Log Lunch

The Tradition Continues

Log Lunch continues to be a vibrant tradition at CES, where visiting speakers give Friday lunch talks about a wide range of environmental topics and a team of student cooks makes a vegetarian lunch for 100.  Please see the CES website for a listing and summaries of Log Lunch talks held in 2013-14.  CES.williams.edu

Log Lunch 2
Cooking for 100

This year, Lucie Coleman ‘14 and I were the head cooks for Log Lunch.  In this role, we had the opportunity to plan the weekly menus, hire and schedule the workers, and supervise the cooking and serving of the lunch each Friday. Early each week, Lucie and I would meet to plan the menu.  This was always a lot of fun – as someone who loves food and cooking, I found it exciting to decide what we would feed to our one hundred lunch guests on Friday.

We would select recipes from cookbooks, from our families, or online from food blogs and recipe websites, and scale them up to feed a crowd.  Then we would assemble a shopping list and decide where to source our ingredients.  The shopping list would be sent to two students who shopped for the ingredients each week. The food for Log Lunch this year came from Peace Valley Farm, as well as Price Chopper, with some bulk items provided by Dining Services.   While we would have liked more of the food to be locally, organically, or humanely produced, unfortunately we were generally unable to make this happen because of lack of availability or because of the premium prices of local food.

Each Friday, Lucie and I would arrive to the Log around 7:30 AM to clean up and set up the kitchen before the first cooks arrived.  Then, starting at 8, a number of students would come and cook in shifts until the meal was served at noon.  While we were sometimes scurrying to get the food ready in time, Friday mornings were filled with good conversations, laughter, and music.  Once the meal had been served, I always relished looking into the room full of hungry students, faculty, staff, and community members enjoying each other’s company and enjoying the food that so many hands had helped to prepare.  Being one of the Log Lunch head cooks was a truly gratifying experience, and one of the things I will miss most about Williams next year.

-Stephanie Durrell ‘14

Log lunch
Lucie Coleman ’14 and Stephanie Durell ’14