From Commons Dining Hall to the Sadler Center, The Bake Shop to Aromas and Kilwins to Baskin Robbins, students at the College of William and Mary have a lot of options on their plate when it comes to food. However, a new option is in the works: a small group of students are working hard to create a space where students can combine their meals with community and education, and they are calling it Club Cooking.
Club Cooking is a new Recognized Student Organization at the College that became official in April of this year. As they began to plan, the club’s executive board emphasized the importance of feedback from potential members.
“We’ve sent out multiple different kinds of forms,” club president Nicholas Friedel ’28 said. “We have a form on our Instagram that’s still live about, ‘What do you want to see in a cooking club?’ Because it’s as much our club as it is everyone else’s at William and Mary.”
Given the feedback they have received, the executive board has a strong vision for what the club will provide its members.
“Our goals are to share food from multiple different cultures and food groups and ethnicities, and we want to educate people on cooking, like cooking skills and dorm cooking, because cooking in a dorm is hard,” Friedel said.
For students new to college and living alone, the mental load of cooking on their own can create a high barrier of access for enjoying homemade food.
“I’m gonna buy the ingredients and the equipment, and then I need to store the equipment somewhere,” club treasurer Michael Swetnam-Burland ’28 said. “I need to clean it. Like, all of that is just kind of a logistical nightmare.”
By creating monthly themes with weekly menus, Club Cooking hopes to cultivate a space where students who are passionate about food can share and learn together. To accomplish such a big goal, the executive board is hard at work nailing down the nitty-gritty details. The first is deciding where to cook their meals.
“We’ve been working with RAs to get access to residence hall kitchens, but the RAs are only half of the approval process,” Friedel said. “The other half is the Community Councils, which haven’t started yet this semester.”
As they wait on approvals for spaces, they have also started working on how to accommodate the nearly 200 people that signed up for their email list at the club fair.
“The turnout was so high that there were people who had to stand because there weren’t enough seats for them,” said club meeting coordinator Conner Clark ’28. “So, it was really, really exciting.”
The executive board has settled on a system where members — those who have paid $20 dues — will be able to view monthly menus and sign up for one meeting a month. This will allow Club Cooking to invite large numbers of people into their spaces without overcrowding meetings or struggling to balance resources. That type of scheduling also comes with benefits for students at the College, a generally busy and highly involved group of people.
“Since it’s monthly meetings, it’s low commitment for people,” Friedel said.
Even if you can only attend once a month, Club Cooking is making sure each meeting is a full experience.
“Members of the club will be able to pick a week based on the menu and the time and come to our meeting and enjoy the food that the exec prepares while learning about, ‘How do I cook this meal? What are some strategies for cooking it?’” Friedel said.
With a schedule set and a space pending, the executive board’s attention has turned to nailing down their recipes. Whether they’re recent finds or family favorites, Club Cooking is making sure to emphasize diversity and accessibility in the meals they settle on.
“We have a Health and Safety Officer that will help us with alternate menus and making sure our menus have as little allergens as possible,” Swetnam-Burland said.
Avoiding allergens is especially important to Friedel, who is passionate about making sure their recipes are fully available to members.
“Personally, I have a peanut, tree nut, sesame, carrot and pineapple allergy. I grew up with a dairy and a milk and an egg allergy,” Friedel said. “So, I’ve been through it, right? So it’s really important that we are transparent with our menus for that reason.”
Given the huge amount of interest, the club is also working hard to be cognizant of college students’ many different diets.
“Once a month, we’ll have a vegan or vegetarian meal that isn’t some gross substitution, it’s a vegan meal designed to be edible to people,” Friedel said.
In addition to vegan and vegetarian diets, Club Cooking is also trying to learn how to accommodate different religious dietary restrictions.
“None of us are Jewish or Muslim, but we’ve been studying educational videos on Halal and Kosher traditions as well, trying to figure out, how do we match those rules too?” Friedel said. “It’s hard to learn a new, strict religious rule book, but we care a lot about it.”
Maintaining a club culture outside of weekly meetings with rotating participants is also important to the club’s leaders. Clark has ideas he is excited about for promoting unity across the club.
“We can have one meeting per month on Sunken where we don’t bring any food, but then that would allow everyone to be together,” Clark said. “People from different meetings can come meet each other, and the whole club can have one meeting where everyone’s here together. So we can raise the culture of a group of friends.”
Despite their high amount of interest, Club Cooking is always willing to hear from more interested potential members. Email clubcooking@wm.edu to get on its email list, and follow them on Instagram @wmclubcooking to join in on the exciting events they have got cooking!
