As some of you might know from my previous posts, I fell in love with cooking with friends at Amherst. And guess what? We are extending this communal activity to the entire Amherst community–we started the Culinary Club!
For our intro meeting, we decided to make tteokbokki, which is relatively easy to make and tasty. We designed and posted posters on Instagram and Daily Mammoth to attract 20+ sign-ups.
We started preparing all the ingredients at 4:00 pm for the public to start cooking at 5:00 pm. Since it was our first time running the club, we encountered several “issues,” such as not having enough bowls for sauce-making or not enough measuring spoons for each group to use.
Fortunately, cooking is a communal activity that involves cooperation and even problem-solving, so we kindly asked people to share the utensils among the groups. Some were in charge of cutting cabbages, fish cakes, and sausages; some were making the sauce to put into the broth; and others were stirring the pot to make sure the rice cakes didn’t stick to the bottom. We laughed at each other (kindly) when we made a mistake and helped each other out when someone did not understand the instructions. I also got to know a lot more people. Sharing a meal together is one of the fastest ways to get closer to one another.
In an hour, we had three pots of tteokbokki, which are with regular spice, less spice, and only vegetables. As a person who cannot handle much spice and had to sneeze every so often, I loved it. Some people even said this was one of the best club activities they have been to at Amherst. We were so glad people saw the power of connection-building in cooking. Looking forward to our next meeting!