If you are anything like the typical college student, you just enjoyed a restful summer vacation back home with a delicious home-cooked meal every night of the week. You scarfed down watermelons, barbecue chicken and corn on the cob that you didn’t have to buy and certainly didn’t have to prepare.
Now, as you return to Cal Poly, you will more than likely be faced with 10 weeks of Starving Student Syndrome (SSS). Symptoms often include, but are not limited to:
• Home-cooked meal withdrawals
• Costco runs where at least 30 hot pockets and 45 mini frozen pizzas are purchased
• Joining every club on campus that offers free food during meetings
• Claiming you actually enjoying eating Top Ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner
By about week three you will be wishing you could have packed up Mom, along with the whole kitchen, and brought both with you to San Luis Obispo to save you from the tragedies of SSS. But there is still hope — hope that doesn’t involve dragging Mom out here as your personal chef.
I invite you to take control this quarter — don’t become one of the thousands affected by SSS. You can experience delicious home-cooked meals here at Cal Poly all by yourself; or better yet, experience them with your friends. You could even impress that cute girl in your English class by inviting her over for a dinner you’ve prepared.
The in season possibilities are quite endless when you embrace the foods around you. The best part of buying in season is it is cheaper, tastier, easier and all around better for the community and environment.
Join me each week as I explore what foods are in season and all you need to know in order to pick the highest quality foods and prepare them with confidence and delectable results. Who knows — maybe by the end of the year you will go back to Mom and surprise her with a divine homemade meal. Finally, each week I will leave a clue to what food that’s in season will be featured the following week. Until next time…
CLUE: This fruit was considered the fruit of discord and was associated with beauty. After Paris offered it to Aphrodite he was awarded Helen of Troy. The campaign to make her his own gave way to the Trojan War.
Heather Rockwood is food sciences junior.