apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i graduated in last may, and only lived in the dorms my freshman year. but in Stoke Hall at the University of New Hampshire the kitchen was small, dirty, and had a stove/oven, sink, and a few ancient pots and pans. There was only one, for the largest dorm on campus... home to about 800 students at that point, I believe.

In my dorms (4 of them over 6 semesters due to crazy summer scheduling), there was always a single "kitchen" for the whole dorm to share. The "kitchen" always had a sink, a couple of microwaves, and a table that only had chairs if they were attached. Some of them had a stove and oven.

I brought my own pans to cook in - a skillet and a pot big enough to cook a box of macaroni and cheese. I kept all the smaller necessities (spatula, spoon, potholder, etc) nested inside a colander.

But most of the time, I just used the microwave in my room. Hotpots were a big no-no, but some people had George Foreman grills. I had a single sandwich sized griddle that I learned to make all kinds of things on.

I bought the largest size mini-fridge that was allowed. Whenever I went home for a weekend, my mom would send me back with a small cooler of individually-portioned home-cooked meals, frozen, for me to re-heat in the microwave. I would cram whatever I could into the tiny slip of a freezer, then put the rest in the fridge to eat first. I just had to remember to bring the boxes back home on the next visit for her to refill!

The best things to put in your roundup of quick meals are things that can be eaten while walking. I was constantly walking out the door with food in-hand. I even mastered eating a bowl of cereal on my way to my 8am math class! People thought I was crazy, but I would carry a gallon-size Ziploc bag in my backpack to seal up the dirty dishes until I got back to my dorm to wash them.

When I was in school, we had a microwave in a common room. That's it. We had a mini-fridge in our room, but there were big rules about appliances in rooms. So no cooking until I moved to an apartment.

When I was a freshman a few years ago, we had one kitchen in the basement for the entire dorm. It had a fridge, stove, and an oven. Each floor had a microwave, and I had my own mini-fridge.

I had a couple plates/bowls/glasses/forks/knives/spoons, but no pots or pans. A few of my hallmates had the things I didn't though, so we would borrow things from each other.

Wow, do they LET you have appliances in your rooms now? We couldn't have them in ours when I was in college, and many were the ideas used to disguise them.

But people found ways around them -- a college friend of mine just really, really loved to cook, and got placed into a suite of rooms with four roommates - two in one bedroom and three in the other -- and there was a big extra walk-in closet no one needed in the room. So my friend kind of took it over as her kitchen, bringing in a microwave, mini fridge, toaster oven, two-coil electric range, and a small assortment of pots pans and platters. Instead of trying to hide it, she just resolved to make dinner for her entire floor once a week and made a point of inviting the dorm mother on her floor -- who in return turned a blind eye to her cooking.

At NYU about 8 years ago, our freshman dorm room had nothing but a mini-fridge and a coffeemaker - hot plates and microwaves were verboten. But we MASTERED that coffeemaker.... definitely remember using it to boil water for jello, ramen, and mac and cheese! After that, we moved up to "apartment style" housing, which had a real kitchen with stove, fridge, microwave, foreman grill. Many nights were spent with open windows, trying to fan out all the fumes from burning food before the smoke alarms went off! The best was when my RA friend brought home 8 tubs of cream cheese left over from a breakfast event - we made cheesecake!

aside from toasters, mini-fridges, microwaves, and coffee makers, no appliances were allowed in my freshman dorm. my sophomore dorm had a community kitchen on every floor (1 stove, oven, full size fridge for about 60 people). junior year, the dorms were "quad" style: 4 rooms sharing a common room that had a full kitchen and my senior year, i lived in off campus student housing and each apartment unit had its own kitchen. not too shabby, i'd say.

i don't know that the kitchens that are in the dorms at my alma mater get used all that often. for YEARS (starting before i was there), if you lived on campus, you had to purchase a meal plan for the dining commons... no exceptions. why they put so much money into making sure that were as as kitchen-equipped as we were, i have no idea. probably to appease parents who paid the big bucks, i'm sure.

My freshman and sophomore years at Ohio University, '96/-'01, the only dorm required years, we were only allowed hot pots and mini fridges (though we filled those with mostly beer). My sophomore year we snuck in a toaster oven and boy Bagel Bites never tasted better than after a long night in the bars!

By the time my, erm, "first" senior year rolled around all the dorm rooms were given micro fridges (and computers!), I feel that is as close as I'll get to a "walked uphill to school both ways" story!

My roommate and I have our own bedrooms (which are actually decent-size!) but we share a kitchenette - a full size fridge, a small sink, a microwave, some counter space and a tiny little table. To this set-up, we've been permitted to add an electric kettle, a rice cooker and a toaster oven. And some other essentials. Which in our case, include a handheld blender and, uh, a kitchenaid. I've seen things like George Foremans and those coffee maker-toaster-egg cooker combination things in other students rooms. As long as it has an automatic shutoff and a contained heat source (ie. no hotplates)
There are roughly 250 students per floor and each floor has two kitchens - a stove/oven, a double sink, some counter space, and an ice maker. You see the same ten or so people in your kitchen all the time, because first year students have a mandatory meal plan and we have a small cafeteria in our building (Plus multiple big ones across the parking lot at the school itself.) so some students will go their entire year without using the kitchens at all.

When I lived in res, we had no kitchens whatsoever and had a pretty strict limit on what we could have in our rooms-- a mini fridge and an electric kettle, basically. Cleaning staff came in weekly, too, so there was no getting away with anything. Granted, though, my situation was rather unusual: the other res in my college had small kitchenettes on every floor (full fridge, microwave, some had ovens/stoves, small sink), and from what I understand, the other colleges at my university followed that model as well. One of the colleges' residences was set up as suites with full kitchens; I was always really jealous of that, given dining hall food was not worthy of the title 'food' at all.

Anyway, still a student but now living off-campus (largely for this reason, in fact). I have a full kitchen in my studio, for which I cannot even begin to express my gratitude.