Mac and Cheese to the Rescue
Cafeteria, Courtesy of the New York Public Library
As part of our back to school series I want to reflect on my first year student experience. Just days into the start of my freshmen year at Herkimer County Community College in 1981, it became clear that some of my lacrosse teammates had few cooking skills. In fact some turned to instant box recipes to rescue them from hunger. For example, teammate Andy Kaiser from Baldwin, Long Island, told me that he and his roommate “lived off of five for a dollar boxes of macaroni and cheese. We would add green peas and cut up hot dogs to the mac and cheese and that what we ate for days on end,” said Andy. We were all away from home and cooking for ourselves for the first time. Some teammates spent more time looking for bargain happy hours at bars and taverns than they did shopping for food. Growing up both my parents had jobs and my brothers and I all developed both cooking skills and a love of cooking. Others had little or no cooking or shopping acumen. What little that served in the college cafeteria cost too much so most the students learned to cook by trail and fire.
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