Blogs: Food

Eating and Socializing on a Budget in Cambridge

Cooking dinner with friends as an alternative to overpriced, generic restaurants

MARCH 2018
by Elise N.
Linguistics and Philosophy
Ok, so you’re in a restaurant looking at a menu. The walls are unrefined brick or cement with steel beams, the ceiling has an old warehouse look, the lighting is dim, there are subway tiles on the floor and Edison style lightbulbs. The menu has fancy cocktails and dishes like pork belly, brussel...

The Importance of After-work Beer

Building personal connections through the medium of alcohol

MARCH 2018
by Jiayue W.
Nuclear Science and Engineering
I never took beer so seriously before coming to MIT. I’ve had beers, of course. But before, most of the times when I go out with my friends to have some beer, we would have something really nice to eat. In fact, I was always more into the food.  However, things are quite different here. If a person...

Craving a Muffin

Learning to contextualize desires

FEBRUARY 2018
by Shayne O.
Media Arts and Sciences
Five years ago, I ate a red velvet muffin every morning for about six weeks. It was the first semester of my freshman year, and I enjoyed the community of regulars that came with this breakfast ritual. The muffins were always these amorphous, half-goo red masses with too much sugar and never enough...

We Believe in Coffee

Coffee as a source of deeply individual and social experiences for our generation

September 2017
by Jared K.
Biological Engineering
How do you take it? Just black? Add almond milk? Maybe a cold brew (but definitely not iced coffee, that’s too acidic)? How about a pour-over (but not a French press, you hate the grit)? Let’s get a little fancier. How about a flat white (but please not a latte—you want those espresso notes to...

Always Where the Food's At

A grad student's guide to free food at MIT

SPRING 2017
by Kenny C.
Chemistry
Is there going to be food? If the answer is yes, I’m there. On my lab group’s Slack messaging channel, the description below my name is always where the food’s @. As a student at MIT, you begin to notice that nearly all events provide free food. The usual choices are bagels and pastries for...

Making Whoopie (Pies)

Baking as a stress relief from the rigor of MIT academics

SPRING 2017
by Kimberly D.
Microbiology
When you think of things a graduate student might do to relieve stress, baking and assembling 90 whoopie pies probably doesn't make the cut. Here’s the scene: every surface of my apartment is covered in misshapen disks of chocolate cake. I plop fluffy whipped cream onto the disks and sandwich them...

Ladies Lunch

How I helped form a group by and for female scientists

SPRING 2017
by Nicole A.
Biology
First-year students in the biology department take classes and do rotations. Since we don't join a lab until the end of the academic year, we have a designated room — “The Pit” — where we have access to books, computers, printers, lockers, and a relaxing lounge area. During my first year in...

East Asian Food Odyssey

Places to visit for quality East Asian food in the MIT area

SPRING 2017
by Jaehwan K.
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The saying, “a way to a man's heart is through his stomach," rings true to me. I inherited the joy I get from food and the importance I put on it from my late grandfather. On family trips he would pick out amazing restaurants that brought back memories of when he was young, and where the food was...

Confessions of a Green Tea Addict

Where to find quality green tea in the MIT area

SPRING 2017
by Titan H.
Mechanical Engineering
Just as some people are addicted to coffee, I am addicted to green tea. However, I think ‘addiction’ is a too strong of a word. I do not drink green tea twice a day in my office while working on research and problem sets, like how others drink their coffee. I cannot recall the exact time when I...

My Road to Yelp Elite

Eating and reviewing through grad school

SPRING 2017
by Irene C.
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Fact: The quickest way to attract students (and usually professors) is to promise food of any kind. Whereas I should be asking, "Interpretable natural language models talk vs. a mentorship lunch for women in computer science?" ... I find myself asking, instead, "Do I want free Brazilian BBQ or free...