Twenty aspiring cooks bustled around the spacious Usdan cafeteria kitchen, tending to fried lamb patties, chicken wonton soup, scalloped potatoes or iced chocolate brownies.Huddled around hot ovens and heavy metal pots with oven mitts or wooden spoons in hand, steam billowed in their faces as they waited, stirred and sampled.

The other students and I selected our own ingredients, already laid out on the counter in front of us, and measured out amounts.

We added two cups of mayonnaise, two cups of sour cream, a teaspoon each of dill and garlic powder and salt to taste. We then stirred the contents until they formed a well-mixed thick white dip in the bowl,

Over at the fryer, Jimmy Blum '07 offered samples of the battered onions, broccoli and mushrooms that he had dropped into baskets of frying oil.

I chose a mushroom, plunged it into the dip, popped the veggie into my mouth and crunched down. Oil spilled out, along with an infusion of onion, sour cream and dill taste explosion.

As is typical in the Culinary Arts Club, members submitted the recipes that are cooked at each weekly Wednesday meeting. Past dishes include deep fried fish and chips, coconut

crusted shrimp, veal scallopini in gorgonzola cream sauce, chocolate-

croissant bread pudding, and chocolate truffle cupcakes. The club, a chartered organization, meets at 8:15 pm in lower Usdan to concoct several different dishes and then to share the meal together

The club has around 250 people on the listserv and meetings are well-attended,with approximately 15 students coming every week. As one might expect, all participants are interested in cooking and eating, but their levels of expertise vary from hobbyist to true chef and gourmand.

"A lot of people first come because they'd like to learn how to cook," co-president Abbie Wolf '06 said. "Others come because they are living somewhere without a kitchen and miss cooking, or just want a nice meal paid for by their tuition dollars."

With a lot of interest in this club, it is necessary for members to RSVP for each meeting. Many times, there are more students than there are spots, and some students get bumped from the list almost every week.

While cooking, every club member seemed friendly and allowed me to participate hands-on. The atmosphere of community, both when cooking in the kitchen and in sharing the meal afterward, was one in which a budding chef can garner constructive criticism, or in which a student who simply desires something different can help make a dish.