Common Application

I scoured the pantry for the right ingredients: Thyme or bay leaf? Allspice or nutmeg? Cinnamon or clove? So many options to choose from, each being able to change the flavor of the dish in its own unique way. I won’t know if that one ingredient will make the hours of preparation and cooking worthwhile or worthless. I may have taken a risk in adding that ingredient, but that’s what life is about.

From a young age, my parents taught me to balance my ingredients, yet I loved to experiment. I loved to see what flavor would prevail. Would it remind me of a Brazilian dish that I grew up tasting from my mother’s own cooking experiments? Or would it be an American dish, savored with different spices from those my parents grew up tasting? I quickly learned that the best dishes have a strong base to them. This is the case with the up- side-down pineapple cake, my mother’s favorite. I would watch my mother devour the cake with such joy in her eyes; I wished to bring that to her. I gathered the ingredients and started to experiment. Yet something was missing, an ingredient that could change the entire flavor of the dish. As I continued to search for the missing piece, I realized no dish is complete without its accents. Just like the majority of cakes, vanilla is the dominant flavor, but in the case of my mother’s favorite cake, the accent spices — clove and cinnamon — are what set the cake apart. In cooking, spices can make or break a dish. Spices bring rich flavors to a dish while accentuating the unique taste of international cuisine. But when used incorrectly, the flavors can miss the mark to the point where even the best recipe becomes unpalatable. Soon after this discovery, cooking became more than just making food. It became about learning about myself and the world around me. As I moved away from recipes, I was forced to find my own combinations and balance through experimentation, something I truly loved. It was here that I met the ingredients that helped make me who I am today:

Cloves. A resilient spice, a flavor whose warmth permeates through all my attempts to conquer it. I added orange, garlic, ginger, and molasses, but I could still taste the warm and numbing taste of clove. I slowly learned through trial and error that cloves aren’t meant to be conquered, they’re meant to be harnessed. Its ability to express itself through the acidity of the pineapple and numb the tongue are the traits that cloves give the upside-down cake its comforting flavor.

Cinnamon. A compassionate spice, the deep woody spice that pairs beautifully with a variety of flavors. A spice that defined my childhood. Growing up, cinnamon was my grandma’s favorite spice. She would use it in everything my brother and I loved: hot chocolate, “bolo de chuva”, “pavê”, “presunto”. As she cooked, she would often preach that cinnamon needed to be used in moderation, too much could ruin the dish but use too little, and you won’t even know it was there — a waste of spice. Because of this, I came to associate cinnamon with the love and compassion my grandmother gave us, the warm cozy feeling she radiated. Remembering the feeling and lessons from my grandma, I decided to add cinnamon into the cake.

Just as the spices make up the core of the dish, the traits represented by the spices make up the core qualities of myself. Compassion and resilience play an important role in how I carry myself and interact with the world. I find it essential to be kind and compassionate towards others and to have the resilience to push past hardships and negativity. Building from the recipes of the strong women in my life, my goal is to make those around me feel included and cared for.

Scarlett London

Common Application

After a taxing day at school, I collapse through my front door, stop, take a deep breath, and begin a quest to find my bedroom. This takes ten minutes. The hallways are 18 inches wide and today, they’re made entirely of sheets — castoffs of ochre and green from the 1970s, splashy Pac-Man icons of the ’80s, ruffly Laura Ashley florals, and more — all pinned together into a labyrinth of winding corridors. I climb on top of our dining room table, then down again, tunnel through a tangle of couch cushions, and turn a corner to find my father and two of his friends installing a full-sized cardboard gondola into a fake river running through my living room. I lift a Spiderman sheet, wriggle out of the hallway and retreat into my bedroom to get started on homework.

Each year from October through December, my entire house becomes a sheet-fort, in preparation for a one-night-only get-together we call Fortress Party. This is no highfalutin soiree; it’s built for friends and pajamas.

Our fortress is reminiscent of a blanket fort you build when you’re five, only taller, more structurally sound, and filled with outlandish props. But it may also be a sign that my family’s periodic regressive silliness has gotten completely out of hand.

