Bon Appétit Teams with Carleton’s FireBellies for ‘Top Chef Dining Hall’

Written by Guest on April 6, 2012in Sustainable Food Challenge - 3 Comments

By Vayu Maini Rekdal, Carleton College ’14

Vayu (left) looks on as second-place Garden Snakes presents bruschetta on whole grain bread with an arugula salad tossed in a home-made balsamic vinaigrette, lo mein stir fry with seared seitan, and "strawberry apples" on a granola bed with organic honey

As a foodie, two things struck me when I first came to Carleton College as a freshman last fall. Although Carleton is a very food-aware campus, there was not yet a cooking club. And despite the great-tasting array of food served in the dining halls, students seemed to complain regularly about their meals. I was surprised and wanted to do something to change this.

During a late night in September in the study lounge of my resident hall, shortly after I settled on campus, two friends and I laid the foundation for a student organization that would reach unprecedented heights, pushing boundaries in what student organizing and culinary tradition mean at Carleton. After some intense deliberation and brain-storming at 3am, the FireBellies cooking club was born.

FireBellies really took off this winter. Suddenly, we had over 200 names on our email list, and more and more people started showing up at our biweekly events — healthy cooking classes and cooking games. And having established a solid board of students, our message was getting out there: we were helping to cultivate an interest in sustainable and healthy cooking as well as to promote an understanding of different cultures and backgrounds through the universal language of food.

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