By Isabella Meier and Anna Weygang | Staff Writers
Picture this: You’ve had a horrible day, and after four long classes it’s finally time to have dinner. You’re excited – maybe this will be the pick-me-up you needed. Maybe, for once, the dining hall will make something that doesn’t have you a bit concerned about your health. You walk into Miley hopeful, but after seeing the options, your heart immediately drops. All you want is a homemade meal, but nothing being served seems to fit that description.
Luckily, this year things are changing. Now, students can make their own meals with the new UCook station in the dining hall. At the beginning of the year, the station stayed sad, empty, and unused as people built up the courage to cook in front of their peers. But slowly, one by one, students could be seen timidly putting omelet ingredients into the pans and cooking with friends.
After almost a full semester of use, the UCook is a popular destination for people who are tired of the Mongolian grill, pasta, and chicken. There’s a variety of omelet and stir fry ingredients to choose from, but more creative student chefs gather ingredients from throughout the dining hall to cook more creative concoctions. Wonderfully melted bacon grilled cheeses, English muffin breakfast sandwiches, and scrambled egg bowls are among the best of the servings. If you wanted to take it to the next level, you could even bring your own ingredients from home. Students have been spotted cooking chocolate chip pancakes with store-bought mix to liven up a slow weekend morning. The key is to be creative– thinking outside of the box will lead you to craft fantastic and unique dishes that can’t be found anywhere else in Miley.
Although some students are still wary of the UCook station, others have been loving this new addition to Miley. We took the opportunity to interview students using the UCook station in Miley, and reviews were overwhelmingly positive: “I honestly really like it!” commented first-year student Diana Ospina. “A lot of people think it’s confusing, but it’s pretty easy to understand.” Aside from how easy it is to use, her friend Ridhika Patil loved the variety of ingredients offered in the UCook, which allowed her to make food that reminded her of home.
As the UCook station gains popularity amongst the student body, our hope is that Miley dining will expand the ingredient options to include more than just omelets and pasta stir fries. We encourage everyone to take a stab at playing chef at the UCook station at least once during the school year. In the wise words of Shakira from the movie Zootopia, “try everything.”
Photos from Unsplash.
