B
y Cameron Scherer
You would be hard-pressed to find a place on campus that smells as good as the Haverford College Apartments’ Culinary House. Immediately upon walking in to attend its first weekly tutorial, in this case a salsa-making workshop, I am immediately struck by the intense aroma that emanates from the kitchen.
Apartment 14’s Culinary House, which is comprised of 11 members of various classes, was not the brainchild of an individual person, but rather of a group of small friends who wished for the opportunity to live together in a way that would let them both appreciate the art of cooking and give back to the community.
“It started out as a group of us, so right now all of us are connected through one another,” explained Patrick Phelan ’11. “Next year we hope to really open it up to the community and get a bunch of new people to join.”
Thus far, the group seems to be enjoying itself in its new aromatic abode:
"When I came home last night to Stefani setting dinner on the table,” said Thea Rockwell ’12, “it let me forget for a moment that I’m pretending to be grown-up now, and I could slip back into the nostalgia of mama-made nutrition."
Members of Culinary House kicked off the year with an ambitious agenda. Says the house’s mission statement, “We want to offer an outlet where once a week or once every other week students can gather and indulge in culinary bravado, whether it be a simple appetizer, a delectable desert, or a multi-course meal. We want to inspire the chef within each student, and we want to show the community how easy simple, proper cooking can be.”
Added Phelan, “We started Culinary House to help encourage cooking on campus. We think the HCA kitchens are a highly unused resource, and we think cooking is one of the best life skills to have. Hopefully everyone who comes to 14 will at least walk away excited about cooking.”
There are four main pillars to Culinary House’s approach. For one, members plan on hosting occasional community dinners throughout the year, the first of which will take place several weeks after fall break. Guests will take part in the preparation of the three- to four-course meal so that they can immerse themselves in the culinary culture that the House seeks to create.
“I’m really excited about our first community dinner,” said Phelan. “We’re going to open the event to the whole school, and everyone from the house will make at least one dish. I’m really excited to see what other people from the house make and what people from the community bring.”
As a corollary to these dinners, said Phelan, Culinary House wants “to combine efforts with John Francone and the Dining Center at some point. Whether we set up a few stands in the Sunken Lounge or actually plan and cook an entire dinner one night, I think it’s really important to spread the word and get people excited about what we’re doing.”
Secondly, Culinary House members hope to revive the all but defunct HCA garden so that Haverford students can play an active role in not just the preparation and consumption of their food, but in the growth of it as well. Thirdly, the group plans to volunteer some time and resources to Philadelphia food drives and soup kitchens as a way of giving back to the community that goes beyond Haverford campus.
Finally, each member of Culinary House plans to hold at least one tutorial to make for a semi-weekly series of cooking expositions. Although the events are limited to roughly ten people, the house plans to start a blog at which non-attendees can access recipes to use in their own free time.
At the group’s first workshop, hosted by Phelan, I got to try my hand at making three different kinds of salsa, a dish I never paid much attention to prior to now. Having unfortunately missed the apple pie workshop last week, I have already planned to clear my calendar for the next event.
With a full itinerary ahead of them, members of Culinary House hope in the near future you will be seeing—and tasting—a lot more of what they have to offer.
This article is © 2008 The Bi-College News. The material on this page is free for personal or educational use, but may not be reproduced, reprinted, republished, redistributed, or otherwise transmitted to a third party without the express written permission of The Bi-College News, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041.
Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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