Dining, Haute-Style

Braving the sort of cold Cambridge rain our group has grown accustomed to, we met in the oak-panelled Dunster House dining hall for Sunday brunch. Our gathering was of old comrades, one of whom had recently returned from adventures on the Continent, and another of whom had trekked to the river's edge from distant Cabot House. Over cerebral, though spirited conversation, we prepared a tasty meal of robust proportions from food ordinarily available on the salad bar. Desirous of exploiting the fresh ingredients provisioned by the helpful corps of dining hall staff, we selected simple comestibles. Each recipe had a story. One had been found scrawled in the margins of a goodly great-aunt's tattered copy of The Radcliffe News. Another had been inspired by a childhood hot-air balloon tour of Tuscany. And certainly, some of these recipes we had devised ourselves, tired as we were of cafe lunches and bistro suppers and craving simpler, heartier fare. As a simple Provencale peasant would say, bon apetit!

Gateau au fromage de Philadelphie

1 glob cream cheese

3 packets sugar

3 graham cracker sections

1 dab butter

1 soup spoon jam

1. Roll up sleeves.

2. Knead butter with graham crackers until mushy.

3. Line bottom of condiment bowl with mixture.

4. Combine sugar and cream cheese until homogenous.

5. Add to bowl.

6. Top with swirl of jam.

7. Roll sleeves back down.

8. Eat.

Bruschetta

1 condiment bowl tomatoes

1 condiment bowl onions

2 capfuls balsamic vinegar

1 capful olive oil

1 slice grainy-ass bread

1. Toast bread on "7" and "Darkest."

2. Finely chop tomatoes and onions.

3. Apply tomatoes and onions to bread.

4. Drizzle with olive oil, pour on balsamic vinegar.

5. Salt and pepper to taste.

6. Serve.

Open-Visaged, Low-Fat Tuna Melt

1 slice white bread

1 heaping ladle tuna salad

1 slice low fat deli-cut ham

1 slice low-fat Swiss chesse

1. Lightly toast bread.

2. Scoop tuna onto bread.

3. Cover with ham, then swiss.

4. Nuke until cheese breaks a sweat.

5. Eat.

Pizza aux Epinards

1/2 loaf pita

1 condiment bowl marinara sauce

1 fat pinch mozzarella cheese

Spinach leaves, oregano, and basil to taste.

1. Cover pita in concentric circles of sauce.

2. Stud pita with spinach leaves and smother leaves in mozzarella.

3. Nuke for 2 minutes.

4. Sprinkle with oregano and basil.

5. Enjoy.

Lasagne

1 wide-body bowl rigatoni

1 condiment bowl marinara sauce

1 palmful shredded mozzarella

1 tongful spinach

pinch garlic powder

1. Cover rigatoni with marinara sauce, leaving no spiral thingy uncovered.

2. Cover sauce with cheese.

3. Cover cheese with spinach.

4. Cover spinach with rigatoni, rigatoni with sauce, sauce with cheese, cheese with spinach.

5. Nuke for three and a half minutes.

6. Add garlic, and serve.

Cafe Ole

1 udder-style milk machine

1 industrial-capacity coffee maker

sucrose

1. Fill half a tall glass with whole milk.

2. Nuke for thirty seconds.

3. Add coffee immediately.

4. Add sugar to taste.

5. Drink up.

Huevos del Diablo

2 eggs, hardboiled

1 fistful mayonnaise

1 fork

1/2 soup spoon mustard

Pinch paprika

1. Peel and vivisect eggs.

2. Combine egg yolk, mayonaise, mustard, paprika. Mush well.

3. Fill albumen cave with mayonaise-egg mixture.

4. With fork prong, engrave pentagram onto the surface of the mixture for the "devilled" look.

5. Efface pentagram with tongue tip and eat.

Pudding du Riz

1 condiment bowl rice

4 squirts cream from cream pump

small pinch cinammon sugar

1. Pump cream into rice.

2. Stir until alienated from the product of your labor.

3. Dopple with cinammon sugar.

4. Now lap it up! Lap it up!