Mystery Basket: College Kitchen

Words By: Jen Lozano Photos By: Eileen Shelton

The broken lamp in the apartment casts a dim light, setting the scene. The warmth from the heater engulfs you as if it were a flame beneath a skillet. Your roommate’s alarm clock rings, mimicking the sound of a buzzer. As you begin to open your pantry in anticipation, you try to recall the last time you went to the grocery store. You’re immediately transported to the Chopped kitchen, ready to take on the mystery basket ingredients. You wish your fridge still had leftovers from Pino’s, knowing very well that you’ll have to rely on scraps left behind from last week’s groceries. The squeak of the door brings you back to the reality of living off-campus as a college student.

A trip to Wegmans, StarMarket or Trader Joe’s is a sobering reminder that you can’t swipe for a Screamin’ Eagle at Lower. Still, doing groceries is a last minute task for the weekend. Students will rarely venture far to fill up their kitchens unless the food situation is dire. Making conventional meals becomes its own task. As the inventory dwindles, students are left with a hodgepodge of ingredients. You’ll have to make do with your leftover ingredients.

Ingredients alone are not a direct indicator of taste or quality, especially for a college student. And if you’ve ever had Late Night, you aren’t one to judge leftover meals too harshly. Chips and packaged cheese may not impress a Michelin star chef, but for Danielle Rinaldi, MCAS ‘21, that’s the basis for all she needs. Running low on food is not uncommon for her or any of her roommates. After waiting almost two weeks to go grocery shopping, it’s a game time decision as to what she can create. Naturally, she channels her memories of Lunchables to create what is now trademarked as “Garbage Nachos.” Takis, plain grape tomatoes, avocados...anything and everything left in her pantry will work. At this point,

taste and quality are simply a matter of quenching hunger. For Danielle, as long as she has chips and cheese, it’s a go. Five stars for this creation.

A scarce pantry becomes a canvas for creativity, bringing ingredients together that simply shouldn’t work, but somehow, they do. Standing in the middle of her nearly desolate kitchen, Mary Santalla, MCAS ‘22, reimagines stir fry. If she can’t afford an order from her favorite Asian take-out and has no time for groceries, she has to think outside the box. With a couple drops of soy sauce, the last packet of ramen, crunchy peanut butter from last semester, some rice, and leftover frozen broccoli, Thai Peanut Stir Fry is served. This unlikely combination plus a little imagination evokes memories of her favorite type of cuisine. She is one of many students that have mastered the art of creating a meal out of a random assortment of ingredients.

In all of its uncertainties and flaws, a mystery basket meal delivers a limitless freedom for imagination. Just like students can major in Economics and Philosophy, they are free to combine ingredients, creating an unplanned meal. Because when you’re a hungry student, you aren’t looking to win an episode of Chopped or make an elaborate meal you saw on Instagram. You’re looking for sustenance—just enough until the next trek to the grocery store. Sure you could ask that freshman from your Appa group to swipe for your meal, but where is the fun in that? So, you work with what you have and who knows? You might just surprise yourself.