Â鶹ÊÓƵ

To set the stage a bit: this is one of my favorite songs to to. This song feeds my soul; this post is going to feed us all.

Hi friends. In case you didn't know, I like food. (I was going to link to all the posts I've written about food here on the Â鶹ÊÓƵ blogs but there were a lot, so here's a Google search instead and I'll link to relevant posts when I can.) I can also tell you that Â鶹ÊÓƵ students are a little bit into food as well (THANKS Google; it turns out over . That's... a smorgasboard, if you will.) And lest we forget, our Â鶹ÊÓƵ Alumni Magazine dedicated an (award-winning issue!) entirely to Â鶹ÊÓƵ people working for, with, and because of food last spring.

I need to stop. I'm drooling. But I can't stop now. I'm still hungry, and the problem is, now you probably are too.

For many of us here at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, food is a way of life. Whether it's your co-op cooking shift, the group you go to Feve brunch with every other week, the dorm cooking you pieced together and then excelled at over winter term, any way you look at it, food is synonymous with community. And Â鶹ÊÓƵ is all the better because of it.

I love that community experience. My time at Â鶹ÊÓƵ was punctuated by wonderful meals, on my own late at night in Harkness, adventuring to the West Side Market in Cleveland, with my , with , with , with . I lived well, and I ate well.

But my time before and after Â鶹ÊÓƵ has been marked by many of these meals, too. My dad's co-op friends from the 70s were our potluck buddies for years in Kentucky, and since graduating, that's been the world I've created for myself, too. I'm teaming up with my newest foodie friend, : cohort in crime when it comes to thinking up cool social media projects, fellow Â鶹ÊÓƵ blogger, and lover of good sandwiches, to bring good food to you.

Or rather, you bring good food to us. Let's call it a virtual potluck.

You see, we've decided we want to eat with you all and we want you all to eat with each other, too. We're calling our project , because a collection of your family's recipes, the things that remind you of home and the tasty things that come along with it, is the best thing to take along with you to college. College is when your family becomes bigger, too, and with our recipe collection, your new Â鶹ÊÓƵ family can eat along with you.

Tanya and I were so excited about this project we took some family portraits and a family gif. Enjoy!

Okay. Enough silliness (for now). Here's how it goes:

• From now until August 1st, we'll be and . (If you're a Tumblr-er/Tumblarian/Tumblrite, follow it and you'll get all the recipes as they're posted.)
• Not a cook? Creative in other ways? We're also : if you see something in our cookbook and feel inspired, create and share it with us, and we'll add it to our Tumblr.
• Then, in August, we're stepping it up a notch. From August 3rd-17th, we want to see your family dinners. Choose a recipe from the collection, make it, and share it with your local family and then your Â鶹ÊÓƵ family.
• We may or may not have some plans for the fall semester here on campus, too... stay tuned for that!

Ready? Set? GET COOKING!