Featuring articles ranging in subject from culinary recipes to college life, SpoonUniversity.com began at Northwestern University in 2012 when students realized there was no resource dedicated to addressing students’ unique food and eating needs. In the past year, it has spread to other institutions, including UR.
This year, sophomore Jessica Sheng decided to bring Spoon to Rochester by starting a UR branch with herself as editor-in-chief, sophomore Suraj Subramanian as business manager, and Anthony Wan ’13 as photo director.
“It all really started at the end of last semester when I was looking for a recipe, and I came across Spoon,” Sheng said. “A lot of people, including myself, contacted [the administrators] to open own chapters.”
Through social media, Sheng recruited 20 students to participate in UR’s chapter, working as photographers, editors, and writers. Neither of them is planning to be a journalist, Suraj is thinking about biotechnology and Sheng is interested in non-profits like TedTalks, the site has its own intrinsic value to them.
“We really want to engage the campus and help students explore the food world without having to sacrifice money,” Sheng said.
According to Subramanian, he was attracted to a website that “catered toward college students’ budgets and their tastes,” he said.
The UR branch has already released nine articles since Nov. 11. Potential topics for this week include “all the food holidays coming up like national peanut butter day … and recipes like caramel and chocolate popcorn you can make in the microwave,” Sheng said, adding that her favorite article was about “five food places we wish existed, like the pub from ‘How I Met Your Mother.’ I think it shows Spoon isn’t all about cook, do this … it’s a friendly website.”
On the other hand, Subramanian picked “No-bake cookies,” a recipe that solves a lot of the problems college students have.
“We don’t all have kitchens,” he said. “It’s very cheap, and it’s very good.”
With less than two dozen students on staff, Spoon’s UR chapter is always looking for more people to join. The group is currently in the preliminary stages of securing funding from the Students’ Association.
To spread knowledge of the site and her own chapter, Sheng is taking to social media, flyers, and on-campus promotional events. The group plans to hold its first general interest meeting after Thanksgiving break and even alluded to a possible Spoon-sponsored group vs. UR Spoon cook-off in the near future.
Altabet is a member of
the class of 2017.
