Students pass homemade food around a kitchen table.

Courtesy | Stephen Zhu

Pans sizzle and stovetops glow for students who cook fresh meals in their dorm kitchens, anxious to put their culinary skills to the test. For many of these students, their passion for cooking stems from tradition, practicality, and the desire to bond with friends.

Senior Stephen Zhu did not discover his hobby for cooking until winter break of his freshman year, after realizing it was a great way to foster community in his dorm.

“A lot of my friends have never had Chinese food,” Zhu said. “I wanted to give them that experience, but I didn’t know much about cooking, and so I started getting more into it. I practiced a lot over winter break, and now I really enjoy doing it.”

Zhu said despite what some students may think, cooking in the dorm is not cheaper than eating in the dining hall for each meal. According to him, students only save around $200 when they switch from 19 to 15 meals a week.

“When you take into consideration the time that you’re losing from spending time cooking instead of just going to the dining hall, then you wouldn’t end up saving money,” he said.

At home, Zhu cooked what he called the best dish he has ever made. It was a stir-fry with Chinese yellow chives, a very expensive vegetable that has a lot of flavor.

“My mom got me some because she knew that I wanted to try it, to see what it was like. It costs more per pound than steak, so it’s definitely a luxury ingredient,” Zhu said.

Zhu likes to bring people together with his cooking, something that freshman Vito Gabriele has done in his family’s restaurants for years. When Gabriele’s grandparents came to the United States from Italy, they opened a pizza restaurant, the beginning of a long line of family-owned eateries.

“My father grew into the business and started working in the restaurants,” Gabriele said. “As he got older, he built restaurants and expanded, and so did my grandfather.”

Food is a great passion in Gabriele’s family, especially because of their Italian heritage. When Gabriele was old enough, he too began working in his family’s restaurants.

“I first started as a bus boy. I went around the tables and I talked to people,” Gabriele said. “I did magic tricks, but then I worked my way up.”

Gabriele started making pizzas before moving on to more advanced dishes like pasta. When he came to Hillsdale, he knew he wanted to keep his passion for cooking alive.

“I don’t use all my meal swipes because I have the same passion here. It’s a different experience when you have one-on-one time with yourself, and maybe you’re cooking for somebody else. It’s important to cook, especially for yourself, because when you’re out of college, you’re not going to have a meal plan,” Gabriele said.

Despite his family’s long history of success, Gabriele made it clear that cooking does not come without its failures.

“One time, I was cooking a pizza and I just forgot about it,” he said. “I was 30 minutes in when I pulled it out of the oven, and it was black. I was watching ‘The Sopranos.’ I was so intrigued with what was going on that I just forgot about the pizza.”

Gabriele has experience cooking for large groups of people, which junior Rhys Woodard does regularly with elaborate potlucks.

“My friend group and I will do a dinner together once a month or so,” Woodard said. “For Fall Break, we always do a big one with friends who are here on campus. We invite a bunch of people, and we usually cook both cookies and meat for that. And then, for Easter dinner, we do a big feast as well.”

Woodard said he learned to cook from a world geography class he took in ninth grade. The course required him to cook nine meals from different regions, and he took a liking to it.

“There’s an Indian lamb curry recipe that I did back for my geography class. You just chop up a bunch of lamb, throw it in with tomatoes and spices, and let it simmer for two hours. And that’s absolutely incredible,” Woodard said.

In addition to cooking, Woodard’s signature chocolate chip cookies are a hit with anyone who tries them.

“The cookies are a recipe that I got from my high school mentor,” Woodard said. “He would make them every night he was on duty in the dorms. I went to a boarding school, and he doesn’t give you the recipe until you graduate, and he was walking around graduation with a stack of recipe cards.”

Most importantly, Woodard sees these friendly gatherings as opportunities for outreach.

“It’s like a form of ministry,” he said. “It’s a way to reach out to people.”