October begins with a trip to the thrift store in search of used flat sheets. After drawing up initial floor plans, we run miles of clothesline through eye hooks in the ceiling and spend days atop chairs and ladders, pinning the sheets in place. As the winding fortress walls go up, all vestiges of our house’s original contours disappear. The result is, to put it mildly, disorienting. Finally, we give each room an immersive theme. You might find yourself in a tent on top of Mount Everest, inside Area 51, or at the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.

Over the years, my participation in Fortress Party has taken many forms, often depending on my energy level and artistic bent. In 2017, I portrayed dastardly Russian spy Olga Stroganoff, unmasked as a Scooby-Doo villainess amidst a plot to move the Metropolitan Museum of Art two inches to the left. In 2019, I wrote notes to the deceased at a Viking funeral. And this past year, I spent weekends creating one hundred celebrity puns for a bumblebee-themed room.

Sometimes I hate it. Fortress Party is exhausting. I dread swimming through a sea of dust, plaid and floral just to get a snack or use the bathroom. I tire of explaining this bizarre family tradition to my friends. I wish we could cook normal family dinners without risking a house fire. And while I try to focus on pliés and tendus in Saturday-morning ballet class, my thoughts careen wildly from bee-pun to bee-pun, and I wish our lives were more conventional.

But more often than not, I can’t help but smile at the maze of linens surrounding me. At my most insecure, when all I wanted was to fit in, Fortress Party forced my shell to crack. Crawling through a tunnel of cushions while listening to a song I helped write about camels, I came to appreciate that silliness has integral and societal value; there is both freedom and authenticity in being unapologetically silly. It also provides a respite from the grind. Growing up doesn’t mean that has to change. And no matter how many ballet performances I sweat through and articles I write, I’ll always count Olga Stroganoff and “The Jackson HIVE” among my best work.

Kurt Hausman

Common Application

I was struggling trying to figure out how to get my soggy shorts unstuck from the vinyl seat on the metro from Santa Monica. I was on the way back from the beach with my journalism class, after we had finished a weeklong trip in Los Angeles at a national journalism conference. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t let myself swim — I didn’t want to leave and get on the plane with wet shorts and salt strewn in my hair. But, I swam, and I was glad that I did. It was my first time swimming in the Pacific; going home without doing so would have felt like a lost opportunity.

As I was looking down, I recognized the man next to me was wearing a pair of Jordans that I’d always wanted, so I complimented him. He looked at me, smiled in surprise and said, “Thank you, man.” I could tell he meant it. He asked me who I was and where I was from. He wanted to know why my shorts were soaked – and when I told him, he laughed.

His name was Alex and he was from New York; after he had finished high school in The Bronx, he moved to Los Angeles with only his father and his belongings. As I learned more about him and he learned more about me, I soon realized that in a way, I was interviewing him. I was applying skills I had learned in the class I was on this trip for right then.

I learned that when he first got to L.A. he worked odd jobs to make a living. He told me about how he fell into his career of being a fashion stylist for celebrities by chance on a night out with his friends. He laughed and his face got red when he told me the story of him spilling food on himself in front of Jay-Z. He had the kind of smile that someone gets when their eyes light up and they have an idea. It was real, and it was almost like he had been waiting for someone to take an interest in him; to ask.

I learned about his relationship with his father and how they had to separate after their first few years in L.A. How he only gets to see him a few times a year when he goes to visit him in Oakland. I learned about his frequent trips back to New York to see his mom and siblings that still live in The Bronx. I learned about his dreams to move back home once he was financially able to support his family.

When his stop came and we parted ways he told me he was so glad he got to meet me and talk with me. I agreed and told him he stole the words right out of my mouth. As he walked away down the metro terminal, and our car slid out of sight, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. I couldn’t believe that the most meaningful interview I had ever conducted came on a metro ride with a stranger in the middle of Los Angeles.

That’s when I was truly able to apply the lessons I learned from this class in the real world. I’m always one to question the applications of the education we learn in school to real life and this couldn’t have been a more limpid example. Through my three years in this class I learned how to be a better communicator, which is the name of our publication. I learned how to listen and how to ask questions that mattered. I learned how to be a better person in this world by recognizing that everyone — even the stranger sitting next to me on the subway — has a story to tell, as long as there’s someone to listen.