Christina Domenico | Conquering the kitchen

There are two blackened pots sitting in my kitchen cabinet. One features a pasta pattern, while the other has charred Rice-A-Roni permanently glued to its steel surface.

Speaking of cooking casualties, one of my plastic bowls perished last year due to a bad interaction between a microwave and chocolate chips.

I'm (fortunately) not guilty of either - though I'm no chef myself. Instead, one of my friends is batting 1.000 when it comes to plastering carbohydrates and melting chocolate to the bottom of a bowl. You'd think that an Ivy Leaguer could avoid such kitchen nightmares.

But for some, boiling a pot of water can be as impossible as convincing me to eat escargot.

"My roommate burned milk last week," College sophomore Sarah Sanchez told me. "I don't know how she did that."

Sanchez couldn't salvage the bottom of that pot, either.

College is supposed to be a time of exploration, of gaining knowledge and of new experiences, yet many students feel so out of place in the kitchen that they resort to microwave meals or fast food.

Even though many of us live in apartments and houses with fully equipped kitchens, the biggest culinary adventure we embark on is walking to Greek Lady to pick up our salads - instead of having them delivered.

"There are plenty of people who won't touch a kitchen because it's intimidating," said Residential Advisory Board vice chairwoman and College sophomore Laura Winchell.

It's not surprising. After spending years watching mom or dad demonstrate a certain confidence as they flitter from cabinet to refrigerator to countertop and back again, many students feel uncertain on their own and resort to loading their plates at Commons. But those options can be unhealthy and expensive.

Instead, cooking on your own can result in very nutritious and delicious meals once you get the basics down.

What students lack is a place to practice.

We attend 18 hours of class a week creating compounds, analyzing English sonnets and formulating advertising campaigns, but we don't have an outlet to figure out whether or not the water should be boiling before we toss in the spaghetti.

The best that West Philadelphia has to offer is The Restaurant School on Walnut Street, where a one-day introductory workshop costs $135 - a cost well beyond most students' grocery budgets.

That's where the College Houses can help.

Harrison College House Dean Frank Pellicone said that cooking classes may begin at Harrison next year. He hopes to bring in a chef and staff from a local culinary school to give students a few cooking lessons.

The Harrison Freshman Experience Program also holds cooking contests to show students that they can create healthy meals on their own. In fact, Harrison staff judge the meals on their nutritious value during the contest.

These types of programs are exactly what students need, just on a larger scale beyond one College House.

Cooking classes within the College Houses would interest students like Sanchez, who believes that many others would want to learn some recipes to prepare in their own dorm rooms.

"You're paying to have that kitchen," added Winchell, "and it'd be great to learn how to use it."

Use it safely, that is.

As Winchell noted, many students are unaware of basic safety rules for cooking.

Pellicone told me that fire alarms often go off when students leave their pots on heated stoves. I myself had to suffer the horrifying sounds of a fire alarm last week in the cold (luckily with a warm order of Insomnia Cookies) because "Mexican Night" turned into burning grease night in my apartment building.

Other safety issues, such as knowing how to handle raw meat, are important as well. Contracting salmonella because you rubbed raw chicken all over your ingredients would be a very bad move.

While it's unlikely that I'll ever eat a snail, no matter how posh or refined it is, I'm confident that all students - with a little bit of practice - can conquer their fear of kitchens.

The sooner, the better, because I'm running out of pots.

Christina Domenico is a College junior from North Wildwood, NJ. Her e-mail is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Fridays.

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