Campus Life by the numbers

16 things that happened while I was trying to cook for myself

AKA signs that I should return to the meal plan

By Patricia Gao Jan. 25, 2018

I tried to stay on the meal plan. I really did. But thanks to my whacked-out sleep schedule, a penchant for naps, and tendency to make everything a Learning Experience (not to mention consistent free food from The Tech), cooking for myself was a much better option … or so I thought. Here are the highlights of my first semester off of the meal plan:

  1. I lugged a gallon of milk back from Star Market about a thousand different times.

  2. I almost set the fire alarm off at 3:30 a.m. (Pro tip: wax paper is not for baking.)

  3. I did set the fire alarm off with steam from a bag of popcorn.

  4. Broccoli got moldy.

  5. I made awkward eye contact with the front desk workers after hauling in a giant bag of delivered food.

  6. My suitemate dropped a bowl and it shattered into a million pieces, none larger than a fingernail. Though we cleaned up most of the shards, we are still finding them (not on purpose, unfortunately, but embedded in our feet).

  7. I found out that cutting pineapple is the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done.

  8. Someone left old milk in the fridge (it was thrown out before it could compete with Pecker's*, though).

  9. I screamed. A lot.

  10. I got used to the burners on my kitchen stove. Most of them are tilted, and one of them always smokes (possibly because I dropped a potato in it once).

  11. Dinner happened at midnight, and, accordingly, breakfast happened at noon.

  12. My suitemate and I bought seven limes for a dollar at Haymarket, but we only went through two before they started going bad. We tried to throw the rotting limes out, but one of our friends insisted on keeping them. They have since hollowed out and remain in his room.

  13. I made my own Cosmic Brownies.

  14. I tried to break an egg like a Super Skilled Chef (one-handedly) and failed (turns out I’m only a Moderately Skilled Chef).

  15. I got mysterious finger cuts, most likely from reaching into stacks of cooking utensils that included unsheathed knives.

  16. I didn’t eat a vegetable for a whole day, and it made me sad. (Mom was right.)

All in all, though, I had fun cooking for myself. I learned how to make apple cider, for example, and how not to botch (read: burn the living daylights out of) fudge. But maybe it’s time to give the meal plan another go — that would be easier on the firemen.

*Pecker in Random Hall owns a carton of 23-year-old milk.