Kathleen Flinn remembered cooking her first meals away at college: endless rice and beans and a whole chicken prepped for the rest of the week.
Now the author, chef and Columbia alum is offering students guidance on how to make real food without a real kitchen.
“You don’t need a fancy kitchen,” Flinn said. “And you don’t even necessarily need access to a full kitchen.”
In time for back-to-school, Flinn, a best-selling author, spoke with the Chronicle about dorm-friendly recipes, grocery runs and how to keep yourself fed between exam prep and late shifts at work.
All dorms at Columbia have a stove, oven and microwave for students to share in a communal area and some even have a rooftop gas grill.
“Starting by building a small pantry and things that you like to eat. What would you order as takeout? Start there,” Flinn said.
Flinn recommended thinking about what foods can be bought already prepared and how they can serve several purposes throughout the week.
“You can buy a roast chicken, and then think about how you make it into multiple meals until the point that you use the chicken bones itself and then you can make chicken stock,” she said.
Flinn said one way students can find help is through food assistance programs. She wished she had done that when she was in school.
As a student, she was making far less than the income threshold for food stamps, yet she never applied because pride got in the way.
“I found out later that two or three of my friends I went to Columbia with were on food assistance,” she said.
Chicago’s cost of living only magnified the challenge. Unlike in small college towns with more budget-friendly places to eat, the city offers little cushion.
“It’s enough stress to go to college. It’s enough stress to be living on your own,” Flinn said. “You’re living in the middle of a really expensive city. It’s what the reality is.”
Flinn, who grew up in Michigan before moving to Florida at 11, planned to attend the University of Florida on a woodwinds scholarship. But by the end of high school, she was ready to leave. She threw a dart at a map, and it landed on Chicago.
She enrolled at the College of DuPage, found an apartment and joined the student newspaper, The Courier. Writing, both fiction and nonfiction, had always been part of her life, and at the age of 19, she landed a job at the Chicago Sun-Times.
At an open house at Columbia, she was allured by faculty who were active in their fields.
She graduated in 1989 with a journalism degree and continued writing for the Sun-Times, Internet Underground and later Microsoft, which took her from Chicago to London. Microsoft eventually let her go — a dismissal she likened to a breakup she’d secretly wanted.
With a generous severance, she moved to Paris and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu, intending to write a book about the experience.
Her memoir, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, was published in 2007 by Viking Penguin and landed on the New York Times bestseller list.
Today, Flinn runs a food blog, teaches cooking classes and is working on a fourth book, sharing lessons learned in the kitchen and on the page.
On Columbia’s campus, students can adapt them to their own tight budgets and busier-than-ever schedules.
Cecilia Frias, a senior user experience and interaction design major, continued to cook and bake even after moving to the city to attend Columbia two years ago. She lived in The Arc her sophomore year at Columbia.
Though one roommate opted for a meal plan, Frias and her other roommates chose to primarily cook their own food in the communal space and shop for groceries, even sharing some items like milk, eggs and other basic ingredients.
“For the most part, we were pretty independent with our meals. All of us are on different schedules, so it kind of was just easier that way,” she said.
Both of Frias’ parents cooked plenty at home, though that didn’t prevent some trial and error.
“For the first year that I was here, I was eating mostly frozen Trader Joe’s meals and stuff like that,” she said. “In my second year of living on campus, I learned how to plan more efficiently. I would choose one day out of the weekend and cook that day and have that meal for the rest of the week.”
Lindsay Carter-Early, a junior communication major, was inexperienced her freshman year when she moved into The Dwight on campus. She was on a dining plan for the first two weeks and then switched to doing her own shopping and cooking.
“I plan my meals as I’m at the grocery store. I’m a huge procrastinator, so I almost never make lists,” she said. “I only make a list if I know I’m going to forget something.”
Ashley Fisher, a junior music major, is an RA this year and has found a system that works for her. She often uses grocery store apps to make lists before shopping.
Fisher rarely has time to sit down and have a meal these days, but she doesn’t ignore the fact that she still needs to take care of herself despite her busy schedule.
“Try and be mindful of nutrient-rich foods because when you’re running around all night and getting no sleep, that’s gonna be important,” Fisher said. “When you do go shopping, always shop the deals and don’t get caught up on name brands, cause branching out can lead to new favorites.”
Copy edited by Brandon Anaya
