Whipping up a gourmet meal in a kitchen the size of an average broom closet is not only a tricky task, it’s one most Stanford students barely bother to imagine. In a climate that allows year-round fountain-hopping and epic Frisbee-golf tournaments, the idea of secluding oneself in a tiny, airless and perhaps Mr. Clean-challenged cubicle does not appeal. Why try, when there is a dining hall 10 steps away, your culinary skills are limited to boiling water for Top Ramen, and everyone knows the dorm kitchen is merely an ornamental room designed to lend the World War II-era building a more homey feel? Working stovetops, ha! Where do you think you are, Le Cordon Bleu?
Despite Wilbur Hall’s questionable facilities, as a freshman I found myself unable to ignore the call of the kitchen. Food has always held my interest—mostly in terms of what was available to eat. At some point that last part changed, perhaps when I faced the alternative of studying sample math finals again and again and again. Or maybe it was when I made plans to grab a late-night snack, only to discover the gelato store had closed 10 minutes earlier. It was certainly prompted in part by a rebellious instinct to just say no to Pizza A GoGo.
Whatever the catalyst, a zeal for cooking was born. I had found it, my Passion, that elusive item that Stanford kept insisting was so crucial to a successful, fulfilling life. Only it wasn’t in a laboratory vial or Plato’s Republic, but at the bottom of a bin of ripe pineapples. Armed with my trusty spatula and saucepan, I distinguished myself from hordes of fellow economics majors—she slices, she dices, she analyzes complex business models in her head! Cooking takes time, it takes concentration, and most of all, when you love shiitake mushrooms and jumbo prawns as much as I do, it takes money, but I determined the opportunity cost of designing my own meals to be well worth it. By the beginning of my sophomore year, there wasn’t a crisis averted or triumph achieved that I didn’t somehow either equate with food or turn into a cooking metaphor. I was hooked.
Soon, so were my friends. They weren’t all willing to spend four hours at Williams-Sonoma, but each claimed supremacy in a cooking or baking art. Sabrina, a Hong Kong native, became entranced with the idea of preparing her own meals, and vowed to convince her mom to teach her the techniques and dishes central to traditional Asian cooking. She regaled us with stories of delicious classics, mostly revolving around ingredients like chicken feet and pig’s blood, and occasionally threatened us with actual consumption of such foods in our presence. Robin, a loyal Texan, lamented Palo Alto’s lack of “true” barbecue and actually created a minikitchen in her room, complete with refrigerator, freezer, toaster, Crock-Pot, even steaming basket. Each person’s signature dishes and childhood memories of food revealed things I had never known: one friend lived in a traditional household where only the mother cooked; another always ate breakfasts that included meat to get her through a nine-hour school day; a third actually raised, killed and then prepared much of the food she ate at home. Food exposed a unique side to everyone.
For me, cooking was a skill, an art, an escape and an adventure. There was a time in December when I decided to make decorative Christmas cookies, only to find that the reindeer had charred and the Santas’ heads remained underdone due to the dorm oven’s temperamental heating system. Another weekend, I was nearly run over in the midst of a clandestine attempt at gathering roadside flowers to garnish a chocolate cake. Nonetheless, cooking relaxed me. During finals week, I would take frequent study breaks devoted to searching out the ideal dish. And I never allowed the question of how I was going to caramelize the sugar topping of the vanilla-raspberry crème brûlée to diminish my satisfaction at finding such a gastronomic gem.
The only impediment to true culinary greatness was the one square foot of working space I had. That problem has slowly faded away as I have moved from Wilbur to the Mirrielees apartments to the world beyond the campus. With more accessible (and functional) kitchens at my disposal, gourmet masterpieces are increasingly within my grasp. I envision a world of highbrow soirees, where people gather to consume delicious delicacies and talk politics and poetry.
When asked about my plans for the future, I used to declare that I would be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. My answer hasn’t changed—but now, that company produces 50 different types of cheese. Bon appétit.
Rachel Hepworth, ’04, is a junior from Fair Oaks, Calif.
