Situated in a modest space on the second floor of Brown Hall, the Co-Op is a group of lively 20-somethings who share one passion: delicious food. This group of about 25 people loves every type of food and every type of person you could think of. We take turns cooking for one another, and we all do our chores like they're our chores. It's a bustling little community within walking distance of anywhere you could need to go.
Now I'll admit that we cannot match the mansion mystique of Prospect. I feel very comfortable, however, saying that the Co-Op has everything you could ever need. We have 24-hour access to a full kitchen, and dinner is prepared nightly. Each night's assigned cooks try hard not to let the rest of the Co-Op down. Whether it's making a flaming cake (yes, a cake that is supposed to be on fire), peeling 250 shrimp or making our own cheese from scratch, the efforts and imaginations of Co-Op members are boundless.
If anything, it's this love and attention that makes the Co-Op so special. As an underclassman I often missed the home-cooked meals of my youth. I yearned for breaks so I could beg my mom to cook me something - anything - just to taste something real with an individual presence that didn't feel technologically reproducible. That's what the Co-Op delivers every night: food with an aura. Even when someone slips coconut cream into a curry, makes a bright-pink vegetable smoothie or can't figure out how to make cookies that don't all morph into one super-cookie when baked, you can always put a face with the food you eat.
Beyond the food, we are a community where getting to know your neighbor is inescapable. We know that Brad actually likes Marmite; we know that Namita likes to hang out with worms. We know Carolyn desperately wants a rail gun. Yes, not all of these facts are pretty, but they are intimate.
Every once in a while there is tragedy in the Co-Op: Someone will burn a tray of cookies or leave the stove on and burn a cutting board, and we set the fire alarm off periodically. If anything, these tragedies have brought us closer together. Never once has the Co-Op failed to rally around a downtrodden chef. Whether we chose it or not, there is love in this group. Brotherly and sisterly love.
Did I mention we have a broomball team? Did I mention we have an undefeated broomball team? This year's inaugural team hustled its way through our five league games and then shocked the world when we beat the civil engineering grad students for our league's championship. Most impressively, each game featured roughly 50 percent of the Co-Op members. That's community if I've ever seen it.
Since there is so much that the Co-Op offers - I haven't even mentioned cool cooking and life skills training- and so much that it saves, it makes me wonder what really drives us to the Street, and what we are really sacrificing for fancy food. What does the choice to spend five times as much on an eating club reflect about the spirit of the quintessentially Princeton?
To the pre-frosh considering Princeton: If the mansions of Prospect Avenue seem to call you by name, then by all means come to Princeton - you will find everything you seek. But for those who tarry before the gates of these ivied halls, be not afraid. Know there are places here for those who seek that which is cozy and warm, people who will keep you grounded and kitchens that feel a bit more like home.
Julio May-Gamboa can be reached at jmay@princeton.edu.
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