I can't go a whole summer without roasted, browned, or baked yumminess. With a fridge full of veggies and nothing to do with them, I broke the no-oven rule on a day when it was already 90 degrees, and decided to make pizza.

I made some pizza dough from scratch using the mixer and dough hook and taking advantage of the 80+ degree temperature of my kitchen, as the dough doubled in less than two hours. I pumped the oven up to 450°, enlisted the help of J to roll it out to a lovely thin disc, and we topped it with olive oil, salt and pepper, sliced zucchini, asparagus, and feta. Much as I love tomatoes and cheese, the afore-mentioned heat makes this light, "white" pizza much more appealing.

After 45 minutes or so in the oven, with the temperature in the kitchen overwhelmingly stifling, the pizza came out. It was a perfect opportunity to use up what remained of a recent batch of pesto. A delicious finishing touch.

Caneles - Take 1 - Part 1

I try not to be a spur-of-the-moment kitchen items impulse buyer because I would end up with a kitchen full of things like this:


Isn't it sleek and pretty? But I do not drink espresso unless I am in a place where the locals drink it like water.

Or this?The pan is enameled, grooved, and square. Squarely groovy. Must have!

I also have a fondness for professional-grade food service items, which really should not be available to mere mortals like me. For example:

Who doesn't fantasize about owning her own ice cream shop? But really. My own cone holder? I can't indulge every kitchen item whim I have or else we would be living in an Aga Stove surrounded by footed cake platters.

But I recently discovered that reading blog postings, rather than recipes in a cookbook, has left me even more susceptible to the power of suggestion. Perhaps it is the sense that I am being individually communicated with rather than taught something in the pedantic (but useful) fashion of cookbooks.

When I read this post on making caneles, a French regional specialty that I had only had twice before in my life - once at Boulangerie, and once at the Iron Chef event, I thought, "I HAVE to try that!"

And moments later, I was on Amazon.com debating the virtues of copper Mauviel molds:
(beautiful! delicate! idiosyncratically grooved! (I seem to have an extra weakness for grooves), but $20 each and I would need to buy LOTS of them) versus a silicone mold, which comes all of a piece with eight molds and is only $20 for the whole thing:

So what if I can make only one thing in it for the rest of my life? It's a pretty cool one thing, like with my waffle pan.

I ordered it. My first silicone bakeware (apart from my SilPat). Once the weekend came, I was all set to go.

More to come...

Buttery Tomatoes and Feta

Maybe I should just change the name of my blog to "Tomatoes and Pasta" but, well, they are delicious together. And this is a lovely easy way to incorporate the ripe tomatoes of summer into a tomatoey pasta dish without it turning into the heaviness of full-on winter comfort food. Yes, butter sounds heavy, but a pat of butter mixed with a splash of oil will do the trick.

Saute the tomatoes until they've reduced in size and gone soft and their juices have mingled with the butter and oil.

Salt to taste. Crumble feta into the warm tomatoes, toss with cooked pasta and top with cilantro.

Scotch Bonnets - Part 2

As you know, my first go-round with these hot tamales was tame. Disappointing, even. And there's nothing like all bark with no bite to get a girl overly confident for the next time cooking with lethal-grade peppers.

I decided pasta with spicy buttery shrimp and tomatoes might be a nice combination.

Instead of using the peppers in the final dish, I wanted to infuse the butter with heat and then remove the peppers from the skillet before adding the shrimp and tomatoes. I used two again, as in the first time, in case those mild puppies had been a fluke.

I was right. One minute into sauteeing the peppers in foaming butter, J cleared out of the kitchen, coughing. Two minutes in, and I was throwing open the windows, turning on the extractor fan, swinging the kitchen door back and forth to suck fresh air in, and clamping a lid on the pan.

Thankfully, this is one of the quickest meals you can make, which happily reduces the period of time that your eyes sear. I turned down the heat, sauteed the shrimp until pink, the cherry tomatoes until soft, and then spooned over linguine with snippings of fresh parsley. Ultimately the heat was just the right amount. I think I love these peppers. But I will never underestimate their ability to clear out a kitchen again.