On Oxford (part vii: Foodgroup)

So, a tidbit of life here at Oxford that I have yet to mention is foodgroup. Foodgroup is easily one of my favourite parts of living here so far. It is essentially a group of people who cook for one another and eat together. You see, buying food for dinner and cooking it every night can be both tedious and expensive. What is more, thirty people in a house trying to use the same kitchen, even if it is spread out over a couple of hours, is bad news. This is why you form foodgroups.

My foodgroup has ten people in it and we have dinner together five times a week. We cook in pairs, and one person from each pair is the "head chef" who picks the meal, pays for it, and leads prayer, while the other person helps out. This way, everyone only cooks once out of those five days, and there are only expensive dinner groceries every other week. Brilliant.

On the whole, my foodgroup rock. Every meal has been delicious, and so far, everyone has also been very creative too. The closest we have come to a repeat was delivery pizza compared to homemade pizza. It is also a good communal aspect. We aren't all there every night, and sometimes people are late, but it is still very much a family time. We pray holding hands and serve one another. Most everyone pitches in to do dishes. It has a very distinct family feel which is nice being so far away from my own family.

The reason I have chosen to write on this now is in celebration of a particularly successful meal this week. My buddy Eric and I cook on Tuesdays. This week was my turn to serve as head chef, and I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to imitate one of my favourite dishes from one of my favourite restaurants: The Cheesecake Factory's "Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp." It is a sort of Thai dish where the meat is covered in a curry-coconut sauce with peas and chopped carrots and zuchinnis. It is also served with a mound of rice covered in this delious peanut-soy sauce and sprinkled with peanuts. It is astounding. I also decided to go for the visual presentation that night and ended up with something like this:


I have never been more pleased with something I have cooked.