OCT 31, 2024 | FEATURES | By Tessa Franz and Anya Potsiadlo
It’s the time of year when the weather is getting chilly. Block 3 is well underway, and life at Colorado College is in full rhythm. It’s also that time of year when dining hall dollars are running low, and for some (me) eating in town has been occurring too frequently to sustain. In this spirit, we had a mission: could we get a free meal every day for a week at CC related events? In this article you will find that this is not only possible, but also a profoundly positive experience that expanded our knowledge of CC and our palettes.
Our first stop of this mission was French House where we enjoyed an extremely fulfilling snack of pastries, fruit and cheese as part of their Monday tradition, ‘Pause Cafe.’ The homey and well-decorated interior of the French house was no surprise considering its beautiful exterior, so it was the perfect setting to get us excited about a week of infiltrating some of our campus’ more niche spaces. I have found that college life has a disappointing lack of good cheese, like the kind that is a snack in it of itself rather than just an ingredient, so I personally filled my plate up with a lot of brie and crackers. The event was technically intended for aspiring and practicing French speakers to get a chance to chat conversationally in French, but we regrettably did little-to-none of that ourselves. I wish I could confirm or deny whether the rest of the attendees were speaking in French, but we were so engrossed in our own conversation that I don’t think I would have noticed either way. We spent a lot of time talking with Jesse Smolan ‘25, who just got back from a Block abroad in Iceland where he filmed his senior thesis project about sheep herders. We are now marginally more knowledgeable about the tumultuous relationship between these Nordic farmers and local environmentalists who don’t approve of the thousands year old practice, a topic that sounds like it would make a riveting short film. Another unexpectedly opportune thing we learned at Pause Cafe was that Blue Zone Happiness Club was having a dinner on Tuesday night, and film club, which Jesse Smolan ‘25 is in charge of, was having pizza on Wednesday. Thanks to the new connections we forged that day in the French house, our food calendar was filling up as much as our stomachs, and we even got to put in a good word for buffalo chicken pizza as a must-order for film club.
Knowing that Blue Zone Happiness club was making Costa Rican food for dinner gave me something to look forward to throughout Tuesday, and before long we made the long trek over. Approximately 40 steps from one end of east campus quad to the other took us to an apartment where club members graciously hosted the dinner. There were around 15 people there helping out with cutting veggies and cooking rice, and we joined the ranks of guacamole makers at the table. Also helping out, though more in the form of moral support, was George the dog who was a really, really good boy. We went into the dinner having done a little bit of research about Blue Zones, but we learned a ton more from the club leaders who spent last spring break on a venture grant trip to Costa Rica, one of the five original Blue Zones designated by an author named Dan Buettner. Essentially, Blue Zones are places in the world where the life expectancy is significantly above the rest of the world. They include Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; Nuoro Province, Sardinia, Italy; The Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California. The club’s goal is to celebrate traditions from these regions, and for Costa Rica, that meant delicious rice bowls with black beans, plantains, greens, a lovely cashew sauce and of course the guacamole that we spent a long time perfecting the ratios of. I can say with certainty that the bowl felt like it added years onto my life, but for more accurate results please feel free to check back in around the year 2100.
By the time Wednesday rolled around, we were feeling very confident in our mission. Jesse from the film club graciously added me to the GroupMe, so come 3 on Wednesday, I was on my way to a Cornerstone conference room for merriment and pizza. Upon arrival, I knew I had made the right decision in coming to this Film club meeting. The Domino’s pizza was nostalgic and reliable. The clear star of the show was a buffalo chicken pizza which I had never had before. A thorough presentation began in earnest, detailing the instructions for the Film department’s student film contest, or the CC Film Festival. Though I have no connection to the film department, I found this meeting to be creatively inspiring. Two members of the club told me about their film project for last year’s contest, in which a murder mystery ensues on campus. In another world, I certainly would enter the contest. Overall, Wednesday was informative and delicious.
By Thursday, we were slightly panicked. Our moments of serendipity in finding free food seemed to be occurring less and less often. Frantically, we scrolled through our emails, combing through CC Communications with attention to detail that I should probably be employing in my classes. Eventually, we found our saving grace: a screening of the movie Coraline at the Wellness Resource Center with, you guessed it, food. Not just any food, however. The WRC catered Chipotle for this very special movie screening, which had us over the moon with excitement. We marched on over to the WRC with untouchable optimism. We quickly realized that we had needed to RSVP for the event, but after some quiet bartering with an extremely kind student, we were able to secure a burrito to split between the two of us. We marched over to an IM flag football game and subsequently ate our chipotle while watching the women’s soccer game.
Of course, we couldn’t eat a free meal every day at CC without shouting out the lovely Catalyst newspaper. Every Friday at 12:30 the Catalyst hosts “Pizza and Pitches,” a space for pitching story ideas for the coming week, as well as warm, delectable pizza. However, this particular Friday had a twist in store. Instead of Pizza and Pitches, The Catalyst ordered tacos for some writers and editors, in the name of discussing future Catalyst leadership. The tacos themselves were DIY, with the options of rice, black and refried beans, queso, a slew of different meats, pico de gallo and some thin crispy tortilla chips. I made my tacos just the way I like and enjoyed, while engaging with fellow Catalyst contributors. This was without a doubt the perfect way to end the week. After eating every kind of food, whether it be homemade or Doordashed in, the tacos were the perfect blend of fresh and hearty. They were filling without being overly heavy. I finished out the week feeling refreshed and happy with how our mission went.